BIO-key International, Inc. (BKYI) Q4 2025 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to BIO-key International's 2025 Year-End Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. I will now turn the call over to Bill Jones, Investor Relations. You may proceed.

Thank you, Jerry. Hosting today are BIO-key's Chairman and CEO, Mike DePasquale, and its CFO, Ceci Welch. As a reminder, today's call and webcast as well as answers to investor questions include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. Words like anticipate, believe, expect and project or similar words identify and express forward-looking statements. These statements are made based on beliefs, assumptions and information currently available to management as of today and pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. For a more complete description of the risks and uncertainties that affect future performance, please see Risk Factors in the company's annual report, Form 10-K with the SEC. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements made as of today. The company makes no obligation to revise or disclose revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events occurring after this call. Now I will turn the call over to Mike to begin. Mike?

Thanks, Bill, and thank you all for joining us today. After my remarks and Ceci's financial overview, we will open the call to investor questions. As highlighted in today's press release, we had a broad base of achievements in 2025 that position BIO-key for improved top line and bottom line performance in 2026 and future periods. Kicking off the year, we now anticipate Q1 '26 revenue of approximately $2.2 million, representing a 37% increase over Q1 and 2025 and a larger sequential improvement over Q4 '25 as well. We also expect a substantial improvement in our Q1 '26 bottom line performance exceeding each of our fiscal '25 quarters, and although we were disappointed by our 2025 revenue performance, we are now seeing much more urgency and focus from our customers and prospects, to take action in better securing access to mission-critical systems, particularly in the military and defense, financial services and regulated industries. Our 2025 revenue comparison versus 2024 was also impacted by two significant factors totaling roughly $2 million. The first related to a $1.5 million 2-year license renewal with a foreign national bank, the bulk of which was recorded in 2024. This caused roughly an $800,000 decrease in recognized revenue related to this customer in 2025 versus 2024. Despite revenue recognition timing related to this customer, the relationship continues to grow nicely, and earlier this month, they executed an expanded 1-year license renewal of over $1 million for 2026, which represents an approximately 30% increase in revenue over the previous contract. Our year-over-year revenue comparison also reflected the completion in 2025 of our strategic transition to selling only BIO-key-branded solutions in the EMEA region. As anticipated, this transition is beginning to benefit our gross margin and growth prospects as we rebuild our EMEA pipeline with BIO-key-only solutions and sales opportunities that carry substantially higher net margins. While these factors led to lower year-over-year software license, both Hardware and Services revenues grew in 2025 due to the expansion of our customer base and licensed endpoints. Turning to our outlook. Let me review key trends in the enterprise authentication market that support our optimism for 2026. First is the increasing need for secure access to digital platforms and protection against growing cybersecurity threats, which is driving rapid growth in the authentication solutions market. Global sales are estimated to be $23 billion in 2025 and projected to reach almost $100 billion by 2035, representing a compound annual growth of almost 16%. As cybercrime becomes more sophisticated, we expect businesses and governments to increasingly embrace advanced authentication technologies such as those that BIO-key provides to safeguard sensitive information and maintain customer trust. This surge in demand for enhanced authentication solutions is being driven by the widespread adoption of digital services, e-commerce, online banking and the growing use of mobile devices. Authentication solutions, including biometrics, MFA, digital certificates are all crucial to ensure that only authorized individuals gain access to private information or systems. A key gap we fill is that mainstream MFA solutions offer only device-assisted authentication, whereas our PortalGuard platform is a complete MFA offering with phoneless and tokenless authentication that leverages biometrics. Our Passkey:YOU Solution provides web key secured hosted FIDO2 passkey authentication for tokenless, phoneless and passwordless authentication with biometric efficiency. By the year-end 2026, passwordless authentication will be the default for workforce access across almost every enterprise. The shift is being driven by the increased vulnerability of passwords to phishing, credential reuse and account takeover attacks. More than 70% are already moving towards passwordless adoption and about 3/4 of enterprises expect to invest in passkeys or passwordless tools this year. Biometric authentication adoption is expected to continue to grow, particularly in the most sensitive and high-value use cases in the regulated spaces such as military and defense, financial services and health care, where we have already seen growing adoption. The traction we see is also aided by more supportive regulatory frameworks in many foreign jurisdictions as well as by escalating geopolitical risks, which we're all aware of. AI-driven threats are forcing security leaders to rethink how access decisions are made, emphasizing the need for much more resilient identity strategies, where biometrics can play a pivotal role as opposed to conventional methods that are most vulnerable to AI-powered attacks. Authentication technologies are converging towards unified access for workforce, partner and privileged access under single strategic foundations. Our PortalGuard Passkey and Biometric Solutions provide infinite flexibility in deploying to any component of a company's employee population despite infrastructure and job function. Phones and tokens are no longer necessary and with 16 types of auth-factors, one size no longer fits all. These significant shifts in how enterprises approach authentication with a focus on security, convenience, compliance and evolving regulations, play directly to our strengths. In 2025, we launched our Defense & Intelligence Cybersecurity Initiative, which is discussed in today's press release. We also highlight several recent contract wins and momentum we are seeing in the defense and financial sectors, as well as significant new partnerships, both domestically and internationally. Since that's in the press release, I won't repeat it here, but we can certainly address any questions regarding any of those areas in the Q&A session. In terms of our continuing investment in R&D and new product development, in Q4, BIO-key formally introduced the new FBI FAP 20 Certified EcoID III fingerprint scanner. EcoID III is our most advanced reader, which pairs encrypted device-to-host communication with liveness detection for faster, more secure authentication. EcoID III is primarily for highly regulated industries and the most sensitive zero-trust environments such as defense and banking. We're also finishing up work on our most significant update ever for our PortalGuard Identity platform, Version 7.0. This includes a major platform monetization, significant new configurability and flexibility and improved lower-cost deployment capabilities. It is currently undergoing comprehensive third-party security testing for an expected release during the second quarter. Our updated product offerings and unique biometric capabilities give us a sustainable competitive advantage, particularly as I discussed in the regulated industries due to those strict compliance standards. Our defense and banking niches, in particular, have significant global upside in 2026 and beyond. Today, our business is predominantly subscription-based, and we continue to utilize a partner-centric model, in which roughly 50% of our new U.S. business and nearly 100% of our international business is sold through a network of sales channel partners, including Amazon and TD Synnex, which we have built relationships with over the last few years. Turning to overhead and cost. In 2025, we were able to reduce our total SG&A expense by almost $800,000 or 11% and total operating expenses by 7%. This mission continues, and we are optimistic about the potential benefits of AI adoption in our processes to drive even further operational efficiency, productivity and lower cost. These initiatives play an important role, along with our growth efforts to progress the company toward our goal of reaching breakeven and profitability in 2026. Finally, we also made great strides in strengthening our financial position in 2025, ending the year with $2.7 million in cash, up more than $2 million from 2024 and increasing our book value to $7.6 million versus $3.8 million at the end of 2024. Our current cash position and expected cash receipts provide a solid working capital base to support our growth plans for 2026. We're off to a strong start this year with building momentum in several key verticals. We expect top line expansion, combined with expense management to meaningfully advance our goal of reaching our target again of breakeven and profitability this year, and we are well positioned in terms of financial liquidity to fund our growth plans. Given the growing adoption of BIO-key's flexible passwordless, tokenless and phoneless authentication solutions that we are seeing, we expect 2026 to be a very exciting and productive year for our company and for our shareholders. We're entering the most exciting chapter in our company's history, one defined by innovation, strategic expansion and relentless focus on delivering value to our customers and our shareholders. Significant growth and profitability are in sight and with the right team, technology and partnerships in place, we are poised to deliver long-term shareholder value. Now let me turn the call over to Ceci for a review of the financials.

Thank you, Mike. We released our results this morning, so let me provide a quick review. Reflecting the factors Mike addressed earlier, the total 2025 revenues decreased 12% to $6.1 million versus $6.9 million in 2024. 2025 revenue did benefit from over 100% increase in Hardware revenues to $1.3 million in 2025, largely due to increased purchases of our Biometric Solutions, and Service revenue increased 6% to $1.2 million due to BIO-key's growing customer base and new customer deployment. In Q4 of '25, License Fee revenue decreased 26%, Hardware revenue increased 85% and Service revenues decreased 10% as reflecting the factors Mike discussed as well as the timing of deployment. Our 2025 gross margin was 77.5% as compared to 81.4% in 2024, primarily due to the mix of software fee -- License Fee revenue and Hardware revenue as a percent of total revenues. Gross margins on license fee improved 91% in 2025 from 88% in 2024, reflecting the benefit of selling branded products versus third-party products in the EMEA region. In 2025, we reduced our SG&A costs by 11% due to proactive cost management, including reorganization of sales personnel, reducing marketing show expenses and lower audit fees, partially offset by higher professional fees related to BIO-key financing activities. We will continue to focus on cost reduction opportunities as we move forward in 2026. Research and development engineering costs increased 4% in 2025 due to support the new product development, as Mike discussed. As a result, operating expenses decreased 7% overall in 2025. Lower operating costs helped to offset the impact of lower revenue in 2025 as BIO-key's net loss increased to $4.6 million or $0.69 per share from $4.3 million or $2.09 per share in 2024. BIO-key's Q4 '25 net loss increased to $1.7 million or $0.19 per share as compared to the $1.4 million in 2024 or $0.46 per share. Weighted average common shares outstanding, which reflect warrant exercises and other financial activities are provided in today's press release. As of December 31, 2025, BIO-key had current assets of $4.6 million, including cash of $2.7 million as compared to the prior year-end of $1.9 million, which included $438,000 of cash. Accounts receivable increased 73% to $1.2 million at December 31, 2025, from $718,000 at the end of 2024, and our book value increased to $7.6 million at year-end 2025 from $3.8 million at the close of 2024. We plan to file the 10-K within the next week. With that, operator, let's please proceed to the question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today is from Jack Vander Aarde with Maxim Group.

So Mike, I think just -- you already addressed it pretty well. I just want to also just kind of get a little more clarity on the 2025 revenue was a little softer than you initially expected. But obviously, great to see you're targeting a strong first quarter '26 with $2.2 million of revenue. That's fantastic. Just trying to better understand the 2025 result. So one of the reasons mentioned was due largely to a significant contract renewal with a foreign retail bank in 2024 that didn't benefit 2025. Can you just maybe speak to this a little bit further? Is this an active customer? Are they due for an expansion or renewal in 2026? Just help me better understand that particular customer.

Yes. So -- and in my comments, Jack, by the way in my comments, I mentioned that they did renew for 1 year at over $1 million. So about a 30% increase in value of that contract. So it was a 2-year contract that we closed in 2024. We took the revenue all in 2024 for that 2-years. So that's why, again, in 2025, obviously, it wasn't repeatable. So that's what I was trying to say. But you're looking for a little more color on 2025. And I would sum it up this way outside of the comments that I made in the prepared session. We went through a significant transition in our EMEA division. That took a little bit longer than we expected, but quite frankly, is going to have a huge benefit for us here too in 2026 and going forward because of two things. Number one, we're selling BIO-key-only solutions with and including our Biometrics, which are getting very, very good visibility, especially within the regulated industries, and that's banking, defense, health care, that kind of thing. The second piece is the reason this again took a little bit longer, the deal size in EMEA is -- some of the deals are 7-figure, but most of them are in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars. So they are larger deals. They're all through channel partners. They're typically with larger customers, and the benefits are incredible when they close. But that took us a little bit longer to get over the chasm in 2025. And I think that's why we underperformed our expectations there. Most of it was timing, but we are very bullish and very encouraged about 2026, and we will take advantage of that benefit. And that should get us to our goal and objective of breakeven profitability and obviously being cash flow positive this year.

Okay. Great. No, I really appreciate that extra color, Mike. That actually makes a lot of sense. And then just to be extra crystal clear, is this -- in the press release, you did -- you referenced all these various specific deals in highlights. Is this the customer that I'm looking at? Or is this a different one under the financial sector, you secured a $1.04 million 1-year license renewal with the foreign bank. Was this -- is this that customer from 2024? Or is this a separate entity?

No, that's that customer.

Okay. Great. And then Mike, let's talk about the first quarter because this is definitely a point of emphasis that I just -- it popped out to me. Here we are, we're basically the last day of the first quarter as of today. So it sounds like you have a pretty good read-through on that $2.2 million target. Is this any of the -- I guess, one, any of the slippage from the fourth quarter that slipped into the first quarter? And then two, do you have a good sense of the mix of that revenue? Is it mostly license revenue? How do I think about that? And is it growth across all three segments?

Well, the majority will likely be License revenue, but there's also some strong Hardware revenue as well, but very good margins. As you know, our blended gross margins are always never lower than the high 70s all the way up through the low 80s. So depending upon that mix, you're going to be looking at an 80-plus percent, if not more, gross margin across the board, whether it's hardware or software combined, that's what you can expect.

Excellent. That's helpful. And then -- just maybe if we could just touch on some of these large deals you're seeing in some -- it sounds like you're seeing more urgency, as you mentioned, from customers across -- you started listing a segment here and there, and then you started basically covering all your segments, it seems that -- where would you say -- if you could just highlight like maybe a handful of potential -- maybe deals that aren't in stone yet, but things that are kind of in the background that you're working on that could really move the needle. Would you say that these opportunities are in Europe and they're in your defense, your military and defense sector primarily, the financial banking financial services primarily? Or is it really all over the board? Where are you seeing the largest needle mover opportunities that maybe you haven't talked about explicitly yet?

Well, for sure, and we've discussed this before, we've developed quite a niche in defense and in government right now that, including and incorporating our Biometrics is getting significant uptake. So I don't have to remind you of the geopolitical scenario we're dealing with and certainly the sense of urgency around security. Within our niche, we have a sub-niche, which is focused on intelligence and information, and so that's top, top priority. And our solutions not only provide the level of security that's required, but convenience and availability and scalability, and that is critical and important in those segments. We're seeing the business on a global basis and the expansion will be on a global basis. It will be in EMEA, in Europe and in the Middle East. We have a couple of very large opportunities in South America right now that we're working with some very large partners, notorious partners. And the relationship that we announced just a couple of weeks ago with TD Synnex, as you know, they're one of the largest resellers and VARs in -- they're global, but certainly here in the U.S. and they're very focused on the state, local and federal business, and they are going to help us as a force multiplier, grow our business there as well. So it's across the board. I mean we have opportunities, for example, in the gambling space, right, to secure access to information, in banking in both large national banks as well as some regional banks as well, in health care, some national ministries all the way down to hospitals. As you know, we've been in that business for a long time. So we cut across every sector of the economy. But certainly in the regulated space, that's where I see continued growth. And it's not -- let's put it this way, if you're a defense or a government contractor right now, your business is going to blossom and grow. And each of those contractors, forget about the government themselves, has to secure at the NIST level, right? They have to secure and meet the compliance hurdles that are required to do business with the government, and that's a huge opportunity for us. And that's why our relationship with TD Synnex, I think, is going to blossom and be significant here domestically.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from [ Dan Camis ], a private investor.

Were your expenses in the first quarter about the same as fourth quarter?

Well, we haven't reported the quarter. So I can't comment on the exact numbers for expense and so forth. We did and do believe our revenue is going to be in the range that we predicted. But certainly, the first quarter should be similar to all of the other quarters. Sometimes events like, for example, when we attend a large event and we spend money perhaps there, it could be a little bit higher. We are relaunching our website right now and planning to do so early in the second quarter. So there might be some expense associated with that. But other than that, we're pretty stable.

Okay. So we should see pretty significant improvement in cash flow in the first quarter, it sounds like. Should we expect -- or can you give us any clue as to what to expect for expenses in R&D in 2026?

We're -- I think I mentioned in my prepared remarks that we're about to launch one of the most significant upgrades and enhancements for our PortalGuard platform Version 7. So a lot of that money has already been spent. We've been working on this for nearly 1.5 years, 2 years. And so I would think our R&D expenses are going to be relatively stable. I don't expect them to grow significantly. And we're really hoping, and we have a very intensive initiative going on within the company to assess AI-related tools, and we have contracts with a number of them -- and we're assessing where and how we can use those not only within all facets of the business, but within development to do two things: Number one, become more efficient and more productive; but ultimately reduce cost and increase our time to market.

I see. Anything revolutionary about this version? Or is it a marginal improvement and upgrade in your offerings that you can talk about...

It's significant, and we'll be announcing that shortly, especially for partners, Dan, where some of our larger partners want to be able to control, to mix and match and to deploy because everything is subscription now, to be able to deploy licenses, pull them back if, for example, the customer decides to cancel and to utilize those licenses in other accounts and so forth. So the ability to have multi-tenant management for those partners is a really big deal, and that's part and parcel of what we're doing here amongst many other enhancements for security, the incorporation of mobile technologies, a whole host of different options and availability. But a lot of this is focused on making our partners more involved in the dashboard and management of the solution set.

I see. Is there anything, I guess, in that 30% increase you mentioned in the $1 million foreign bank renewal that you're particularly excited about? Or was it just more licenses or...

Excited about a couple of items. Number one, obviously, the growth and the increase in the user population, but also the assessment of our more advanced technologies like one-to-many, that could dramatically change the way they operate and increase the size of this contract as we continue through this year and into next. So I'm very excited about that opportunity. And I think it's revolutionary because it could be one of the largest deploys of this type and this nature in the world. So we're enthused about that. There's a lot of growth potential ahead for that as well.

Are you saying that you're going to be scrubbing their database on a one-to-many basis?

No, no, no, they already do that. I mean that's [indiscernible]. I'm talking about some more advanced use of the technology.

Okay. I guess we'll be hearing about that then.

Hopefully.

You said it's a good start toward our goal of achieving breakeven results in early 2026. Are you saying there's a -- I'm just trying to clarify that statement in your release. Are you saying that, that's -- there's a potential for breakeven in the second quarter? Or were you just saying that you basically reduced your cash burn in the first quarter?

I think we're saying that our goal this year, right, is to be breakeven or profitable and to be cash flow positive, and that's our objective. And when we get there, I can't specifically say, but it's -- we should be there in the early part of 2026. That's our goal and objective.

I mean...

Again, it's not that sophisticated, right? You can look at our expenses in the -- I'm saying $2 million range, right, give or take, right? It could be higher, it could be a little bit lower. You can look at our revenue in the $2 million to $3 million range. You can look at our gross margins in the 80% range and you can figure it out. So that -- again, that's our goal and objective, right, to get there, to be there. And I believe we have as I mentioned and closed in my prepared comments, I believe we have the team, we have the partners, we have the product. And now we have, I'll call it, a very captive market, especially, again, in our niche on the regulated side to be able to get there.

Got it. Any evidence in the first quarter? I mean, I think one bug has always been U.S. businesses adopting passwordless adoption. You're indicating there's a significant move in that direction. I'm just wondering if there's any evidence in the first quarter that U.S. businesses are willing to purchase from BIO-key rather than their usual large competitors?

Yes. No doubt. New business, no question, yes. And again, that partnership, look, Synnex is a large company. They're a large public company. You can look them up. They're very enthused about offering our solutions and technology, especially in their public sector business. So I mean, that's a very strong proof-point that we can expand and them as a force multiplier, right, with the customer base they have, nevertheless, the partner network they have, we should see significant growth in that business.

Well, along that line, I think recently, when you've mentioned the partner announcement, there's usually been some underlying deal that supports it. Is that what's going on with TD Synnex?

We have a whole series of deals going with them. And you'll hear more about it as we're able to announce them.

All right. That sounds good. Can you say anything about your ARR, where is that running in the first quarter? Or are we still between $6 million and $7 million?

Yes, we're in that range. Again, we've transitioned -- other than our legacy customers, we have a handful of legacy customers. For the most part, our business is a subscription business. And even those legacy customers, we're migrating them, especially now that we have new and enhanced features and products, we have a good reason to be able to migrate them. So that sector of our business is definitely substantial, and multiyear deals are our total focus. And so even when we're on-prem, we can be subscription and we can be multiyear and still fit within the confines of their requirements. So that's another really big advantage that we bring to the table. And that's why I believe in the regulated industries, we're doing so well, where many -- especially international clients do not want hosted solutions. So everything here is kind of moving to the web, right, to AWS or Oracle or Azure, no question, here domestically. However, internationally, there's still a pension for storing and housing customer data on-prem, and we can go both ways. So we can offer our customers the opportunity to do it either way. And more importantly, and this is a new feature in Version 7, to be able to do both at the same time and to be able to transition seamlessly. So that's a powerful, powerful differentiator for us.

Got it. A couple more, I think. Any changes in the Boumarang asset or any news on that?

No. I know they have an S-1 filed now, which I think is public information and are looking at -- they've done a couple of acquisitions of like product, and that's really all I have at this point. I have no other information.

So no change in that asset value at all?

No.

Last question is, I think probably you have about 10 business days to get the stock above $1 before to stall a reverse split. At this point, is there anything you think that could still forestall such a split?

Yes. That's a great question. I didn't even think about quite honestly, the proxy that's out there. Obviously, belt and suspenders, right? We're not going to risk the potential to lose our NASDAQ listing, right? That's not going to happen. So obviously, the Board, it was prudent for us to file the proxy. We have until early May, I think the first week of May to have the stock trade for 10 consecutive days over $1, if that happened, we certainly would not do the reverse split. But if we need to, we certainly will. And so our shareholder meeting is scheduled late April. I'm hoping that in the next month that we're going to be able to find our way clear to seeing the stock trade up. But as you know, this geopolitical scenario hasn't been kind to anyone, and it doesn't matter who you are, what space, what industry, has been broad-based, and it's a difficult market. So who knows? But we certainly are in a position to do whatever we need to do to protect ourselves, especially now, as the wind is at our back, and we're feeling much more optimistic about significant scale of our business going forward. So I hope we don't have to do it, Dan, but if we do, we will.

Showing no further questions. This concludes the question-and-answer session. I'll ask Mike DePasquale to provide any closing remarks.

Thank you again for joining today's call. We genuinely appreciate your interest in BIO-key, and I look forward to updating investors on our progress on our Q1 call in May. In the interim, we will update investors via press release of significant developments. If you have any questions, please reach out to our IR team whose contact information is in today's press release. With that, operator, please conclude the conference. Thank you, everyone, and have a great day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.