LENSAR, Inc. (LNSR) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Hello, and welcome to LENSAR, Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Lee Roth, President of Burns McClellan, Investor Relations Adviser to LENSAR. Mr. Roth, please go ahead.

Thanks, Towanda. Good morning, everyone, and once again, welcome to the LENSAR Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Strategic Update Conference Call. Earlier this morning, the company issued a press release providing an overview of our financial results for the second quarter of 2026. This release is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at www.lensar.com. Joining me on the call today is Nick Curtis, Chief Executive Officer; and Mike Rossi, Interim Chief Financial Officer of LENSAR, who will provide an overview of recent developments, our go-forward strategy and financial results. Following these prepared remarks, we'll turn the call back over to the operator to take your questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you all that today's call will contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding future results, unaudited and forward-looking financial information as well as information on the company's future performance and/or achievements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results or performance expressed or otherwise implied on this conference call. We caution you not to place any undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. For additional information, including a detailed discussion of the company's risk factors, please refer to our documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be accessed on the website. In addition, this call contains time-sensitive information accurate only as of the date of this live broadcast, August 13, 2026. LENSAR undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this live call. With that said, it's now my pleasure to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Nick Curtis. Nick?

Thank you, Lee, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We appreciate it. Before I get into the quarter, I'd like to spend a moment reflecting on where we are as a company. As many of you know, the first half of 2026 marked an important turning point for LENSAR. The proposed merger with Alcon was terminated towards the end of Q1. And in the second quarter, we returned to operating as an independent company with a renewed focus on executing our strategy and building the business for the long term. One thing that's become very clear over the past several months is that the market demand for ALLY is as strong as ever. Our team remains focused on supporting our surgeon partners, advancing the adoption of ALLY and continuing to execute our strategy. Their diligence, pride and deep commitment enabled us to quickly reset, and I'm really proud of what we've accomplished in Q2. While quarterly financial performance will always be critical and important, I've said before that our success over the next several quarters should be measured by more than just the numbers on the income statement. The metrics we're focused on are the ones that position us for sustainable long-term growth, rebuilding our commercial momentum, expanding our installed base, increasing utilization across that base, growing recurring revenue and continuing to strengthen our relationships in addition to building new relationships with surgeons around the world. Now diving into the quarter. We're very pleased with our performance in the second quarter. We delivered 18% total revenue growth with Q2 revenue of $16.5 million, 20% recurring revenue growth of $13.7 million and 23% procedure revenue growth to $10.2 million, while also achieving our strongest adjusted EBITDA performance to date. Overall, it was another quarter that demonstrated the strength and resilience of our business model, continued demand for the ALLY system and early evidence of renewed momentum across the business. One of the things I'm most encouraged by is the continued growth of our recurring revenue. As we said before, the long-term value of our business isn't simply measured by the number of systems we place in any given quarter. It's measured by what happens after those systems are installed as the practices get comfortable with the ALLY, see the outcomes they deliver for their patients and ramp up their conversions to laser-assisted cataract surgery. This quarter is another great example of that. LENSAR laser systems performed 31% more procedures as compared to MarketScope's stated national average of installed systems. As a result, procedure revenue increased 23% year-over-year, driving recurring revenue to 83% of total revenue. As our installed base continues to expand and utilization increases, recurring revenue becomes an even more meaningful driver of long-term growth and create greater visibility into our financial performance. We're also beginning to see those operating trends translate into improved profitability. Delivering our strongest adjusted EBITDA performance reflects not only higher revenue, but also the operating leverage we're realizing as recurring revenue becomes a larger portion of our business. That's exactly the type of financial profile we're working to build as we continue to scale. Another metric we're encouraged by is our continued market share expansion. In the U.S., procedure market share increased to 24.1% in the second quarter as compared to 23.4% in the first quarter and 21.4% in the second quarter of last year. Those gains as a result of the continued growth of our installed base, increasing utilization across existing customers and an increasingly relevant market segment, installations of lasers into accounts that heretofore have not performed laser-assisted cataract surgery. This is a direct reflection of the value and technology differentiation surgeons are seeing from the ALLY system. As the recurring revenue increased, procedure volume was another highlight this quarter. We performed more than 58,600 procedures, up 13% from the second quarter of last year and a solid 8% over the first quarter. As we continue expanding our installed base and supporting our surgeon partners, we believe we're well positioned to build on these gains and further strengthen our competitive position in the quarters ahead. We continue to make solid progress in growing our installed base. During the quarter, we placed 10 ALLY systems, up from 7 placements in the first quarter, bringing our installed base to approximately 215 ALLY systems worldwide. Combined with our legacy LENSAR laser systems, our global installed base reached 445 systems, up from approximately 410 systems a year ago. We also exited the quarter with 13 ALLY systems in backlog. One data point I'd like to highlight is that ALLY now accounts for nearly half of our global installed base. That's a significant milestone and reflects the continued adoption we're seeing from our next-generation platform. More importantly, every new ALLY installation creates another long-term recurring revenue opportunity to strengthen the base of business and contribution to our gross margins. As we stated previously, our strategy is consistent: expand our installed base, support our surgeon partners with best-in-market education, training and service, which is resulting in increased utilization on systems in the field and continuing to grow our recurring revenue business. The progress we've made this quarter from higher sold system placements and procedure growth to expanding recurring revenue and building a healthy installation backlog gives us confidence that we're executing well against those priorities. Overall, we're very pleased with the momentum we carried through the second quarter, an expanding installed base, increasing utilization, growing recurring revenue and our strongest adjusted EBITDA performance to date all reinforce we're building a stronger, more durable business. We remain focused on creating long-term value for our shareholders while continuing to support our surgeon partners and the patients they serve. As we continue to engage with our partner customers and prospective partner customers, we've expanded our meeting presence to include the ESCRS in Q3 2026 Europe. Europe has the potential to be an increasingly important market for us, and this will be the first time we've taken a direct presence at this meeting. We're making this investment to continue to educate surgeons in the region and further increase interest in the ALLY robotic laser cataract system. Before I hand things over to Mike, I'd just like to emphasize that we're exactly where we want to be. We've put the uncertainty of the past year behind us, and we're fully focused on executing our strategy, and we see evidence of this execution in our top line growth. The progress we've made this quarter from growing our installed base and recurring revenue to increasing utilization and building our backlog gives us confidence that we're rebuilding the momentum we had before the merger announcement and positioning the business for sustainable long-term growth. It is too early to tell, however, important to note that historically, cataract surgery procedures are the lowest of the year in the third quarter given extended holidays in various regions of the world and summer vacations in the U.S. We continue to work tirelessly to deliver the results we expect and continue to be proud of. I would also like to thank all of our partner customers for their continued support and of course, all the LENSAR employees for their commitment and dedication to excellence as well as continuous improvement. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Mike to walk through the financial results in more detail.

Thanks, Nick. It's been great to get to know the LENSAR business the last 2 months and see the strong results delivered in Q2. Let me provide some additional context around our performance during the quarter. Let me start with our balance sheet. We ended the second quarter with $13.6 million in cash and cash equivalents compared to $18 million at the end of 2025. During the quarter, we were essentially breakeven in cash flow after using $4.4 million of cash in Q1 as positive adjusted EBITDA was offset by investments in inventory and working capital to support future growth. Turning to the P&L. We delivered another strong quarter with total revenue of $16.5 million, representing 18% growth over the second quarter of 2025. This performance was driven by continued momentum in our recurring revenue business, which increased 20% year-over-year to $13.7 million and represented 83% of total revenue during the quarter. Procedure revenue increased 23% year-over-year to $10.2 million, reflecting continued utilization growth across our expanding installed base. Procedure volume reached 58,682 procedures, an increase of 13% compared to the prior year period, reinforcing the strength of our recurring revenue model and reflecting improved utilization over Q1 '26. During the quarter, we placed 10 ALLY systems, bringing our installed base to approximately 215 ALLY systems, an increase of 30% from a year ago. Our total installed base reached 445 systems, up 9% year-over-year, and we ended the quarter with a backlog of 13 ALLY systems pending installation, providing continued visibility into future placements. Gross profit in the quarter was approximately $9.8 million, representing a gross margin of approximately 59% compared to approximately 50% in the second quarter of 2025. We recorded a $1.1 million benefit in cost of goods sold related to a tariff refund in Q2. Without this benefit, gross margin was 52%. This improvement reflects the higher revenue and increased contribution from higher-margin recurring revenue. From an expense standpoint, we continue to demonstrate disciplined cost management. SG&A expenses declined significantly over the year to $6.1 million, reflecting the absence of the $4.2 million of merger-related costs incurred during the prior year period, while research and development spending remained focused on supporting our innovation pipeline. Second quarter 2026 expenses, particularly SG&A, were reflective of the continued early reemergence of LENSAR following the deal termination. Looking ahead, we expect operating expenses to trend modestly higher, approaching historical levels as we begin to increase investment in commercial efforts to support continued growth. Total operating expenses declined to $7.6 million. These improvements translated into strong bottom line performance. We reported GAAP net income of $3.5 million compared to a net loss of $1.8 million in the second quarter of 2025. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $3.6 million, representing our strongest quarterly adjusted EBITDA performance to date. These results were driven by higher revenue, lower operating expenses and a $1.1 million tariff refund that I mentioned. With GAAP net income growth partially offset by lower noncash income associated with the change in the fair value of warrant liabilities. Looking ahead, we expect to see a certain degree of variability in our income and EBITDA over the next several quarters as our operating expenses continue to normalize as a result of the strategic investments I mentioned. Nick will now close this out with some final thoughts on the quarter.

Thanks, Mike. So as we look ahead, we're encouraged by the momentum we've built through the first half of the year. This quarter demonstrated continued demand for the ALLY system, strong growth in recurring revenue and procedures, the expansion of our installed base and our strongest adjusted EBITDA performance to date. More importantly, it reinforces that our strategy is working. As Mike discussed, we expect our spending levels to gradually expand as we continue investing in our commercial organization and other key growth initiatives. Those investments are highly strategic and reflect our confidence and optimism in the long-term opportunity ahead. We're focused on building a larger installed base, increasing utilization across our growing fleet of ALLY systems and further expanding our high-quality recurring revenue business. We believe those fundamentals will continue to drive operating leverage and position the company for sustainable long-term growth. While we're pleased with the progress we've made, we believe we're still in the early stages of capturing the opportunity ahead. With the momentum we're seeing across the business and the strength of our recurring revenue model, we remain confident in our ability to create long-term value for our shareholders while continuing to deliver differentiated technology that benefits surgeons and the patients that they serve. Thank you all for joining our call today and for your continued interest in LENSAR. We look forward to updating you as we make further progress throughout the year, and we'll now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Frank Takkinen with Lake Street Capital Markets.

I was hoping to ask one on the composition of the backlog with -- I hope I can get some kind of insight into how you're thinking about Q3 and Q4. When looking at that backlog, is it U.S.-based, OUS based? And then any color on if they are U.S.-based, if they're expected to be sales or placements and how that influences Q3, Q4 expectations?

That's a great question, Frank. So it's -- with everything. It's a little bit of both. We have some backlog with POs, as I may have mentioned in the previous quarter conference call for primarily fourth quarter delivery OUS, given the sort of the holiday season and whatnot that I mentioned towards the end of my remarks. And then some backlog in the U.S. with a few sold and placed systems. I haven't looked too granularly at those because some of those are facilities that we're still waiting for them to finish the facility where they were new facility, for example, one that's out West that is a new facility that they've had some delays in construction and getting into as an example. So I'm a little unclear on the ones in the U.S. yet due to those going into new facilities.

Okay. Fair enough. That makes sense. I appreciate that color. And then how should we think about recurring revenue per procedure? I know it's not a perfect calculation if you're looking at procedure volume and recurring product revenue. But it seems like that is ticking up a little bit if you're just using kind of the math and reverse engineering into it. Obviously, that's not perfect math, but how should we kind of think about that ASP going forward? And can we see that improve over time?

I see the ASP staying a bit steady here. It may go up negligibly just because the U.S. procedures with more U.S. systems are going in. And so you'll see some increase, some creep, if you will, in the ASP as compared to systems sold outside the U.S., which are going through distributors. And so there's a lower ASP to the procedures there, if you will. So you'll see some increase in the ASP, again, a modest increase there as the U.S. systems continue to produce. The timing of these are hard, as you know, we've talked about that. Like as these systems get installed, it takes somewhere between 60 and 90 days for them to fully ramp up to get to their productive. And given a higher number of systems into what we refer to as the femto-naive, new customers coming in, the good news is that overall, it grows the market segment because those are customers that heretofore aren't doing any laser-assisted cataract surgery. And at the same time, it takes a while for them to ramp up net-net. We do see -- we are going to start seeing more LLS customers, the legacy system, the LENSAR laser system start to gradually move out and replacing those with ALLY systems. And so net-net, you'll see those appear except for when we sell those ALLY systems in where you'll get a bump in the CapEx, but you'll see revenue ramp in those faster due to their familiarity with the system. However, those are more moderate volume accounts to begin with, which is one of the reasons why they've continued with the legacy system, and we've managed that sort of fewer taking those systems out of the market, if you will. So it's a little complex from the modeling perspective.

Okay. Very helpful. And then maybe if I can just have one more question, a big picture related. Last quarter, you outlined an objective of your reestablishing and reaccelerating your distributor relationships, OUS. Maybe an update on that would be good and how we're thinking about that objective.

Work in progress, continued work in progress. I mentioned it was going to take several quarters for that -- for me to feel comfortable that, that was "back, all the way back." ESCRS, as I remarked, we're taking a direct presence there. And so I'll have some important meetings set up there. I'm also participating in an innovation session there and doing a presentation on LENSAR as well to a wide group audience there on that Sunday. So it's -- I've got a lot of important meetings set up at ESCRS. So I would say stay tuned for some news on that afterwards. It's going to take us a few quarters there to fully -- the transaction stopped much of the activity. And so restarting it is, again, customers have to go through their cycle as well, if you will. And I don't have as big a view through the distributor network to the end user, if you will. So we're going to have a lot of meetings at ESCRS and bring a lot of energy there and enthusiasm. And as I mentioned, Europe has some potential to be an important market for us.

Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Zimmerman with U.S. Bancorp. BTIG.

Nick, just congrats to you and the team showing a lot of resilience in terms of coming out of the transaction, breaking and putting up the results you did this quarter, really hats off to you there. I'd like to just ask on ALLY pricing. The pricing on the systems has bounced around a little bit in the last few quarters. Maybe talk to me about kind of where you see that trending over time. We appreciate the metrics. You're giving a lot more metrics this quarter, which is great to see. But how do you think about the durability and stability of pricing on ALLY as you move into the rest of the year and maybe longer term?

Yes. Ryan, thank you for your kind words. I appreciate it. We work hard here every day, as you know. There's no rest for the weary. We -- the -- so pricing on ALLY systems, I'm assuming that you're talking about sold systems there. Is that...

Yes, exactly. Exactly.

And so those prices, I'm not as concerned about the prices on the ALLY system because when we sell the systems, it obviously for us, we get a return on the CapEx there, and it helps us quite a bit in terms of breaking even right away on the systems. You're going to see fairly flat pricing on the ALLY systems. When we sell more to distributors, the price dips down. When we sell in the U.S., the price is up slightly from there, but they're starting to sort of normalize a little. When we sell systems to like the private equity groups, it's a very -- it's a funny thing, right, because interest rates haven't come down. Those private equity groups that are running those practices, that own the practices, they're leveraged. They're pretty highly leveraged. And so we adjust those prices up or down depending on how many they're taking in terms of a commitment, not that they take delivery of them all at once, but how many they take, they get some benefit to pricing moving down as they purchase more systems, if you will. And we're not talking about huge material differences here. And then these are slight variances because they get really good prices to begin with on those systems, again, good for them and good for us. And then on the procedures, we have these tiers in place. So we partner with them. So the more volume they drive, the better pricing they get and the less volume they drive, the higher pricing they get. And that can fluctuate on a quarterly basis because of the way we true up on a quarterly basis with them. So those private equity groups drive a lot of volume. And at the same time, there's some variability there. So prices you're going to see on the systems are going to stay relatively flat in terms of what you're seeing on the systems themselves. You'll see continuing growth in the recurring revenue. And you might see over the next couple of quarters, what would appear to be a little bit of a flattening, but it's not because we're replacing some of the LLS systems with ALLY systems. If that's...

Yes. Very helpful. And the gross margins, even stripping away the tariff refund were good. I mean, they were a new level that we're seeing. And so in that 52% range. So my question is, with the recurring revenue now run rating at $55 million annually, is this a new level that you can sustain on the gross margin side? And Mike, I know you're only 2 months into the role, but I would appreciate your thoughts on this because, obviously, it has the potential to really start to pick up as the recurring revenue grows faster.

Yes, that's exactly right. That's really what's showing is because we're growing recurring revenue so much right now. So I know the company had previously talked about kind of high 40s. I think we're kind of comfortably in the low -- around where we're at right now basically. So this -- I think with the recurring revenue model, growing as it is, I think that's a more sustainable gross margin there.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back to Nick Curtis for closing remarks.

So I really appreciate everyone's interest in LENSAR and tuning in today. And as you can see, we're a work in progress here, and I'm pleased with where we are. And I thank you for joining the call. Stay tuned. More news as we continue to go. See you next quarter.

That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.