Steve Rizzone
Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead
Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon. Welcome to the Energous first quarter conference call and update. As usual, with me today is Brian Sereda, our Chief Financial Officer. I will begin the call commenting on the considerable progress Energous made in the first quarter, moving then to some comments on the company’s financial results, before turning the call over to Brian for the details. I will close with a perspective on the outlook for the balance of 2018 and the goals we expect to accomplish this year before opening the session up for questions. Executing on our top-tier customer opportunities is our first priority at Energous, as these customers represent the key to a significant ramp in revenue and the ultimate crossover into profitability. The common thread across all of these customers is the global nature of their business. To be considered a top-tier player, you must have a worldwide presence. In order to support these customers and pave the way for global launches of WattUp-enabled consumer products, international regulatory certifications are key milestones that must be achieved. I’m very pleased to announce that in the last few days, our regulatory team leveraging off the recently announced FCC certification of our Near Field Wireless Charging Technology has received notice of regulatory approval of the same Wireless Charging technology from the European Union, Australia, Belize, Colombia, New Zealand, Uruguay and Venezuela. These approvals, along with the recent FCC approval, represent a total of 38 countries in five regions that have now certified the Energous’ Near Field Wireless Charging Transmitter and Receiver technology for consumer use. The combination of the European Union certification with our FCC certification is especially important to our worldwide launch as it gives Energous tremendous momentum and a very strong precedent to leverage as we now expand our regulatory focus to Asia and the rest of the world. Beyond the immediate benefit of paving the way for global launches of WattUp-enabled Near Field products, these certifications also play a key role in our strategy to obtain global approvals for WattUp power-at-a-distance technology. As we engage with regulatory agencies around the world in conjunction with Near Field, we’re simultaneously working with these agencies to define and accelerate using the FCC distance certification we received last December as a precedent, the path to approval of WattUp power-at-a-distance technology under the existing rules and regulations of the respective agencies. In the coming months, we expect to announce additional international certifications for our Near Field technology as well as announcements of international certification for our charging-at-a-distance technology towards the end of this year. To further report on our first quarter progress, Energous continues to work with two top 10 consumer electronic companies on specific product developments and have made significant technical advancements and commercialization progress with both companies in the quarter. We’re seeing increasing opportunities scope and accelerated development for both Near Field and at-distance charging across a wide variety of applications. We have also sampled our CMOS, GaAs and GaN chip solutions to these partners as each of these chips provide specific advantages for select product applications. Our current view is that at least one of these companies will place purchase orders for meaningful quantities of chipsets before the end of the year in anticipation of global product launches to the consumer in the first half of 2019. We may also see a ramp in engineering services revenue depending on what level of additional development Energous will be assigned as we continue to move the relationship forward. Beyond our two top-tier consumer electronic partners, we can report substantial progress in three targeted verticals; hearing aids, hearables and wearables. To-date, we have shipped chipsets for revenue to two customers in these verticals. We’ve also shipped chipsets samples and evaluation kits to 10 top-tier companies in these verticals. And our application engineers are actively supporting internal engineering team as they assume the lead effort in integrating the WattUp technology into consumer products. WattUp represents a game-changing solution to many of the hassles, battery replacement or cord-based charging solution presents for products in these verticals. The 10 customer engagement represents the lion share of the total available market for these verticals, which translates into opportunities for WattUp chipsets in the tens of millions of devices. Thanks largely to the strength of the WattUp technology and the valuable support dialogue from a supply chain and a sales perspective, we’re seeing a new dynamic in many of our customer product cycles. An example of this is with one of the top five hearing aid manufacturers in the world. Initially the product development and integration focus was on a single in-the-ear application. This application was launched because the customer was acutely aware of the advantages of wireless power versus the current battery replacement solution. But heretofore the state of the older wireless charging technologies were not capable of supporting the application. The Energous WattUp solution is the only technology that has been able to reduce footprint, while maintaining efficiency to be able to meet the demands of small in-the-ear hearing aids. Once the initial engagement was launched, the response to the capabilities and scalability of the WattUp technology was so strong that the engagement has now been expanded to include behind-the-ear applications. We are seeing similar expansions at multiple customers across all three verticals as the WattUp technology establishes a foothold in these accounts, the advantages and scalability of the WattUp technology has demonstrated which in turn is motivating the product decision-makers to add more SKUs to the WattUp integration cycles. Let me give you some additional updates on our customer pipeline. Energous is unique among all wireless charging companies in its ability to deliver charging solutions to a broad set of applications from contact to at-distance charging. While the opportunity in contact-based charging is sufficient in and of itself to reach self-sustaining run rates for Energous, I’m going to repeat that, while the opportunity in contact-based charging is sufficient in and of itself to reach self-sustaining run rates for Energous, we fully appreciate the fact that distance charging represents the game changer, the real differentiator for Wireless Charging 2.0. To this end, I can report that we have multiple customers in varying stages of product development for each transmitter segment, specifically contact-based or Near Field transmitters, Mid Field or desktop power transmission ranges from 6 inches to 3 feet, as well as Far Field applications capable of spanning large square foot areas and sending power out 15 feet or greater. Another dynamic we are seeing in our customer and prospect base is the accelerated movement away from the first-generation coil-based technology as they look to the advantages of WattUp RF-based charging. While coil-based charging technology has a substantial footprint in today’s consumer electronic industry, albeit almost exclusively in smartphones, virtually every company in our continually expanding customer funnel, either has or has considered the implementation of a charge – coil-based charging solution. Problems with foreign object detection, the lack of position independence, large footprint and cost disadvantages once you go to a multi-coil solution are the primary drivers behind these decisions to move to RF-based WattUp technology. Our goal is to maintain market leadership and to continue to define and direct the vision of Wireless Charging 2.0. The strength of our core technology, our broad product spectrum and scalability, our regulatory expertise, strategic partners, customer momentum and financial strength as well as our intellectual property portfolio are keys to maintaining this market leadership. We intend to use our continually expanding patent portfolio to enact barriers to anyone trying to displace our leadership position. Since our last call, our IP portfolio has expanded from 125 to 135 granted and allowed patents with more than 120 additional filings in various stages of review and approval. The core value of this portfolio to the company cannot be overstated as even top-tier consumer electronic companies are starting to cite or reference Energous’ patents in their own filings, acknowledging our IP leadership positions. Companies like Energous, public or private, who are pioneering a new technology and developing entirely new market are few and far between. Our goal has always and will continue to be to fundamentally change a well-entrenched paradigm: How people charge their battery-powered devices. We are in this for the long-term. We view ourselves as trailblazers with a unique opportunity that is compelling for the fact that the applications for WattUp technology are almost limitless. Having said this, like any other company taking on a challenge of this magnitude, the environment we operate in is very fluid. Things change, oftentimes very quickly. This is an important consideration when commenting on our revenue results for the first quarter. As many of you are aware, multiple companies demonstrated WattUp-enabled products at CES this year. These announcements lead us to believe that we would have WattUp-enabled products shipping to the consumer in the first quarter. While a few of these product launches were delayed compared to our expectations, we continue to work with these customers and expect WattUp-enabled Near Field products coming to the market in the coming months. A key point is that while we have experienced unexpected delays with some of our earlier adopters, we have continued forward momentum with these opportunities. Nothing has gone off the table, and we expect to see first product releases to the consumer from multiple customers in the months ahead. This can also be said of the revenue expectations for engineering services. We expected that engineering services revenue attached to certain milestones with certain customers would be ramping in our first quarter. However, some of these milestones and the delivery dates changed, as did the revenues associated with them. The good news is that we did achieve certain milestones which generated an engineering service payment and our engagements with multiple top-tier consumer electronic companies continue to deepen and move forward. To summarize Q1 revenues. Our top line was less than we anticipated, primarily due to events outside our control and not atypical for any company in the early stages of commercial deployments. Irrespective of the delays, Energous is operating at full capacity in terms of customer engagements, and the only constraint we have is the amount of engineering resources available to support the continually expanding number of customers and products that are interested in integrating the WattUp technology. So what does the revenue picture look like? With each passing day, our forward-looking view is becoming clear as we get further down the line with both our early adopters and our top-tier opportunities. Things are gelling, which will result in improved consistency for our outlook as we continue to speed forward. Moreover, Energous continues to execute on our two-pronged go-to-market strategy. One path is focused on a select few early adopters who are important but have minimal revenue impact. Our current view is that we will begin to ship chips to a small number of these early adopters in the second and third quarters, resulting in modest quarter-over-quarter revenue growth. We expect to see the same trend with engineering services as we continue to execute with our top-tier partners and complete project milestones. In parallel, the majority of our resources are concentrated on a second path, focused on the aforementioned opportunities at top-tier, households named companies with predictable but elongated product cycles, involving multiple SKUs, offering significant revenue potential. It is our expectation that we will see the first orders for significant quantities of chipsets in the fourth quarter. Finally, we expect 2019 to be our inflection year where we potentially derive the benefit of full year chip volume from initial customers, coupled with the opportunity for chip sales from our top-tier customers as well as continued expansion of our customer base. Our current forecast have us achieving self-sustaining revenues levels early in 2019. In summary, our progress is clear. Our position is unique in terms of being the established leader of Wireless Charging 2.0. In addition, our view of revenues from the sale of chipsets in sufficient quantities to drive predictable, profitable financial results continues to crystallize at an accelerated pace based on Energous’ expanding product portfolio and maturing customer relationships. The goal of cash flow breakeven is in sight. Finally, all of the pieces necessary to build a relevant and valuable company that brings to life the vision of a global WattUp-enabled ecosystem are in place. It is all about execution. And the entire Energous team is confident we can and will execute. Brian, I will now turn the call over to you for comments on our first quarter financial performance.