AEye Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 31, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Certified as an NVIDIA DRIVE AGX partner and selected for GM-backed Wintour project, unlocking new OEM channels and validating Apollo’s performance in rain and snow.
  • Positive Sentiment: Secured a $30 million opportunity with a top global transportation OEM, expected to begin contributing to revenue this year.
  • Positive Sentiment: Launched Optus, the next-generation LiDAR platform powered by NVIDIA Jetson Orin, with open architecture enabling rapid, low-cost deployments via third-party AI developers.
  • Positive Sentiment: Expanded the sales funnel to over 100 active customer engagements—30 in advanced negotiations—signed six contracts, and have visibility into orders totaling thousands of units.
  • Negative Sentiment: Reported Q2 GAAP net loss of $9.3 million ($0.48/share) and non-GAAP net loss of $6.7 million ($0.35/share), and raised full-year cash burn guidance to the high end of $27–29 million.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
AEye Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the AI Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press 11 on your telephone.

Operator

You will then hear an automated message advising you your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, Jeremy Apple. Please go ahead.

Jeremy Apple
SVP at Financial Profiles, Inc

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining AI's second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. With me today are Matt Fish, chief executive officer and chairman, and Conor Tierney, chief financial and business officer. Earlier today, AI announced its financial results for the second quarter. A copy of this press release can be found on the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that today's discussion may include forward looking statements as defined in the securities laws and regulations of The United States with reference to future events, operating results, or financial performance, and such forward looking statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding our business, the industry, and other conditions.

Jeremy Apple
SVP at Financial Profiles, Inc

These forward looking statements are subject to inherent risks, uncertainties, and changes in circumstances that are difficult or impossible to predict. Our actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward looking statements. We caution you, therefore, against placing undue reliance on any of these forward looking statements. You can find more information about the risks, uncertainties, and other factors in the reports AI files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the most recent periodic report. The statements to be made are as of today only, and AI does not intend to update any forward looking statements regardless of any new information, future developments, or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

Jeremy Apple
SVP at Financial Profiles, Inc

In addition, we will be discussing non GAAP financial measures on this call, which we believe are relevant in assessing the financial performance of the business. These measures are presented as supplemental information only and should not be considered a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. You can find reconciliations of these metrics to the most directly comparable GAAP measures within the press release. Now I'll pass the call over to Matt.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Thanks, Jeremy, and thank you all for joining our second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. It's an exciting time for AI. Over the past few weeks, we've delivered a wave of new wins that signal an inflection point for our company. First, we were certified as an NVIDIA DRIVE AGX partner and selected for the GM backed Wintour project, both of which could open the door to major new commercial channels. Second, a top global transportation OEM chose Apollo for a critical autonomous safety program, providing us with a potential $30,000,000 opportunity, which we expect to begin contributing to revenue this year.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

And third, we launched Optus, our next generation platform that has now been deployed to multiple customers. Optus is a clear proof point of our ability to scale efficiently into a range of high value markets with its open architecture, AI driven analytics, and adaptability across use cases. Our dedicated focus on business development is delivering results. Our sales funnel has grown exponentially, leading to 30 new potentially high value customer engagements. We've signed six revenue generating contracts and have a clear line of sight into additional orders totaling thousands of units.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Further, our supply chain is ready today and our manufacturing line with Lite On is primed to scale production to meet growing customer demand. Now I'd like to take a moment to share how thrilled we are that Apollo is now officially certified as an NVIDIA DRIVE AGX partner. NVIDIA's DRIVE AGX is positioned to become one of the most widely adopted compute platforms in the automotive industry, and certification is viewed by OEMs as a critical validation of Apollo's performance, as well as its readiness for integration into OEM vehicle programs. This milestone takes our partnership with NVIDIA to the next level, potentially unlocking new OEM engagements and creating a powerful channel to expand our presence across the automotive market. Most importantly, it paves the way for Apollo's integration into Hyperion, NVIDIA's full stack ADAS platform, which would put AI at the center of next generation autonomous driving product development.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

I'm excited to announce that this milestone has also helped us to take a significant step forward in our engagement with a top five global OEM. As a next generation LiDAR sensor, Apollo is also leading the charge to break through one of the toughest barriers to full autonomy, performance in adverse weather. In June, we were selected as the LiDAR partner for Wintour, a GM sponsored project led by the University of Toronto that is focused on enabling safe and effective autonomous driving in rain and snow. This is a strong endorsement of AI's leadership in expanding the reach of autonomy beyond the Sunbelt region. Our involvement with Wintour supports AI's position as a leader in defining future OEM ADAS specifications, creating the potential for a significant sourcing advantage for future OEM programs.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

As you may recall, we began shipping Apollo B samples last quarter. And since then, we spent much of the summer showcasing Apollo in live test drives with top automotive OEMs across The US and Europe. The response from OEMs cemented Apollo's clear differentiation and unique ability to fit within existing vehicle packaging, which we believe is a key enabler to broader LiDAR adoption across vehicle lines that will in turn unlock industry leading scale for our company. Beyond the automotive market, we are deploying Apollo with a growing number of customers around the globe, including China, and in markets spanning intelligent transportation systems, security, defense, rail, and aviation. We are winning in these verticals due to Apollo's unparalleled one kilometer high resolution detection capability and incredibly competitive product cost.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Furthermore, Apollo's Smart Scan software defined architecture enables us to rapidly adapt our single sensor hardware to many use cases. Our customers and software partners love the resulting speed and low deployment costs, generating scale for AI that we believe will be unmatched in the industry. To keep pace with growing customer demand, we've also opened our platform to third parties, which allows us to collaborate with the global AI developer community. By combining Apollo's advanced sensing with the power of AI analytics and decision making, we are now delivering end to end integrated turnkey solutions to our customers, which should enable them to reduce bottlenecks and rapidly unlock new revenue streams. These third party collaborations have also led to the formation of a global innovation network that culminated in the development of Optus.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Optus is a full stack, flexible LiDAR solution that enables intelligent decision making in complex and often hazardous environments. Powered by the world's most ubiquitous AI platform, NVIDIA's Jetson Orin, Optus couples open architecture and low friction integration with a broad set of third party AI sensing, analytics, and decision making software to deliver unique solutions that meet our customers' needs. We are proud that we were able to achieve all of this while operating within AI's capital light financial strategy, which allows us to maintain the lowest cost envelope in the industry while driving tremendous scale. We recently secured contracts for multiple Optus deployments in the markets I just mentioned, with high confidence path to several more wins this year. AI has definitively transitioned from product development into active sales and deployment.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

We're seeing strong market validation through a surge in customer engagement, growing product shipments, and a major win with a leading global transportation OEM. Perhaps most importantly, AI is emerging as the clear leader in next generation LiDAR and is poised for broader customer deployments in the automotive industry, as well as other verticals at the forefront of physical AI. Our leadership is reinforced by elevated relationships with industry giants, such as NVIDIA, as well as through Apollo selection for the GM sponsored Wintour project, which is forging new frontiers in autonomous driving. And with the launch of Optus, we're extending our reach into physical AI and intelligence systems. The momentum is real, and we look forward to sharing updates on Optus deployments and new customer wins in the quarters ahead.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

I'll now turn the call over to Conor to review our financial performance.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

Thanks, Matt. I'll start by addressing the commercial momentum we've achieved this quarter. As Matt mentioned, this quarter marks a clear inflection point in our shift towards sustained revenue generation. Apollo's unmatched range, resolution, and adaptability are driving increased customer engagements and contract wins across a diverse set of global markets. We believe that Apollo is the only long range solution capable of behind the windshield deployment, further extending our competitive edge.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

While our roots are in automotive, Apollo's versatility is rapidly unlocking opportunities in new verticals. We're seeing strong traction in defense, smart infrastructure, rail, trucking, aviation, and security, each presenting challenges that our technology is uniquely positioned to solve. This flexibility is a key differentiator, enabling us to quickly scale across industries and geographies. Advancing our partnership with NVIDIA is another major milestone. By integrating with our drive AGX ecosystem, we're opening the door to OEM collaborations at scale, accelerating our path to commercialization and expanding our reach into embedded platforms.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

Finally, with the launch of Optus, we're moving beyond sensing to deliver actionable intelligence to our customers. Optus opens our platform to software partners, allowing them to build tailored AI solutions that extend our technology into new use cases, enhance our ecosystem, and grow our market opportunity. I'm pleased to report that our pipeline is stronger than ever, with over 100 potential customers actively engaged and 30 of those already in advanced negotiations, as Matt mentioned. This momentum is translating into real results. We tripled our contract wins this quarter, growing from two to six, and have visibility to non automotive orders totaling thousands of units, driven by strong customer engagement and POCs already underway.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

The strength of our pipeline, combined with a proven manufacturing partnership, gives us confidence in our ability to quickly scale with rising demand. While top line revenue growth may remain modest through the rest of the year, we are delivering what truly matters at this stage, accelerating the pace of new customer engagements and widening the breadth of our use cases. We'd like to note that many of our customer contracts begin with smaller initial scopes as we co develop tailored solutions for their unique needs. While this early phase takes time, it lays the groundwork for larger follow on orders as customers see results and look to scale adoption. We're incredibly energized by the road ahead.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

The diversity of industries we're entering from automotive and defense to smart infrastructure, aviation, and beyond underscores the transformative potential of our technology. This is just the beginning. I'll now move on to slide seven to address our cash burn and capital light model. Excluding net financing proceeds, second quarter cash burn decreased by approximately $1,000,000 to $7,100,000 We reduced our quarterly cash burn rate despite several one time expenses, including a $1,400,000 lease settlement from exiting an unfavorable agreement, effectively mitigating $6,400,000 in potential cash liability. Our capital light model is at the core of our growth strategy, enabling us to scale through building partnerships instead of making costly investments in infrastructure like manufacturing and software development.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

As you can see on this slide, our disciplined approach results in significantly lower operating expenses compared to peers, giving us a clear advantage in capital efficiency as we grow our business. Now turning to our second quarter financial results on slide eight. Second quarter GAAP operating expenses were $8,600,000 up from $6,800,000 in the 2025. This was primarily due to the favorable adjustment recorded in the prior quarter related to the lease settlement and higher engineering, business development, and personnel costs, which were partially offset by lower stock based compensation expense. Second quarter non GAAP operating expenses were $6,800,000 an increase of 1,200,000 compared to the prior quarter.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

We reported a GAAP net loss of $9,300,000 or $0.48 per share in the second quarter, an increase of $1,300,000 compared to a GAAP net loss of $8,000,000 or $0.46 per share in the 2025. The increase was primarily due to the operating expense increases discussed above, partially offset by lower financing costs. On a non GAAP basis, our net loss was $6,700,000 or $0.35 per share in the second quarter, compared to a non GAAP net loss of $5,500,000 or $0.31 per share in the prior quarter, driven primarily by the increases in personnel, engineering and business development expenses. Net cash used for operating activities decreased to $6,400,000 in the second quarter from $7,800,000 in the 2025. We ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities of $19,200,000 Since quarter end, we've more than tripled to this balance, extending our cash runway into 2027.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

Our total potential liquidity, which includes cash on hand and our ELOC and ATM facilities, is now approximately $126,000,000 As we look ahead to the next phase of growth, driven by increasing customer demand and continued pipeline expansion. Our top priority is to ensure we have the resources to scale, while also maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation. With that in mind, we took steps recently to further solidify our liquidity position, and to provide us with the operating capital needed to execute our production plans and strategic priorities. Moving on to our cash burn outlook on slide nine. We now expect full year 2025 cash burn to come in at the high end of our previously communicated range of 27,000,000 to $29,000,000 This updated outlook reflects several key factors, the positive impact of a recent lease settlement if we continue paying down the convertible note in cash, onetime professional service fees, and anticipated investments in product development to support upcoming customer programs.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

While these are near term costs, they are aligned with our broader strategy to scale efficiently and position the company for long term growth. We remain disciplined in our capital allocation and confident in our ability to execute within this revised framework. In summary, we're excited about the progress we're making in translating innovation into commercial wins, delivering truly differentiated products that are gaining real market traction, all while operating with one of the leanest, most efficient cost structures in the industry. Looking ahead, we will remain focused on financial discipline as we efficiently scale our business to meet global demand for advanced LiDAR sensing and drive sustainable long term growth for our shareholders. With that, I'll pass it back to Matt to wrap things up.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Thanks, Conor. In closing, we're incredibly proud of the breakthroughs the AI team has made so far in 2025. Our technology is proving itself in the field, and our entire team is excited and aligned around our path forward. We look forward to building on our momentum and sharing updates on our continued progress in the quarters ahead. We will now open the call for questions.

Operator

Thank you. Our first question is going to come from the line of Poe Fratt with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Poe Fratt
Poe Fratt
Equity Research Analyst - Transportation at Alliance Global Partners

Great. Good afternoon, Matt. Good afternoon, Connor. Really solid progress. Would you tell me more about the Navidion integration?

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Sure. Hey, Poe. Thanks for joining us, this quarter. I'm happy this is Matt. I'll take that one.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Just a couple of key points here. First of all, if you go to NVIDIA's website today, their developer website for NVIDIA Drive, you'll see that AI Apollo LiDAR is at the top of the list, when it comes to performance. That's detection range and resolution. And one of the things that this really does look at NVIDIA has been great at defining objective standards and benchmarks for various things out there in the world of autonomous driving. And they're certainly doing that for LIDAR.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

We're happy to see we've risen to the top of that list in terms of capability. And it makes the conversation with OEMs, for example, very simple. Because now we have that objective stamp of approval that, wow, this device really performs and it's mature and it's ready for integration. I think the second piece that's really important about this partnership is, look, we have a special status here now with NVIDIA. And it's not just about being included in the ecosystem that has that credibility, but now we have support from their sales and marketing channels.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

This accelerates our conversation and expands our conversation to a greater pool of OEMs. It paves the path internally inside NVIDIA for direct integration of our sensor into their Hyperion platform, that's the brain, behind the autonomous driving and really gets us connected through proactive resource assignment from NVIDIA. By the way, we also mentioned on the call about Optis. Because we are integrated into that NVIDIA ecosystem, we're also getting that same world class support from marketing and sales channels from NVIDIA outside of the automotive space.

Poe Fratt
Poe Fratt
Equity Research Analyst - Transportation at Alliance Global Partners

That's great. Yeah, because you sort of answered the second question I had is, could you give us a little more details on Optus and how does it fit into your broader strategy? And if there's any color you could add there, that'd be helpful, Matt.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Sure. I'm happy to do that. Look, as we hinted at during the last call, automotive is doing its thing and taking a bit of time, at least in the Western part of the world. And we felt that due to the strong demand that we had for Apollo and its applicability outside of the automotive space that we're driving more aggressively outside of automotive today due to the fact that Apollo is a great fit. Okay, so think about this as automotive is ramping up more slowly, we're filling in the short term with a pretty aggressive ramp of non automotive business.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Now, in order to hunt appropriately in in the non automotive space, you need provide what I'm gonna call a complete solution. It's not just the sensor, but the sensor and the thinking and the brain part. Okay? And Optus is about the combination of those two things. And it brings those two things together in such a way that we're doing something that we believe is very unique here, which is opening Optus and opening the platform to a host of third party developers.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

The integration with NVIDIA is helping us to do that because people know the platform. They feel comfortable. Developers feel comfortable integrating their software on top of NVIDIA. So this is driving tremendous scale. So we have this complete solution that's necessary to hunt, which is necessary to ramp our revenue in our business more aggressively in the short term.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

And then we're taking a very unique approach to this where we have basically a global network of developers that are allowing us to deploy Optus in different parts of the world at a very, very favorable investment cost for us. So we are in the market with Optus today. So this is just not we're not talking about a future product, but a product that's here today and is already deployed in multiple parts of the world because of this very fast scaling capability that's afforded by our global networks of developers.

Poe Fratt
Poe Fratt
Equity Research Analyst - Transportation at Alliance Global Partners

If I may, Matt, if I could ask, could you give us a little more color on your customer pipeline, both on the OEM side and then also on the non automotive? You talked about 30 over 100 contact points or potential contact points, 30 in advanced negotiations. And could you just give us a little more detail on the customer pipeline beyond those sort of two metrics?

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

I'm gonna turn that one over to Connor.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

Hey, Paul. Yeah, I'll address this one. So you sort of just alluded to it. We're feeling very confident about the pipeline, and you just got to bear in mind that we've really only had a product to sell since February. So the traction that we've made there is amazing.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

We've got over 100 plus customers that we're engaged with. 30 of those were in advanced negotiation phase. And then, of course, we've tripled the number of wins from two to six. And I think what we're seeing is really the versatility of Apollo as a sensor. Right?

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

So a lot of these opportunities are in a diverse set of industries. Right? We talked about it on the script. This is everything from defense to aviation to rail. There's lots of opportunities that we're pursuing, and global opportunities too.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

This isn't just restricted to the North American market. These are opportunities in Asia and Europe. And I think what really gives us a distinct advantage is the performance of the sensor itself. It's a high performance system. Right?

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

And part of the reason for that is it's fifteen fifty nanometers, so that gives you more power. With more power, you got more range. You got more resolution. And then I think the other thing to take into consideration is software definability, reconfigurability of the sensor. Right?

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

So we can optimize the sensor for the end customer's use case. If they want to optimize for range, we can optimize for range. If they want to optimize for resolution, we can optimize for resolution. That's why we talked about it earlier, that initial phase where we're working with the customer and we're exploring that initial use case is critical, and that's where we spend some time, and it's a very hands on phase, and so we're working through those deployments right now. I think the other thing that gives us an advantage there is just design of the system.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

We have a bistatic system with a separate transmit and receiver, and that really allows us to see far, but also to see with a high degree of precision. So you take all those things, you take the performance, and then you match that with a very competitive price point. We have a distinct advantage in the marketplace, and we're seeing that customers are energized, engaged, work with with us. And now, you know, we're bringing Optus to the market, so we're expanding our portfolio. Right?

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

We're we're we're we're using NVIDIA to to to power the system and also opening it up to developers to enhance the functionality so we can offer more to the end customer. So all in all, very excited about the potential here, and this is just the beginning.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Hey, I just wanted to add one other point to that. One of the things you see happening in the market that is particular on the LiDAR side is a lot of what I'll call variants, hardware variants of products that are coming out in order to optimize for these particular markets. We don't need to do that. We drop in a software upgrade, and we have a configuration of Apollo that's optimized for a particular use case. So in that case, we're a lot faster and our capital expenditures are a lot lower.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

When you're just talking about a software upgrade versus having to build and release and announce a new hardware version of your product.

Poe Fratt
Poe Fratt
Equity Research Analyst - Transportation at Alliance Global Partners

Great, congratulations. I'll turn it back. I have a couple other ones, but I'll turn it back and see if anyone else is in the queue.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Scott Buck with H. C. Wainwright and Co. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Scott Buck
MD & Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC

Hi, good afternoon guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Matt, I'm curious, the $30,000,000 opportunity with the transportation OEM, are there additional deliverables or is there anything that customer is waiting on you guys for between now and the end of the year or are you on their timeline at this point?

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Scott, I think the simple answer is we're on the timeline, right? This is with many larger deployments. It takes time to take the sensor to integrate it and ramp that deployment across repeatedly across a growing fleet of vehicles. So it's happening right now. We're on the customer timeline.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

In fact, we're on the ground today doing that integration and deployment. We'll be ready to talk about a bit more details on that particular OEM contract here in the coming weeks. But right now, it's live. We have people on the ground, and it's ramping today.

Scott Buck
MD & Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC

Perfect. That's helpful. And then on the tripling of the new business wins from two to six, can you give any kind of incremental color on those additional four? Maybe size them versus the initial two or give us a little more info on what industry they're in or any kind of additional color would be helpful, I suppose.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

All right, you got that one, Connor?

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

Yes, so I'll start with the industry first. We're seeing a lot of traction in the smart infrastructure space, and I think that's because of the performance of the sensor itself. Right? We've got a wide field of view, but also we can see long range as well. So that definitely seems to be an area where we're playing quite well in.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

We are seeing opportunities beyond that in the security side, also in the defense sector as well. It's difficult to talk about specific volumes at this point just because we have confidentiality agreements in place with those customers, but what I do say, what I can say is we see line of sight to thousands of orders, and obviously, as I mentioned, there's a ramping phase there. Right now, we're focused on building the solution for those customers, and then over time, we start deploying that solution out on the field. And then we expect to see things ramp up probably over the next six to twelve months.

Scott Buck
MD & Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC

Great. That's exciting. So one more. Sales and marketing expense stepped up this quarter. Can you give us a little information on maybe where those incremental dollars are being spent and how should we should think about sales and marketing expenses here moving forward?

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

Look, obviously, live and breathe distillate capital business model, and we've talked about it quite a lot. So a lot of that spend isn't incremental spend, it's just reallocation, reallocating dollars from G and A and from R and D. And so this is like FEE time on some of these deployments, so it might take time on the biz dev side. So really, it's just a reallocation, I would say, of expenses from the G and A bucket and R and D buckets. There is a little bit of incremental spend there, but not a whole lot.

Scott Buck
MD & Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC

Okay, perfect. Well, I appreciate the time, guys. Thank you very much.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Thank you, Scott.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Glenn Mattson
MD - Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc

Hi. Yes, thanks for taking the question and congrats on all the progress lately. So just building a lot of my questions have been asked already, building on some of the stuff that was just talked about pipeline that 100 actively engaged customers that's growing nicely. Can you give a sense that you've hit us inflection point in terms of momentum where you're to start closing multiple deals a quarter kind of like you did this quarter? Just maybe a little more about the maturity of that pipeline of those 100 customers.

Glenn Mattson
MD - Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc

And is there any of them that are like outsized contracts that could be similar to the $30,000,000 one you announced last quarter?

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

Todd, do you want me to take that one, Matt?

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Sounds great, Connor. Why don't you get a story?

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

I'll let you chime in if you want to add some color, too. So, I would say, we have 100, 30 of those are in the advanced negotiation stage, so I think there's definitely an opportunity to move those 30 into wins. And, you know, at this point, we're in advanced technical conversations with these customers, we're on-site doing demos. And like I said earlier, it's basically a vast array of industries that we're targeting, right? It's not just one industry.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

That said, we're seeing a lot of pull on the smart infrastructure side, that definitely seems to be an easier lift for us. But that said, there's opportunities on the aviation side that we're pursuing, defense, security, rail, you name it. And like I said earlier, that goes back to the versatility of the sensor. What I would say is, yes, there are a few opportunities that are similar to that $30,000,000 opportunity that we talked about. There definitely is the opportunity to scale some of these contracts into high volume awards.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

What I'm pleased about is, I'll give you one example, we've just started working with a customer, and we worked on a very specific use case, and we're now working on that use case, building it out, and pretty soon, we'll be deploying it across multiple sites. But as we've been doing that, they've brought an entirely new use case to us. So we're not even done with the initial deployment, and they're also bringing us other work as well. So I think that's an indication that they're pleased with the results. They're pleased with the product that we're obviously delivering.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

So it's good to see that kind of traction with individual customers.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

I'd just add a couple of things to that just to maybe give some insight to what's happening inside the company right now. So Conor and I run this deal desk where when one of these discussions, the 30 for example, we talked about early gets to the point where the customer says, Okay, give me a proposal. These are filling up my calendar and Connor's calendar, multiple per week. And if you look at by the numbers and the conversion rate we've seen with the first six, we're definitely going to see more coming in the short term.

Glenn Mattson
MD - Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc

Great. That's great color. Thank you for that. I should know this probably everyone else does but me but the $30,000,000 opportunity is that in aggregate or is that an annual potential once it gets up and running?

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

I'll take this one. No problem. Probably about if you add up those volumes, again, starting this year, we expect to see revenue come in over the next two to three years. That's the duration of the opportunity. So it's not annual.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

It's the total size where we expect that to play out over the next two to three years.

Glenn Mattson
MD - Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc

Great. Thank you, helpful. Thanks again.

Operator

Thank you. And one moment for our next question. And our next question is going to come from the line of Casey Ryan with Westpark Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Casey Ryan
Director - Research at West Park Capital

Yeah. Thanks. Thank you for the update and the opportunity to ask some questions, gentlemen. You guys are using the term physical AI as well. I think we're seeing that across the public company sector.

Casey Ryan
Director - Research at West Park Capital

Is that sort of euphemistic or just tell me for framing purposes, physical AI just mean non automotive or do you think about it because I think there's a lot of spaces to drill down into that but in terms of understanding what you're you know signaling to us and painting as opportunities it would be helpful to just you know kind of figure out what you mean by painting things with this physical AI kind of moniker that a lot of people are using, it seems like.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Right. Hey, that's a really good question. And thanks again for joining us this quarter, Casey. I think, look, physical AI loosely put is this artificial intelligence and sensing interacting with the real world. Okay?

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

So clearly, autonomous driving is physical in that sense. But we refer to that as autonomous driving automotive, for example. So I think for the purposes of our conversation here and interacting with the world, if you will, we're using it most often to refer to interaction outside the scope of autonomous driving.

Casey Ryan
Director - Research at West Park Capital

Okay, great. Well, that's actually really helpful. You know, I, like, do wanna join. You know, I am drawn to the sort of Optus product and and the opportunities there. And I'm curious about two things.

Casey Ryan
Director - Research at West Park Capital

You know, it feels like there's a lot of incoming as well as maybe some outreach on your part around sort of physical AI opportunities. Is NVIDIA specifically helping you with that? Or or has something happened where maybe the market has shifted, you know, consumers in defense and security and all these things have suddenly realized that they need LiDAR at a much bigger scale. What has sort of happened sort of create what feels like a lot more activity, around the whole space and particularly with you guys, but, broadly it feels like the activity has picked up substantially in 2025.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Yeah, absolutely. There's been a very strong inflection point. To answer your first question, NVIDIA is definitely very active in the physical AI space as we've just described it. Their Jetson Orin product, for example, NVIDIA has the same kind of marketing channels, business development channels, and resources dedicated to their physical AI products. That includes customer outreach, as well as deployment support and promotion and sales, this is a very significant investment that we're seeing on NVIDIA's board and very proactive with us in that space.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

At the same time, we are getting inbound requests and outreach simply from the headline that Apollo is capable of doing high resolution detection at a kilometer. That headline has really brought us also a lot of business independently. And in fact, was instrumental in the large OEM win that we talked about earlier, the high value one, that was a matter of connection because nobody else can do the kind of distance that we can. So we're definitely seeing some independent outreach and inbound on our own simply because Apollo's capabilities are unmatched out there.

Casey Ryan
Director - Research at West Park Capital

Right. Okay. Well, mean, well, that's terrific. And so kind of my next my other question around sort of physical AI and these other new opportunities outside automotive Is do you is it a goal of the company? Do you think you need like with defense, maybe some kind of defense contractor, right?

Casey Ryan
Director - Research at West Park Capital

Which about, you know, access and opportunity set to sort of be allowed to bid on things or broader corporate sort of integrators. Does the company want to partner with those people? Are you already partnering with them and not announcing them? Or how do you think about going to market, I guess, with people who have access to these purchasers ultimately?

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Yeah, if I'm understanding the question correctly, let's just take defense as an example. Because of the way that the Apollo LiDAR is scanning, we have a unique advantage there. Okay, so LiDARs that have spinning mirrors is kind of like a lighthouse. It's broadcasting a beam of light in a circular pattern out there in the universe. And defense is really picky about that because that's a target in defense language.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

So Apollo does have some unique abilities because of our ability to randomize scanning. It becomes much less visible than say a spinning mirror. So look, if we can take Apollo and through our software defined model, upgrade it or configure it for that type of application, we're all over it. And that's what I'd say where we're drawing the line right now to maintain our capital light focus, which allows us to go fast and work on a lot of things at once. We kind of set the boundary and like, okay, can we address this with a software upgrade?

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

If the answer is yes, chances are we're gonna go for it. And we're incredibly busy just doing that alone. So the answer is yes, we're open.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

I just wanted to add, Stacy, I think the point you were getting about you talked about integrators. Like, what I would say is our our go to market strategy is adaptable. Yep. Sometimes when you're working with DOTs, they want you to go through an integrator. Right?

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

Because they have those relationships with a set of integrators that they've worked with for thirty or forty years. And so we are working with integrators. We have the ability to do that. But we're also chatting with the DOTs directly, and we can do that because of Optus, right, because we have a solution that's fully bundled, right, that has all the attributes and components that you need

Casey Ryan
Director - Research at West Park Capital

to go to market. Yeah. Well, that's helpful. So so both answers from both of you are helpful. And so, Connor, on defense, is it similar?

Casey Ryan
Director - Research at West Park Capital

I mean, do you guys feel the need to get with an existing defense contractor? You know, mostly that that's about access, not about functionality. Right? It's just about being pulled into opportunities, I guess.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

Yeah. I mean, look. Obviously, you have the big defense primes, so just landing one of those deals is a tremendous opportunity. Right? You don't have to probably worry about volumes ever again, but also, there's also the smaller defense players out there as well, that are more receptive to new technologies and emerging technologies.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

So there's two angles there, and then there's obviously working directly with the DOD's consultants, and we've done that. We have a number of SBIRs that are in the works with the DOD that we're we're pushing through. So, yeah, we we have a a multipronged approach there.

Casey Ryan
Director - Research at West Park Capital

Okay. Well, terrific. That's very illuminating, and I'll jump back in the queue. I appreciate time

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

and energy. Thanks, Casey.

Operator

Thank you. And one moment for our next question. And our next question is going to be a follow-up question from the line of Poe Fratt with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Poe Fratt
Poe Fratt
Equity Research Analyst - Transportation at Alliance Global Partners

Yes, thank you. Just two quick ones more on the financial side. Connor, you talked about $126,000,000 as sort of your overall liquidity, including cash, your ATM and your e lock. Can you break that down between those three different buckets right now, or should we wait until the queue's out?

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

I would wait for the queue on that one, Poe. What I would say is I I can talk to Cash specifically because we we discussed that in the script. So, you know, we we finished the quarter with about 19,200,000.0 in cash, and I would say thanks to the growth capital that we've raised since then. Since then, we've been we've been able to more than triple that number. But I think the most important thing about that capital that we raised, is that that's really gonna help us convert some of those customer opportunities into wins.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

And like I talked about earlier, right, we need capital to deploy the sensors across multiple sites, and this is gonna help us accelerate that and do that. And so that's why I think this is perfect timing for us. We're at an inflection point here. The business is about to scale, so this is gonna help us scale even faster. Now that said, this doesn't mean we're gonna change anything in terms of our capital light strategy, we're still gonna do things in a very fiscally prudent and methodical way, so that's not going to change.

Conor Tierney
Conor Tierney
CFO at AEye

But, you know, we're pleased to be able to take advantage of the market.

Poe Fratt
Poe Fratt
Equity Research Analyst - Transportation at Alliance Global Partners

Okay. And then maybe on the contract pipeline, backtrack on that, You talked about you get the $30,000,000 OEM contract. I thought I heard you said you also have in the contract pipeline a top five OEM that you're in advanced discussions with. Is that accurate? Or did I hear that accurately?

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Yeah, I'll take that one. I did mention as part of the script that because of our work with NVIDIA and the fact that we're now certified with them, this has really enabled us to take a big step forward with a top five global OEM. Absolutely. And that's about all I can say.

Poe Fratt
Poe Fratt
Equity Research Analyst - Transportation at Alliance Global Partners

Just to clarify, Matt, though, that's exclusive of the $30,000,000 contract that was signed at the end of the quarter.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Absolutely. Remember, the context for that one also was that we're talking about passenger vehicle OEM, so in addition to the $30,000,000 Yep.

Poe Fratt
Poe Fratt
Equity Research Analyst - Transportation at Alliance Global Partners

Great. That's really helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And I'm showing no further questions at this time. And I would like to hand the conference back over to Matt Fish for closing remarks.

Matt Fisch
Matt Fisch
CEO and Chairman at AEye

Thank you all for your time today. We will be attending several investor and industry events during the quarter, including the JPMorgan Automotive Conference in New York, the KPMG Automotive Innovation Summit in Santa Clara, and the ITS World Congress in Atlanta. We look forward to seeing you there, and we appreciate your continued support and confidence in our vision. Have a great day.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Executives
    • Matt Fisch
      Matt Fisch
      CEO and Chairman
    • Conor Tierney
      Conor Tierney
      CFO
Analysts
    • Jeremy Apple
      SVP at Financial Profiles, Inc
    • Poe Fratt
      Equity Research Analyst - Transportation at Alliance Global Partners
    • Scott Buck
      MD & Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC
    • Glenn Mattson
      MD - Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc
    • Casey Ryan
      Director - Research at West Park Capital
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