LightPath Technologies Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
September 25, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Record $90 million backlog (4× increase) driven by systems and subsystems in infrared imaging, with over two-thirds in higher-value engineered solutions.
  • Positive Sentiment: Secured two large POs totaling $40 million for border surveillance and counter-UAS cameras in 2026–27, reflecting surging defense demand.
  • Negative Sentiment: Q4 revenue rose 41% year-over-year to $12.2 million, but gross margin fell to 22% and net loss widened to $7.1 million amid inventory reserves and G5 integration costs.
  • Positive Sentiment: Completed redesign of two G5 long-range infrared cameras using proprietary BlackDiamond glass, enhancing supply-chain resilience versus germanium-based optics.
  • Positive Sentiment: Raised $8 million from Ondas Holdings and Unusual Machines to expand U.S. and European drone thermal imaging manufacturing, bolstering strategic partnerships.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
LightPath Technologies Q4 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the LightPath Technologies fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions. This conference is being recorded today, September 25, 2025, and the earnings press release accompanying this conference call was issued after the market closed today. I'd like to remind you that during the course of this call, the company will be making a number of forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations and involve various risks and uncertainties as discussed in its periodic SEC filings. Although the company believes that the assumptions underlying these statements are reasonable, any of them can be proven to be inaccurate, and there could be no assurances that the projected results will be realized.

Operator

In addition, references may be made to certain financial measures that are not in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. We refer to these as non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our SEC reports and certain of our press releases, which include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures and associated disclaimers. CEO Sam Rubin will begin today's call with a strategic overview of the business and recent developments for the company, while CFO Al Miranda will then review financial results for the quarter. Following the prepared remarks, there will be a formal question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference over to CEO Sam Rubin. Sam, the floor is yours.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon to everyone, and welcome to LightPath Technologies' fiscal fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2025 financial results conference call. Pretty exciting times here at LightPath. Over the last few years, we've been working on the transformation of the company, and we're now beginning to see the tangible results of these efforts. Since we likely have many new shareholders and many new listeners on this call, I will take some time to describe where we come from, which will help put in context the recent developments. I will talk about specific programs that are driving our record $90 million backlog, the investment from Ondas and Unusual Machines, and our next growth drivers. This will likely take up more time than usual and will come at the expense of some of the financial side. Al, let's start with strategy.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

LightPath is a 40-year-old company that for 35 out of those 40 years was a component manufacturer. The strategy of LightPath as an optical component company was strongly tied to the industry structure and worked well when the industry was small and highly technical. A component company like LightPath could create value with its fabrication technology and at times capture that value with high margins. However, as the industry grew and changed, the structure of the industry changed and led to commoditization of optical fabrication technologies and a change in customer characteristics and supplier-customer dynamics. LightPath, unfortunately, did not adapt its strategy to that and therefore relied on being a lowest cost provider of components and focusing on manufacturing in China to achieve that. This resulted in eroding margins, increased competition, and a diminishing ability to capture the value its technologies created.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

This also resulted in an unhealthy reliance on both manufacturing and sales in China. By 2020, most of the company's manufacturing footprint was in China, and more than one third of its revenue was from China. In late 2020, following a change in management, we developed and implemented a new strategic direction. Without going into great details, because honestly, I could spend the whole evening talking about this, I'll just say that we realigned the company to a strategic direction that allows us to substantially grow and capture much more value from our technologies and capabilities. This is not about moving away from being a component company. As much as it is about moving into a position that will allow us to grow, improve margins, and secure our position in the supply chain.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

In our specific industry, with the dynamics of the technology, supply chain, and geopolitics, this means that we can grow best and impact our bottom line best if we focus on subsystems and systems that are enabled by our technologies. More specifically, doing that in the field of infrared imaging, a growing market in which we have strong differentiators. To explain a bit more about what I mean, let's look at just one of our unique differentiators, our BlackDiamond glass. Unique materials, such as our proprietary BlackDiamond glass, which is licensed from U.S. Naval Research Laboratory as an alternative to germanium in infrared optics, helps create value by enabling customers to do more.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

In this case, it could be smaller systems, more could be cheaper systems, or more could simply be something as trivial as just being able to guarantee delivery of your systems to the customers with production certainty without worrying about germanium supply restrictions from China. Some companies, when they have such technology, might say something like, "Well, these materials are valued by my customers, so I can charge more for my materials," which is a valid point. Another company could say, "Let's take a step further, and with our unique materials, we can sell more components, value added." We'll do that. For us, we found that the sweet spot was going into subsystems or small systems, which we often call engineered solutions. Those do not require large infrastructure of service and field support as full systems do, but still allow us to capture much more of the value.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

The combination of LightPath's materials and our optics, together with, for example, the recently acquired subsidiary of G5 Infrared, which is a leader in thermal imaging camera, is a case in point for this. G5 is known as the industry leader in long-range infrared cameras. That was the case before we acquired them, not something we created. Like its competitors, G5 was facing supply chain challenges due to global geopolitics, and primarily germanium and gallium, which are critical materials in their optics. After acquiring G5 in February, in conjunction with their team, we began the effort to redesign their systems to use our materials. Recently, we announced the completion of the redesign of two of those cameras.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

By doing so, we are positioning ourselves not only as offering the best cameras now, but also as the most reliable provider of cameras with supply chain resiliency that no one else can offer. The result of this is massive growth we're seeing. Our backlog today is around $90 million. That is more than four times what the backlog was just a few months ago. With more than two thirds of this backlog in systems and subsystems, it is clear that the strategy is working. Our strategy is all about creating value and capturing value. When you have core technologies that are unique and well-positioned, they clearly create value, and it is up to the company to make the most of it by capturing as much of that value as possible. For LightPath, it means going up the food chain.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

With this background behind us, I would like to now dive into some of our most recent developments and events and add some color and background to the announcement we have recently made and the large backlog I just mentioned. First, let's talk about the two recent large orders. Over the last few weeks, we announced two large orders that are really one order split into two separate POs. Those orders total over $40 million for deliveries of infrared cameras in calendar years 2026 and 2027. The customer is an existing customer that has been consistently doing business with G5 over the last few years, although not at levels anywhere near this. The applications for those cameras will be in border surveillance and counter-UAS, or CUAS, as it is often called. Let's first talk about the border surveillance.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

The border surveillance program, known as CTSC, is something we had previously discussed. At the time, I think in our last call, we expected the entirety of the program to include installing about 300 new surveillance towers along the southern border, and the work to be divided between three primes. One of them was our customer. Along came the big, beautiful bill, and it more than tripled the funding to border patrol. To our understanding, this means the number of towers along the border could go up to 1,000 towers. Some even speak about 1,200 towers. This includes not only an increase in the number of towers along the southern border, but also the installation of towers in some places along the northern border.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Now, take the large increase in expected deployment, add to it supply chain constraints companies are facing, and you get a scramble to ensure supplies of cameras. In other words, for us, a perfect storm. The border contract is an IDIQ divided among three companies. Until recently, we've been supplying cameras to only one of those three. The $40 million in orders for calendar 2026 and 2027 we just discussed is for another one of the prime contractors. This is going to be in addition to the existing work we have and have been expecting and spoke about for the border. Okay, enough about the border, but there's a lot going on there, clearly. Let's go back to our $90 million backlog. Another part of our record $90 million backlog is systems for counter-UAS. More specifically, powerful zoom cameras that can passively detect, classify, and track drones.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Drones that are as small as 10 inches in size, for example. These cameras not only integrate into systems for detecting drones, but also integrate onto almost any weapon system that is used to counter drones by disabling the drones using different means. It could be systems named remote weapon systems, or vehicle-mounted kinetic systems, or pretty much any deployment of a counter-UAS system, which, as we all know, is a rapidly growing industry, not only in battlefields and front lines, but also in critical infrastructure such as airports or public and private infrastructure. Currently, more than $10 million of our backlog is for cameras for counter-UAS. This is separate from the $40 million of orders I just discussed. Those specific orders were announced and discussed earlier. We expect this to continue to grow as our cameras are integrated into more and more systems.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Another area of growth that we expect to see is the Navy SPEAR program. Elbit Systems is a prime integrating this system, which is expected to be installed on all U.S. naval surface vessels. The contract, which we announced together with Elbit Systems earlier this year, is expected to move into LRIP. LRIP is low rate initial production. In coming months, it has also been publicly disclosed that they expect to see the first installation and full integration into a fire control system of the first Destroyer by 2027. For a system to be deployed by 2027, given all the slowdowns and processes, that timeline means that we will be working on our pathway soon. This is a large program of record and a key program for the U.S. Navy. We expect this to be a meaningful source of revenue for many more years to come.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

All of those are systems that we've already qualified, so all the development work is pretty much done. It's a matter of receiving and executing on the purchase orders. We feel very confident in our ability to deliver all of those, especially in light of our unique position, utilizing our proprietary BlackDiamond materials in the cameras instead of germanium, which traditionally is the element of use for many infrared cameras. This brings me to China's ongoing export restrictions, who late last year cut off the export of germanium, as well as other critical materials to the U.S. defense industry. China produces substantially most of the germanium globally, making a Chinese ban effectively global. In response to those events, U.S. defense contractors moved to stockpile germanium, but the ongoing ban keeps stockpiles running dangerously low.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

One executive noted in a Wall Street Journal last month that his firm is now down to safety stock. Some suppliers now hold only a few months of inventory, exposing even large firms for disruption. The result of this disruption has been a massive interest from defense customers to move away from germanium to eliminate China-related supply chain risk. Inbound interest from defense contractors in LightPath's proprietary BlackDiamond glass, the replacement for germanium we licensed exclusively from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, has increased significantly. While there is some lag from design to field deployment, the shift is happening and happening quickly and can be already seen in some of our numbers. Those programs are what is currently driving our large backlog and short-term growth. Now let's talk about additional programs and growth drivers in the pipeline.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

NGSRI is one of our most important programs in which we are developing for Lockheed Martin a system that is a key technology in their version of next-generation Stinger portable ground-to-air missile. Lockheed is competing against Raytheon in this and is now in testing stages with the customer. While I do not have any specific updates to share, I will likely not be able to answer most questions about this. I would like to commend the teams at Lockheed Martin and Visimid Technologies in Texas in putting together a completely new missile system in a two-year timeframe, something almost unheard of. The system is now in testing and we expect delivery or feedback from the customer anytime in the next few months. I know many are anxious to receive updates on this, as am I, to be honest.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

If we win this, according to projections we received from the customer, this could be between $50 million to $100 million of recurring annual revenue for us while in full-rate production. The only related update I can share right now is that our Texas group is in the process of moving to a larger facility, one that will be able to support the production for this system. For those that want to understand more about this system and why our camera is making such a big difference, I would suggest searching online for the term Quad Star and Lockheed Martin. Lockheed names their missile Quad Star. There is a long and detailed article that describes fairly well why Lockheed's solution can achieve better distance and overall performance due to LightPath's camera system integrated in the missile.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Additionally, we also have programs such as the Apache program, which we delivered our subsystem recently and is now being integrated for testing by the customer. We have some programs related to Golden Dome, which are in the design phase. We have another program which is really unnamed, and I mentioned in the last call, is a key BlackDiamond material program in which the customer is actually funding equipment dedicated for that program. I can't say much about it, unfortunately. What is common to all these programs is that we believe each and every one of them could reach over $10 million of recurring revenue a year. Some of them, like the NGSRI, much more. All of those are specific programs or projects, but we also have our assemblies and optics product offering.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

The assemblies business includes standard and custom design of lens assemblies that customers integrate into their own cameras or systems. Part of this business is growing too, especially assemblies that are designed to replace existing assemblies that utilize germanium in one or more lenses. LightPath has a portfolio of lens assemblies designed so they can be used with other cameras. Those could be cameras made by FLIR, SICK Thermal, DRS, or pretty much any thermal camera manufacturer. In particular, we are seeing a growing demand for assemblies and also complete cameras for use in drones. A bit of background. Following the COVID pandemic, China emerged as a strong player in the market for low-cost thermal cameras used in applications such as drones. This is as a result of their significant state investment in technologies related to contactless temperature measurement, which are really the same technologies used in thermal imaging.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

While for a while, after 2021 or so, it looked like Chinese vendors might become the main source for cameras for drones, geopolitics, however, has been changing that. Ukraine, for example, has decided a while ago that it will no longer use cameras or lens assemblies made in China in their drones. The U.S., Europe, and the U.S. have followed shortly after with different initiatives for domestic drone and component manufacturing. LightPath designs and produces its lens assemblies in Orlando. In recent months, we have made investments in those capabilities, both in the U.S. and our Riga operation, which is a certified defense manufacturer in Europe. To further support the focus on those assemblies and the drone market, we have done two things. First, we've recruited Dr. Steve Milkey as VP of Engineering.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

The Engineering discipline, which focuses on the successful transition of new products into manufacturing and high-volume manufacturing of these products, is key to LightPath's scaling in this business. Dr. Milkey brings many years of experience in doing exactly that, and we view his addition as instrumental in this effort to scale this manufacturing. Secondly, and pretty excitingly, to finance many of those efforts, we had received a strategic investment from two leading companies in our industry, Ondas Holdings and Unusual Machines. These companies are not only key strategic customers to LightPath, they're also leading the charge in setting up manufacturing and the complete ecosystem for drones and all components and subsystems required for this in the U.S. and the West. What LightPath is doing in bringing manufacturing of thermal imaging to the U.S., Ondas and Unusual Machines are doing with drone motors, complete drones, and much more than that.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

We're excited to be working with them and take part in building the future drone infrastructure for the U.S. and Europe. The $8 million investment received from Ondas and Unusual Machines will go towards expanding these efforts. I expect these efforts to be very fruitful for all three companies and the industry as a whole. I firmly believe LightPath is poised for great success in the coming years. The 41% quarter-over-quarter growth we just announced for Q4 and the $90 million backlog is only the beginning. There are many tailwinds supporting our growth and the investments and efforts the team has made over the last five years, many of which are just starting to show. Our future is very bright, and we're excited to be here and to see it all unfold.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Now I've spoken enough, so I'll pass it on to our CFO, Al Miranda, to talk about fourth quarter and fiscal year-end results. Please go ahead, Al.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

Thank you, Sam. I will keep my review to a succinct highlight of the financials this quarter. As a reminder, much of the information we're discussing during this call was also included in our press release issued earlier today and will be included in the 10-K for the period. I encourage you to visit our investor relations webpage to access these documents. Revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 increased 41.4% to $12.2 million as compared to $8.6 million in the same year-ago quarter. Sales of infrared components were $4.9 million, or 40% of the company consolidated revenue. Revenue from visible components was $2.8 million, or 23.2% of consolidated revenue.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

Revenue from assemblies and modules were $4.2 million, or 34.1% of consolidated revenue. Revenue from engineering services was $0.3 million, or 2.1% of consolidated revenue. Gross profit increased 6.6% to $2.7 million, or 22% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2025 as compared to $2.5 million, or 29.2% of total revenues in the same quarter of the prior fiscal year. Difference in gross margin as a percentage of revenue was primarily due to an approximately half a million dollar increase in inventory reserve charges recorded in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, primarily related to our visible component business. Operating expenses increased 52% to $7.2 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 as compared to $4.7 million in the same quarter of the prior fiscal year.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

This increase was due to the integration of G5 Infrared following its acquisition earlier, as well as increased sales and marketing spend to promote new products, an increase in material spend for internally funded new product development, and an increase in the fair value of the acquisition liabilities of $1.4 million. The earnout liability for the G5 acquisition will continue to be adjusted until it is paid out. Net loss in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 totaled $7.1 million, or $0.16 per basic and diluted share, as compared to $2.4 million, or $0.06 per basic and diluted share in the same quarter of the prior fiscal year. Change in net loss was driven by an increase in certain non-cash, non-operating expenses associated with the acquisition of G5 Infrared and the related financing of the acquisition.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

Adjusted EBITDA loss for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 was $1.9 million compared to a loss of $1.1 million for the same period of the prior fiscal year. Although not perfect, we believe that adjusted EBITDA is a better indicator of core operating performance by excluding non-core and non-cash items. Cash and cash equivalents as of June 30, 2025 totaled $4.9 million as compared to $3.5 million as of June 30, 2024. As of June 30, 2025, total debt stood at $5 million and backlog totaled $37.4 million. As Sam noted, backlog has grown significantly since that time. I'd like to point out two significant activities we undertook during the fiscal year that we have not discussed. During the fiscal year, and especially in the fourth quarter, we migrated our global IT infrastructure to a new provider to bolster and meet the defense industry high-level security requirements.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

This was hugely important. Without the right local and global IT infrastructure, we would severely limit our opportunities in the defense industry. Second, we successfully integrated G5 into LightPath in six months, ahead of plan and below budget. I'd like to publicly acknowledge and thank the teams from both companies that worked together to make it happen. Everyone knows acquisitions live or die based on cultural fit and integration. Thanks again to the entire team. Looking forward, our focus for fiscal 2026 supports the business opportunities that Sam described. We have a detailed go-to-market strategy that we are funding to target revenues in key high-growth areas, some of which Sam mentioned. Our prior year investments in manufacturing are bearing fruit in terms of quality and on-time delivery. In the next year, I expect to see margin expansion as a result.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

With all of the interesting accounting around acquisitions, we will continue to report and focus on adjusted EBITDA in fiscal year 2026 as a helpful measure of financial success. Lastly, as Sam noted, subsequent to the quarter close, we announced an $8 million investment from Ondas Holdings and Unusual Machines. We are truly, truly fortunate with the quality of the existing investors in the company, and Ondas and Unusual Machines are not only a continuation of quality investors, but in addition, they're a great strategic fit for us. With that, I'll turn the call back to Sam for some closing remarks.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Thank you. As we look forward, we remain very focused on the transformation of LightPath. As Al was pointing out, we've been focusing on top-line growth, and followed by that, we will be focusing on margins and bottom line in the coming quarters.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

We expect to see significant growth continuing, and our investments in BlackDiamond and other differentiators bearing fruit. Since I've spoken quite a bit before, I'll use the rest of the time for questions and answers. I'll pass it back to the operator, please.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and the confirmation tone will indicate you're monitoring the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your headset before pressing the star keys. The first question comes from the line of Jason Schmidt with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Jaeson Schmidt
Jaeson Schmidt
Senior Research Analyst & Director - Research at Lake Street Capital

Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions. Just looking at the June quarter, how much did G5 contribute to in that quarter? I assume it's a big chunk of that backlog just given the significant wins you have in the pipeline, but can you break that out as well?

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

It was $4.2 million, Jason, was the G5 contribution to revenue.

Jaeson Schmidt
Jaeson Schmidt
Senior Research Analyst & Director - Research at Lake Street Capital

Okay, perfect. How much does it comprise of that $90 million in backlog?

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

I'd say two thirds of the backlog altogether is cameras and assemblies. I'm not sure if we have it broken down now by G5 or LightPath or rest of LightPath in that.

Jaeson Schmidt
Jaeson Schmidt
Senior Research Analyst & Director - Research at Lake Street Capital

Okay. Just a follow-up, I'll jump back into queue. Looking at the border security opportunity, obviously a big win with the second customer. Are you expecting to be sole sourced here?

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

I don't know what the third prime or third integrator is going to do, but we're definitely in a very, very unique position. I think I would not be surprised if we end up providing all the towers along the border.

Jaeson Schmidt
Jaeson Schmidt
Senior Research Analyst & Director - Research at Lake Street Capital

Okay, perfect. I'll jump back into queue. Thanks a lot, guys.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Thanks, Jason.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

Thanks, Jason.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Glen Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please proceed.

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

Hi, thanks for taking the question and congrats on the great transformation this company has gone under. Thanks, Sam, for laying out kind of an outline of that. One thing that stood out in your remarks that I wanted to just flesh out a little more was I think you said that you were rapidly expanding capacity in Visimid, and if I'm not mistaken, I think that's kind of the core technology that got you into the hunt for this Lockheed contract. Can you just go into what kind of signal you're sending with that? Is there some, you know, if you don't win the Lockheed, is there other work that you tend to pump through that? Just some points on that would be great.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Yeah, sure, definitely. Visimid, when we acquired them, were a small engineering firm, right? Less than 10 people in a very small space, very confined space where they were doing development. That's not conducive for any expansion or manufacturing. I mean, they'd been cramped already when we acquired them. In addition to NGSRI, we do all the development of our uncooled cameras at that location in Texas. They're not moving into a massive plant, maybe 10,000 square feet or so, but it will be enough both for the NGSRI and for all the non-Lockheed uncooled products. Optical gas imaging camera, drone cameras that we come out with, some of the Mantis work, and so on. There's much more going on in that facility than just the NGSRI.

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

Okay, great, helpful. Al, can you, if you add back the $500,000 you talked about in the inventory write-off, it's still gross margin would be down sequentially. I guess I think that's related to mix a little bit, but maybe can you confirm that? Is there any change to the margins within that mix within each category, like any significant changes?

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

No, in the quarter, we actually thought the mix was, let's say, typical. There's $0.5 million. I mentioned that because that's the single largest item, but there's a few other items. If I kind of do the math you're asking, that puts us around 29.7% gross margin if I adjust for that $0.5 million and a couple of other unusual one-time items.

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

Okay, that's helpful. On the OpEx, is this like on the SG&A side, is this the normal run right now, or was there any, you know, I know you're missing in marketing and stuff because you have a lot of stuff to sell, but is this the normal level or is there some?

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

No, it really isn't, Glenn. We had a lot of one-time expenses in the OpEx this quarter.

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

G5 Infrared.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

Yeah, to kind of ballpark it, G5 adds $1 million just, you know, for a full quarter in terms of their OpEx. Of course, we had M&A related expenses with the lawyers. IT.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

In order for us to level up in cybersecurity, we had significant IT costs. We spent a little bit on marketing. We'll do some more of that actually going forward. There are quite a few items in there in the quarter that are one-time.

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

Okay, great. That's very helpful. I'll jump back into queue.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Thanks again, Jason.

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

Thanks, Ben.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Richard Shannon with Craig Hallum. Please proceed.

Richard Shannon
Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Thank you, Sam and Al, for letting me take some questions and congratulations on a really nice running start here with G5. I guess I want to ask the first question just to get a definition down here in backlog. A lot of companies report it as of the end of the prior quarter end, as well as usually report it on an outgoing out one year. It seems like that may not be the case here. I'd love for you to clarify what, you know, where is that measured and over what period that measures, please.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

Great question. Backlog is a real order. It's a real order from a, you know, a real customer. There's no forecasting in there. Real order 100%. In our case, we do accept orders that are multiple years, right? The $90 million Sam mentioned is more than one year. About 60% of that, 57% of that, somewhere in that neighborhood, is going to ship in fiscal year 2026. The balance of it is in fiscal year 2027, and maybe even a little bit might spill over into fiscal year 2028. For us, that is a bit unique because in the history of LightPath, we've not had that long lead items that we know that orders are coming, but it's also a bit of the nature of the defense business, right?

Richard Shannon
Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Yep, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying that, Al. Now let's look forward here on the pipeline and see if you did a good job explaining some of the opportunities here. Maybe you can talk about big picture, what kind of, how's the size of the pipeline here as you've added to G5 here? Obviously, you've done a really good job converting a lot of it to backlog, but I'm wondering what the remaining pipeline looks like, especially as you mentioned the big beautiful bill that's offered some opportunities you've won, but also sitting out there from the big beautiful bill in other places. How would you quantify that, if any?

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Yeah, I'd say like counter-UAS, I think we're just beginning. $10 million plus whatever part of that $14 million, you know, that is really just starting. Because the deployment of those systems is just starting, I think every event like what happened in the airports in Europe over the last few days and things like that accelerates all of this. I'd say most of the $40 million, that order of $40 million, we weren't planning or budgeting for most of it. It's all pretty much gravy on top of numbers we talked about in the past for the long term. I'd say, you know, expecting still quite a bit of growth.

Richard Shannon
Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Okay, fair enough. Let me ask a question on gross margins and taking two comments from, I think, both of your earlier remarks in response to one of the questions here to try to get a sense here. Sounds like from Al Miranda's comments here, talking about maybe focusing on gross margins in a little bit of time, more focused on revenue growth today. I think if I heard you correctly, you think your gross margins, excluding some unusual or more one-time dynamics, could be close to 30% here. What are the dynamics under which and timeframe for which we see this gross margin improvement? What are your goals here? Obviously, getting another quarter underneath your belt with G5 Infrared and then also expanding capacity and other things like that. Where do we think we can go with this in the next couple of years?

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

Right now on an adjusted basis, as I just said, last question, we're pretty close to 30. I think we can step up to 35 pretty quickly in a quarter or two. In the longer run, as the product mix really does shift to these larger finished infrared camera systems, we're thinking 40% is where it would settle out in the midterm.

Richard Shannon
Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Okay, perfect. Actually, you know what, I'll ask one last quick question here, Sam. I know you didn't want to, you said you didn't want to talk much about Lockheed, but I will ask a question that since you put it in your press release last quarter about expecting a decision perhaps this year or early next, is that timeframe no longer valid or you're not making a comment?

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Just want to make sure about that one. Thank you.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

I can't comment beyond what we spoke about. Formally, the program will be decided by next fall. Realistically, we get indications that it might be much sooner, you know, this year still, January, February maybe, but we really don't know that much. We need to be very cautious also on what we share, unfortunately. Certainly understood, and I appreciate the detail, guys.

Richard Shannon
Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Thanks. That's all for me.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Scott Buck with HC Wainwright. Please proceed.

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

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Sam, I'm curious, you guys call out, you know, the active redesign of some of G5's product line. What kind of lift is that, and what's the timeline look around that?

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

It can vary quite a bit. I mean, we expect another one or two cameras to be redesigned or move forward in the next two, three months, probably. After that, it gets a bit more complicated. The really large ones, complex, very long-range ones take obviously much, much more effort. We're trying to throw more resources at it to accelerate it. We've taken equipment from production to dedicate it also for prototyping so that we can quickly turn it in. It's not an acute thing because we have at G5 Infrared and LightPath Technologies enough materials and access to enough materials right now to deliver what we need. It is more that, you know, we understand how uniquely it positions us.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

We're seeing an overwhelming positive response from customers for the first two that we announced that we understand that doing more will, you know, possibly drive much more business to us.

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

That's helpful. Now, does it change the way you're able to sell some of these products in the near term?

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

I don't know. In what way do you mean?

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

In terms of if it's going to take months to redesign some of these to take it out of the product catalog here in the near term.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

No, no, we can still deliver the products, these new versions, if you would. We are seeing customers already placing orders for them before we produce even one of them. Just telling customers we're doing that and we will have a germanium-free version is driving some orders.

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

Okay, perfect. That's helpful. The second question I had, the $40 million or so that you've announced with the leading global technology customer, I'm curious, was any revenue expectation from this customer within the initial kind of $55 million of annual revenue you laid out at the time of the acquisition?

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

When we did our due diligence, we thought this customer would be around $9 million on a run rate per year. It's more than twice that now.

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

Okay, there's incremental revenue in there and meaningful incremental revenue at the end.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

Yeah, prior to that, that particular customer did about $4 million with G5 Infrared before we were in the picture.

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

Okay, perfect. I appreciate the added color, guys. Thanks a lot.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Brian Kinslinger with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
MD, Director - Research & Head - Technology Research at Alliance Global Partners

Great, thanks so much for taking my questions and congrats on the recent wins. If I take 60% of the $90 million backlog, suggests we've already got about $54 million of revenue in hand, roughly plus or minus for next year. I'm wondering, is the company adjusted EBITDA profitable on that? Is 5% a reasonable target, plus or minus? As you think about profit, is that more of a second half of the year event, or do you think you're already at that run rate starting next year to generate profits?

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

If I look at the consensus, I would say that at this point, the consensus on revenue would have to be raised by about 10%. Right? If you look back at where we were three months ago, you know, or four months ago when we had this discussion, from that, we do get some uplift. Obviously, we get uplift in gross margin, and we do get uplift in EBITDA. I would expect that we would be positive on that higher level of revenue.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
MD, Director - Research & Head - Technology Research at Alliance Global Partners

Based on the gross margin comments, that's going to take some quarters to get to 35%. Maybe that's a second half of the year event, not first?

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

Yep, that's exactly right.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
MD, Director - Research & Head - Technology Research at Alliance Global Partners

Great. That brings me to my second question, because in the backlog, you said you didn't separate it out to one of the previous questions by the companies. Remind us, the first tranche of what you call the first 12-month earnout, revenue and EBITDA targets. I assume you'll eventually have to split it out. Your thoughts on both the EBITDA and revenue targets and ability to meet it. Obviously, revenue seems likely, but I'm curious about more on the EBITDA side.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

Yep. I thought the question was cameras and assemblies. We didn't break it out by product line. We know exactly what G5's backlog is, obviously. Right, right. To refresh your memory, it was $21 million in revenue, always with 20% EBITDA. It was $21, $23, $25, and $27 million. Those are the earnout targets for them. We're watching that pretty closely. Obviously, the backlog, backorder for them indicates they'll hit that first mark. We're actually pleased, I guess you could say, that we're going to end up giving them more earnout than we expected to, but with the caveat that they've got to deliver that 20% EBITDA as well to go with.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
MD, Director - Research & Head - Technology Research at Alliance Global Partners

Right. That seemed to be the only uncertain piece, if that'll happen or not, it sounds like.

Albert Miranda
Albert Miranda
CFO at LightPath

That's correct.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
MD, Director - Research & Head - Technology Research at Alliance Global Partners

Yeah, okay. Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have concluded our Q&A session, and I'd like to turn the call back to Sam Rubin for closing remarks.

Sam Rubin
Sam Rubin
President, CEO & Director at LightPath

Thank you. We appreciate everyone's interest and patience as we've been going through this transformation. I can definitely say now with confidence that we're well at an inflection point and are very pleased with where we are. We expect to see this translate to gross margins and bottom line, at least cash flow, very soon, as well as continued growth in the top line. I look forward to reporting again in a few weeks for our first fiscal quarter and wish everyone a good day.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.

Analysts
    • Sam Rubin
      President, CEO & Director at LightPath
    • Albert Miranda
      CFO at LightPath
    • Jaeson Schmidt
      Senior Research Analyst & Director - Research at Lake Street Capital
    • Glenn Mattson
      MD - Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc
    • Richard Shannon
      Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC
    • Scott Buck
      MD & Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC
    • Brian Kinstlinger
      MD, Director - Research & Head - Technology Research at Alliance Global Partners
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