Unusual Machines Q1 2026 Earnings Report

Unusual Machines EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.21
• Consensus EPS: $0.36
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.15
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Unusual Machines Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $8.10 million
• Expected Revenue: $5.54 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$2.56 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Unusual Machines Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 5/14/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 14, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

Unusual Machines (NYSEAMERICAN:UMAC) designs, manufactures, and sells ultra-low latency video goggles for drone pilots. It operates a drone-focused e-commerce marketplace. The company serves drone pilots, hobbyists, and recreational services. The company was formerly known as AerocarveUS Corporation and changed its name to Unusual Machines, Inc. in July 2022. Unusual Machines, Inc. was incorporated in 2019 and is based in Orlando, Florida.

Unusual Machines Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Q1 revenue surged to $8.1 million, up 296% year over year and 65% sequentially, marking the company’s eighth straight record-revenue quarter.
• Positive Sentiment: The company reported $10.3 million in net profit for the quarter and said it remained profitable even after excluding unrealized gains.
• Neutral Sentiment: Unusual Machines expanded aggressively, increasing headcount from 81 to 141 during the quarter and adding shifts at its motor and assembly lines, while still posting a 32.8% gross margin.
• Positive Sentiment: Management said the balance sheet is exceptionally strong after raising $150 million in a public offering, bringing total working capital to about $320 million to support inventory and capacity buildout.
• Positive Sentiment: The company is leaning into future growth with a $52 million acquisition of Upgrade Energy to accelerate its battery strategy, which management expects to expand margins and position Unusual Machines for emerging drone delivery demand.

Presentation

[Operator]

Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Christine Petraglia, investor relations for Unusual Machines.

[Christine Petraglia, Head of Investor Relations at Unusual Machines]

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. With us today are Unusual Machines CEO, Allan Evans, and CFO, Brian Hoff. During this call, management will make forward-looking statements, including statements that are expectations concerning the demand for our products, our ability to manage this demand, the growth of our operations, our business, and our revenues, the growth of the NDAA compliant drone market,

[Christine Petraglia, Head of Investor Relations at Unusual Machines]

Our anticipated growth margins and future costs, our plans to scale manufacturing capacity, including the timing and success of new production lines for motors, batteries, cameras, and headsets, our battery manufacturer acquisition, our ability to achieve cash flow positive operations in the future, and expected 2027 FAA rulemaking. The results expected by some or all of these forward-looking statements may not occur.

[Christine Petraglia, Head of Investor Relations at Unusual Machines]

Factors that affect our ability to achieve these results, including the risks that enough of our customers receive orders under the Drone Dominance program or other government programs, and in turn place component orders with us, as well as potential funding reductions, program delays, or changes in procurement priorities. Our dependence on a limited number of enterprise customers and the risk of customer concentration, the risks that our inventory buildup will become obsolete or that we cannot sell such inventory at reasonable margins.

[Christine Petraglia, Head of Investor Relations at Unusual Machines]

Our ability to manage our rapid growth, including integrating new employees and maintaining quality control, risks relating to manufacturing bugs, delays, or failure to achieve anticipated production efficiencies, the availability of satisfactory labor pool to meet our planned growth, potential supply chain disruptions or component shortages.

[Christine Petraglia, Head of Investor Relations at Unusual Machines]

The impact also from tariffs, including inflation and increased costs of goods sold, the risk that our automated production equipment may not be operational on the anticipated timeline, unanticipated audit issues relating to Upgrade Energy, technical or political risks that may affect FAA rulemaking, and the risk factors contained in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2025.

[Christine Petraglia, Head of Investor Relations at Unusual Machines]

Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time. It's not possible for us to predict all of them. Any forward-looking statement made by us herein speaks only as of the date of which it is made. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

[Christine Petraglia, Head of Investor Relations at Unusual Machines]

As a reminder, this call is being recorded and a replay will be available on Unusual Machines website at www.unusualmachines.com. Now, let me hand the call over to CEO, Allan Evans. Please go ahead, Allan.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Thank you, Christine. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. I apologize if I'm a little bit hoarse. I've been at the trade show AUVSI all week, and I'm talking to a lot of people. Anyway, during this call, I will discuss our Q1 2026 performance. In Q1, we generated approximately $8.1 million in operating revenue.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

This is a 296% year-over-year growth from the Q1 of 2025, and a 65% increase from the revenue generated in the Q4 of 2025. In addition, we generated $10.3 million in net profit for the quarter.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

What's really key here is even if you remove from that $10.3 million in net profit, the unrealized gains, if we exclude them, we still ended up being profitable. We've also really dramatically increased revenue for the Q1. The Q1 results just start to show the dramatic growth that we're at the early stages of. Every single business indicator that we're seeing is pointing to growth.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

We were able to jump from $4.9 million in revenue just a quarter ago to $8.1 million in revenue this quarter. That's without the benefit of Christmas driving high consumer demand. We've increased our headcount from 81 employees to 141 employees across the quarter. We continue to grow the team as we move forward.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

We saw the expected drop in margins as we added all these new employees, and the team did a really good job, and we managed to still hit a 32% gross margin, which is a little bit above where we expected to be. All of these trends that we've seen in the Q1 are continuing through now, and we're still scaling as fast as we can to meet the needs of the marketplace.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

In the Q1, we were able to really secure our war chest to be sure that we can manage the working capital and finance this growth, which normally requires some cash in front of seeing the revenue returns. We raised $150 million at $17 a share in a confidentially marketed public offering.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

We now have about $320 million in total working capital, which puts us in a very strong position. We very recently entered into an agreement to purchase Upgrade Energy, that's a total of just over $50 million in a blend of cash and stock. That's there to accelerate our battery ambitions and bring a new product category to market faster. It's, I think, really important in all of this to remember that we're not seeing this growth by burning cash.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

This money remains in our war chest, remains in our bank accounts, and can be used to really foster and turn over the growth rather than just to fund operations. The Q1 was our eighth consecutive quarter with record revenues. Since going public, we've never had a quarter where revenue has gone backward, and we don't expect to have one anytime soon.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

This sort of constant success is just not possible without our entire team putting in a lot of really great work. Everyone is working hard, bringing just fantastic energy to all the different challenges we face as we go through this. I'm confident that we can continue to handle this really fast rate of growth because I'm confident in the team and in each person doing the job that they're doing.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I very much have the pleasure with and do wanna say thank you to everyone working at Unusual Machines for continuing to make this possible. I'll now hand this off to our CFO, Brian Hoff, to cover our financial results in detail. Once he finishes, I'll go into more detail on our going forward plans. With that, I'm handing the call off to our CFO, Brian Hoff.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

Thank you, Allan, and thank you everyone for joining the call this afternoon. I'm excited to share our Q1 results with you all. As we discussed during our year-end results, we had a lot of momentum entering the year. Our Q1 results reflect that momentum, and we continue to expect to continue that for the remainder of 2026. With that, let's dig in.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

Revenue was $8.1 million for the Q1, which Allan noted as approximately 296% growth from Q1 of last year, and 65% quarter-over-quarter growth from Q4 2025. As we left 2025, we felt that momentum and demand coming online, and this quarter is just the start of the demand curve.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

Our Q1 revenue mix was approximately 90% enterprise and 10% retail, with a healthy mix of customers and product and little significant concentration. Gross margin for the quarter ended at 32.8% for the quarter, which is as we said, is a slight decrease from the trend over the last few quarters.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

However, we anticipated this as we are continuing to scale as fast as possible, which included significantly increasing our manufacturing staff by adding a third shift to our motor line, a second shift to our assembly line, and our total headcount increased from 81 to 141, and we're coming close to crossing over that 200 employee threshold today. This is another indicator of the continual demand increase we're seeing and trying to capture.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

While we anticipate margins will have some fluctuation throughout 2026, we are making decisions to grow operations and be in a position to deliver on the demand throughout the year and headed into 2027. We are continuing to see our yield rates on manufacturing lines improve as we become more efficient and trained in this process. Jumping to operating expenses, these also increased during the quarter to $9.9 million for Q1 of 2026.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

These expenses were specific decisions to continue to enable our growth. This includes building out our G&A infrastructure, including headcount, systems, and process build-out. We may see some additional growth in the short term in these costs. However, we will gain some efficiencies as we continue to scale revenue, and our operating expenses will grow at a slower rate.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

In addition, this includes two additional facilities that commenced during the quarter, which is our headset facility and kinda in our corporate office. Included in the $9.9 million figure also includes cash, non-cash-related expenses of approximately $4 million and other non-recurring expenses of about $1.7 million. I'd reference the tables in the back of our shareholder letter for the additional detail around that. In other income and expense, we had very positive results from our investments.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

These investments, which are designed for a strategic purpose, creating goodwill in the U.S. drone industry and also create supplier partnerships and customer relationships, our strategy is working, and we have received orders from some of these investments as well.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

The results include a $7.3 million realized gain from investments, which is a nice add-on to our overall cash balance without any additional dilution. We also had additional unrealized gains of approximately $9.5 million and interest income of about $0.8 million. Our balance sheet is strong and shows our continual view of being able to grow into the demand. We have a significant cash balance of approximately $223 million after our public offering in March, which netted about $139 million after expenses.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

Our short-term investments are continuing to prove strong from a financial perspective and strategic partnering industry with a balance of over $60 million. Our inventory, including raw materials, finished goods, and deposits paid, are approximately $27.4 million.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

You're going to see this to continue to increase in Q2 and Q3 as we make significant purchase to meet the demand and do our part in managing supply chain issues as best as possible. Our total working capital is approximately $320 million, which puts us in a great position to capitalize on the demand moving forward. I'd also like to reiterate what Allan said.

[Brian Hoff, CFO at Unusual Machines]

None of this is possible without a fantastic team working extremely hard to make things move, and very quickly. It is an exciting time to be at Unusual Machines and looking forward to the year ahead. Thank you to our shareholders and partners in continuing to support our mission throughout this all. Send it back to you, Allan.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Thanks, Brian. What can I say about the year so far? A lot has changed in the seven weeks since we discussed last year's results on a previous earnings call. We keep scaling both sales and company size. We raised $150 million at $17 a share, then subsequently placed $75 million in raw material orders and signed a definitive agreement to buy Upgrade Energy to really jumpstart our entire battery position.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

We continue to be extremely well-positioned as a supply chain leader for components for small drones in the U.S. We have the capital to execute and have been growing while maintaining profitability. I'm gonna go into more detail now, but want everyone on the call to note that my following comments are forward-looking and in no way guaranteed. From our perspective, demand remains on track.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

The current marketplace remains severely supply constrained, and we still see demand outstripping supply this year and deep into 2027. We're continuing to build the company and procure raw material to grow into this demand as fast as we possibly can, and we don't anticipate slowing down any time in 2026. The primary driver of this growth, it continues to be the Department of War. For example, the Drone Dominance Gauntlet program is one purchasing group, and that remains on track.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

They announced the timing for phase II, as well as reiterated the commitment to buying 60,000 more drones in the second half of 2026. They even were smart enough to put it before the end of the government fiscal year so that everything will be done, and isn't subject to delays that could be caused by continuing resolution.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

When you look out a little further at future demand, the proposed budget for the Department of War, it has a 50% increase. They're talking about $1.5 trillion. I think even more interesting is the dramatic increase in the proposed budget for the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, DAWG, moving it to a little over $50 billion, which is really the drone-focused government procurement budget.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Department of War, as an end customer, has really strong sourcing requirements with a preference for U.S. supply chains and is really the initial force behind driving this demand, relentless demand cycle. In addition to these drone programs, you're seeing counter-drone programs that are really starting to materialize, and that's becoming an emergent addressable market segment.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I think a very good example of what we're seeing there is real orders and partnerships with our first order coming, Powerus, who's one of the companies we invested in. That's really pushing an even additional category to create this demand. Given this overwhelming demand environment, we're trying to scale as fast as we possibly can to provide our customers with the parts they need to sell into the Defense Department or the Department of War.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

To facilitate this, in April, we placed over $75 million worth of raw materials in order to build out motors and other products. We scaled from 81 employees at the end of 2025 to about 200 employees today.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

We're definitely adding team members, and we're continuing to add shifts and facilities to deliver the just the raw material or the subsystems that our customers need. In addition, and I think very interestingly, we recently announced the merger agreement with Upgrade Energy for the total purchase price of $52 million. The purchase is almost a 50/50 blend of stock and cash, with half of the purchase price up front and the rest being earned out.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Upgrade Energy did just over $6 million worth of revenue. This is unaudited, so, you know, it, as we go through the audit, it may change, in 2025, and that was in their old facility in El Segundo, California. They very recently moved into a new 18,000 sq ft facility, much larger, in Torrance, California, and I think we're really gonna see that ramp quite quickly.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I'm personally very excited to work with Matt Barnard, the owner of Upgrade Energy and CEO, as he joins the team, and really their entire team. They built a really strong brand in the battery business. They have some patented, protected technology that works in production at scale. Our ability to work right away with them and to do it at scale is gonna let us drive, I think, very quick growth in the battery category.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I own now the entire powertrain, from the battery to the motor controllers through to the motors, to build that whole lift platform. What I think people might not yet realize is that the purchase and the choice to go do batteries, it's not necessarily a right now choice.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

It's a strategic choice for what we see as the emerging markets that come next, even more than it is just another SKU in our offerings. We expect the FAA to enable the legislative framework that people are calling Part 108. It should really open up new activities like drone delivery in mid to late 2027. Defense or attritable drones or one-way drones, whatever you wanna call them, they typically only have one-to-two batteries per drone.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

On the other hand, delivery drones, because they'll go up and down and up and down and up and down, and they'll need to change batteries every time as the batteries recharge, are expected to have about 10 batteries per drone.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

This purchase and our subsequently planned build-out in Florida for batteries is gonna let us get ahead of the supply chain in this problem to really be in a place to do what is a very large battery-to-drone ratio TAM for what we see as the FAA-enabled market segment that we expect to materialize in 12 to 18 months.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Not only is it revenue right now with a team we like and people with the same attitude, but it also positions us, I think, to capture a large chunk of the value in the emerging market that the FAA is gonna open up. Just a quick summary. Q1 of 2026 is everything working well, kind of working the way we planned it. We're rapidly scaling. Our revenues grew above $8 million.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

We were able to report a profit, so we're not losing money in doing this. While our operations are not yet independently profitable, you know, we had about a $1.5 million-$1.6 million loss just from operations in terms of cash if you subtract out equity comp. Our business as a whole is profitable. We were able to raise more money, quickly put that money to work into our supply chain and really drive what we see as a transformative acquisition with the Upgrade Energy merger.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Unusual Machines remains at the forefront of the domestic components market, and the market is continuing to really see this extreme growth. We're well-capitalized. We're extremely healthy. We have the infrastructure to continue to scale, and we're just gonna continue to grow as fast as we possibly can.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

You know, I am just completely overwhelmingly confident that our team can meet the demand that exists right now. I want to say thank you again to our entire staff and all of our shareholders and all of our customers. With that, I'd like to open up the call to questions.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. We'll now be conducting our question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your phone keypad now. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For any participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before you press the keys. Please wait a moment whilst we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Craig Irwin of ROTH Capital. Craig, your line is live.

[Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital]

Good evening, and thank you for taking my question. Allan, at AUVSI, it was really obvious, talking to many of your customers, many of the other drone producers there's no shortage on demand. There is an intense demand in the market, and people want credible supply. Your customers are lining up to be as credible as possible to the end agencies, particularly the military.

[Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital]

You, you highlighted delivery as, as a market, and they are also talking about that. The biggest constraining factor right now is from what many of them represent capacity. You know, you've gone from 81 employees to over 200 today. You added a third shift to motors. You added a second shift to assembly.

[Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital]

Can you maybe unpack for us, how much of your time is going into capacity planning? The, you know, the $75 million pre-purchase on raw materials is obviously, you know, a big commitment to that capacity or that execution capacity. But, you know, actual, you know, employees, infrastructure, you know, seats and workstations, new products. You know, you've got camera products and battery products and all sorts of, you know, new things coming in. How important is managing this to you right now?

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Craig, I appreciate the question. I think when you look at a hardware company and the inventory flow, managing the capacity and being sure that you get utilization but also don't create backlog in this growth period is my most important job. Capacity really breaks down into three different things that we need for it. The longest lead time thing is the raw material. It's also the most expensive.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

When we place raw material orders like we just did, you know, you're looking at first deliveries are at least four months out. You're probably not material complete, which is when you have all the material to make a thing for maybe six months, and then you can start to convert that raw material into finished sub-assemblies.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

What we're seeing is because we're becoming a more and more globally significant buyer from these non-Chinese supply chains, is that while we do get a little bit of scaling function, we also get, "Oh, oh goodness, we have to go help our suppliers scale to meet our demand." You know, they also have to scale up. When you see what we're doing for capacity management, step 1, get material in the door so we can transform it.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Step two is, you know, get facilities. If you look, we're regularly adding a new building here or a new, adding on to a building there. We're going through that, and we're very active in that process in what is our Orlando campus. Once you get the building in place, then you have a place to put the equipment and the people.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

We see that process typically shows up, three or four months in front of being able to start to produce things. Raw material, let's call it six months, facilities and the capital equipment, maybe three to four months, and then the people really come in one or two beforehand and drive it. You're watching us stage this for material, facilities, people. You know, every time we've guessed and done something we thought was ambitious from a capacity perspective, we realized we weren't ambitious enough.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I think we continue to see that, and we have, you know, really great person running HR in Trish and a great HR team helping drive hiring and really great workforce management folks. Jay, our VP of supply chain, is doing a really good job with our buyers managing the incoming material.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Luckily, I don't have to do the job by myself. I think when you look at strategically in our business that capacity management, and more importantly, the inventory flow management and sort of that transformation is singularly the strategic focus of where we as a leadership team need to pay attention.

[Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital]

That makes complete sense. My second question is around the gross margins. When we were talking in the Q4, you know, you are obviously careful and cautious around gross margins. You, you know, bringing your motor manufacturing up and the other, you know, significant aggressive hiring to meet demand, you were cautious but optimistic. You know, this quarter your execution was strong, was better than what we were looking for.

[Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital]

That's with, you know, some substantial headcount additions. You know, your margins, you know, is it fair for us to see similar margin execution over the next couple quarters, given that you have a couple quarters here under your belt, where, you know, you're obviously managing the efficiency and the productivity of new employees?

[Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital]

You know, I can imagine that, people will become, you know, more productive, you know, given, you know, months and years of experience. You know, the gross margin trajectory I think is somewhat important, less important than revenue, but somewhat important, to, you know, the future profitability where, you know, many of us are looking several years out.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Yeah, no, you know, the team did a really good job of training and getting people on board, and I think being more efficient and sort of aspiring to be really good as a production engine. I think margins for the Q1 exceeded our internal expectations. I think where we're at, given where we performed is it's below the margins we'd like to see when it's a little more stable. You know, I think in this low 30% range, it seems like it's what we're doing. You know. The team's done a really good job on onboarding.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

If we can even hold here, and we can hold our material margins where we sort of like them so that we know that we have the room to hit our gross margin targets in the long run, I would feel really good about it. You know, there may be some movement around it up and down a little bit because it's not as important to us as being sure our customers get really high quality products that meet their demand.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

If we got in a batch of stuff that didn't meet our quality standards and we had a scrap rate or something that had a little bit of a negative impact on margins, we'd be okay with that to prioritize customer success.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

This feels, to me at least right now, sort of a really good spot and where I think we will strive to maintain as we continue through this growth cycle. I think if I was looking at it, you know, we did it through what I think is one of the harder transformations, which is crossing that 100 employee line, and we now have a lot of processes and training and things that are being built out that I think allow us to carry the success forward.

[Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital]

Okay. The last question, if I may. Many people know my approach is kind of to get around a little bit. When I met with the people from the FAA, I was teasing them. I was sitting around saying, "Guys, what's taking you so long? Manna Air Delivery in Ireland has already done 1 million deliveries. This is America. We're the technology leaders.

[Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital]

You're holding us back. What's going on." They were obviously pretty defensive, and they didn't really get the joke. When we had the conversation, the more extended conversation, they helped me understand that there's these outside influences that they would like to get their job done.

[Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital]

They really want to get Part 108, moving from, you know, waivers to permits, as far as the drone pilots and give people a clear line of sight. There's issues with the FCC and others trying to put their finger in the pie. You know, what do you think key issues are that you could outline for us for Part 108 over the course of the next year? I know you also had conversations with key people this week. You know, is there any update that you think or any framing that you think would be useful here for investors to understand?

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Sure. First, I think the FAA is doing a great job and has a very hard problem because manned aviation is extremely safe. You know, they got the airspace with all of us flying on the carriers, and they have to maintain that and also got to be sure drones don't fall out of the sky. They have this challenging problem to create a technology infrastructure that sort of still maintains this thing that they've done an amazing job with. I have a lot of appreciation for the difficulty of their problem. I think there are a couple of things that need to be really finalized for Part 108. The big one is what is called detect and avoid.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

When you allow drones to fly with one pilot controlling 20 drones or whatever, the skies start to have more things in them, what are the rules around how a drone, even without an operator, needs to see another drone, needs to see an airplane? What are the rules around how they dodge in the sky so that the onboard AIs prevent collisions? I think that's really one of the things where is it radio frequency? Is it cameras? Is it, you know, what.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

There's some, how good does it have to be? How is it tested? How do you qualify your drone so that it can fly? Because I don't think we should just let an unqualified drone, you know, fly across Manhattan, right? That's a high risk.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

They have to juggle a framework for innovation with sort of the regulatory and testing requirements necessary to be sure that those innovations are deployed in a way that's safe. I think they're really thinking about it. They're really smart. They have to collaborate with the FCC because of what if it's spectrum, just like, you know, self-driving cars, there's discussions around it too.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

They're on track, and I actually think they're doing a pretty good job, and I think they're dealing with the right problems. You know, that's my take on it, is everything looks like it's coming together in a very effective way, and I think we'll see it in a year.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Because we're down to the really that as the problem, detect and avoid, and a lot of the rest of it's been sort of addressed and agreed upon as a framework.

[Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital]

Great. Well, I like that. Congrats on a really strong quarter there.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Thanks, Craig.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. Our next question is coming from Josh Sullivan of JonesTrading. Josh, your line is live.

[Josh Sullivan, Analyst at JonesTrading]

Hey, good evening. Allan, did you say revenue should grow sequentially each quarter this year? Any reason that thought process wouldn't carry then into 2027 as now that you have the strategic inventory and order flow at hand?

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I mean, we've never gone backward. I don't see any reason why we would, right? Like, the market's growing. With the way that I see demand, I think if we don't see consistent growth, I mean, from quarter-to-quarter, this last quarter, I mean, this is, you know, full speed growth. It doesn't mean we won't see hiccups or things that might change the growth rate. Really, I think it's a pretty big fumble on our end if we don't manage to achieve that.

[Josh Sullivan, Analyst at JonesTrading]

With the Upgrade Energy acquisition and, you know, the positioning you're talking about around a drone powertrain platform, you know, as the commercial drone delivery market materializes, you know, next year or thereabouts, what do you think that battery-to-drone ratio looks like? What kind of business models could we see UMAC building around?

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

This is very much my personal opinion that I'll share with you, but I think the first delivery applications I really think are going to show up are food delivery. I think it's going to be DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub. If you look, that matches very much the same performance stuff as the Drone Dominance program, right? five pounds, 10 km, that sounds like a hamburger to me.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I see a lot of appeal to that because it's something that people want urgently. You can deliver by drone in a lot of cases less expensively than by a vehicle. I think people will pick it up because you don't have to tip the robot, and I think we do have some social tipping fatigue.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Assuming that's true, you're probably looking at 10 batteries per drone for active running, give or take, depending on the design. I mean, you know, we could argue over it all day, but that's a good approximation. If that's true, batteries only have about 500 cycles, so you're probably looking at 10 batteries per drone per year as the attachment rate. It actually becomes more of an ARR function on the hardware in that delivery cycle rather than the one-time sale.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I think that'll lead to some interesting business models and some interesting ability to say, "Okay, here's our recurring power base." Also importantly, I think that the batteries and the motors and the whole powertrain are going to be part of the certification process because if you have a power failure, you're going to need to understand how to detect it and have it land safely. In order to get certified to fly over people, there's going to be a lot more requirements than there are for combat drones that are designed to go crash and don't have the same sensitivities for mitigating accidents.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I think we're going to see a lot of the energy and the scale being put in the Gauntlet program, particularly for the larger vehicles, are going to lead to some really great airframes and some cost structures. You know, think $5,000 a drone that are going to be able to deliver hamburgers or, you know, pick whatever your favorite food is.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

For me, it's always burritos. Anyway, are going to be able to do those deliveries, and then I think you're going to see a battery ecosystem where the powertrain is going to have to be certified. We're setting up to position You know, if you walk through our factory, for instance, we don't do it right now.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

We do date codes on tracking our motors, but we have the ability to actually do full electrical characterization and individual serialization of every single motor if that's what the FAA requires, or track the amount of time the motor runs for swap out. Same with batteries, same with energy levels, and sort of all these things that you'd see in maybe a type certification process for a different kind of aircraft.

[Josh Sullivan, Analyst at JonesTrading]

Got it. Thank you. I'll leave it at those.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

No problem.

[Operator]

Thank you very much.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Thanks, Josh.

[Operator]

Our next question is coming from Austin Bohlig of Needham & Company. Austin, your line is live.

[Austin Bohlig, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Thanks, guys, for taking my question, and congrats on the great results. Allan, I was just curious with this battery acquisition, could you talk about how this changes, whether from like a revenue or kind of margin upside opportunity when it comes to the total content you guys are selling into Drone Dominance per drone?

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

For Drone Dominance, we were distributing their batteries. I don't think it really changes the total, like our partnership there has made us feel really good about this acquisition. It does mean that we'll get margin expansion. You know, I think on the batteries now, you'll see us move to that 40% gross margin, somewhere in there.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

'Cause again, we're not, we try to target that to be a fair and equitable supplier and not break downstream economics for everybody. For Drone Dominance, I think we'll see that element of expansion. I also think, you know, they were in a similar place where we are, where there's this overwhelming demand.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Now we're able to go work with Matt and with some of the battery cell suppliers and start to drive more battery volume because we have the credit terms and the cash balance to break or do a lot more of the forward-looking inventory purchases there as well to enable really fast battery capacity growth, where it would've been more constrained had we not decided to try to put these two companies together.

[Austin Bohlig, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay. How should we think about as you guys ramp throughout the end of the year, what operating expenditures should look like? I think you highlighted in the press release that the break-even point might now be a little bit higher. Just maybe trying to frame up how we should be thinking about that.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Yeah. I think it's really gonna come down to how much and how much faster we scale. I think the break-even point moves higher because we have more space, more people doing more stuff than we originally expected. I think with where we look, you know, at the end of Q1, we're starting to get to maybe a more normalized blend across our employee base of employee types.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I think you can look at operating expenses as probably being a headcount ratio to total expense that we saw in Q1, you know, if I'm estimating. What I think you're gonna see is the revenue generated per employee start to scale to push us past burning money. Maybe that's not the best answer on the planet for you, Austin, so I'm sorry if it's not.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I think we're moving to where our cost per person is pretty starting to stabilize. I think by the end of Q2, Q3, it'll really stabilize, and that we'll then see our ability to generate revenue per employee start to really expand as efficiencies increase.

[Austin Bohlig, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay. All right. Well, thank you guys for taking the questions. Best of luck the rest of the year.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

Thank you. Really appreciate it, Austin.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. Well, we appear to have reached the end of our question and answer session, and I will now hand back over to Allan for any closing remarks.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

No, again, everybody for listening, really appreciate it. Really appreciate all the support. I think without the investor community, without our customers, without, you know, people who are interested in believing us, we're not in a position to help onshore production and create these jobs and really be part of the transformation of the American drone ecosystem.

[Allan Evans, CEO at Unusual Machines]

I do want to say thank you. If people have questions or are interested, always reach out. You know, we try to be as transparent as possible and appreciate your continued interest and support.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful rest of the day. We thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Allan Evans, CEO
• Brian Hoff, CFO
• Christine Petraglia, Head of Investor Relations

Analysts

• Austin Bohlig, Analyst at Needham & Company
• Craig Irwin, Analyst at ROTH Capital
• Josh Sullivan, Analyst at JonesTrading