Aeluma Q4 2026 Earnings Report

Aeluma EPS Results

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

Aeluma Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $0.58 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Aeluma Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2026
• Date: 9/16/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Aeluma (NASDAQ:ALMU) is a semiconductor company that develops and manufactures high-performance components for communications, sensing, computing and other advanced technology applications. The company’s technology is designed to support the production of semiconductor devices on large-area and nontraditional substrates, with the goal of improving performance, scalability and integration.

Aeluma’s products and development efforts include photonic and optoelectronic components such as photodetectors and related devices used in optical communications, data centers, 3D sensing, artificial intelligence, aerospace and defense, automotive systems, and consumer electronics. Its platform is intended to address applications requiring high-speed signal transmission, optical sensing and advanced semiconductor integration.

Based in Goleta, California, Aeluma was established to commercialize semiconductor technologies developed through academic and research partnerships. The company serves customers and potential customers across multiple technology markets, including telecommunications, computing, automotive and defense, although the availability and commercialization stage of individual products may vary.

Aeluma Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Aeluma is prioritizing commercialization in AI datacom, focusing on its Lynx high-speed photodetectors and Quasar quantum-dot lasers for scale-up and scale-out data-center interconnects. Management cited strong anticipated industry demand and customer interest driven by photonics supply constraints.
• Positive Sentiment: The company signed an agreement with Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies to expand wafer-production capacity and plans to install multiple AIXTRON MOCVD systems, supporting higher-volume manufacturing of its non-indium-phosphide technologies.
• Positive Sentiment: Aeluma is negotiating several multimillion-dollar commercial NRE programs, primarily with top-tier AI-datacom customers. It also has a letter of intent for up to $30 million in CHIPS R&D funding, which management expects would accelerate commercialization, although the funding would likely be recorded as a government equity investment rather than revenue.
• Negative Sentiment: Fiscal 2026 revenue was $4.5 million, roughly flat year over year, while the GAAP net loss widened to $9.2 million from $3.0 million as headcount and operating expenses increased. Fiscal 2027 booked government-contract revenue is expected to be approximately $2.3 million, with additional revenue uncertain.
• Neutral Sentiment: Aeluma ended the year with $56 million in cash and no debt after raising $20.1 million through its ATM facility, but expects to spend approximately $10 million–$12 million in fiscal 2027 capital expenditures on MOCVD equipment and manufacturing scale-up.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Aeluma's Q4 fiscal year 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Moira Conlan, investor relations for Aeluma. Please go ahead.

[Moira Conlan, Investor Relations at Aeluma]

Good afternoon, and welcome to Aeluma's fourth quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call. I am here today with founder and CEO, Dr. Jonathan Klamkin, and CFO, Christopher Stewart. Today's discussions and responses to questions may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the earnings press release issued today, along with the reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These reports, along with today's earnings release and fourth quarter presentation that we will reference during this conference call, can be found under the investor section of our website. Aeluma assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this call.

[Moira Conlan, Investor Relations at Aeluma]

Throughout the discussion, the company will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, including EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is included in our earnings press release and SEC filings. Now I will turn the call over to Aeluma's CEO, Jonathan Klamkin.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

Thank you, Moira, and thank you all for joining today's call. We are delighted to share a recap of our fiscal 2026 and to provide an outlook on Aeluma's path to commercialization. The AI datacom market opportunity has continued to become a priority for us. Demand for high-performance photonics is at an all-time high, with data center CapEx investments expected to reach $1.8 trillion in 2030, according to Dell'Oro Group, of which approximately 10%-15% is for photonics. As illustrated in slide 4, we explicitly built our technology platform for this scale. Our proprietary heterogeneous integration with large diameter non-indium phosphide substrates combines high-performance materials with mass market microelectronics manufacturing.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

To capitalize on the AI opportunity, in fiscal 2026, we prioritized resources to accelerate development and commercialization of our high-speed photodetectors and quantum dot lasers, which are applicable across a broad range of data center connectivity, including slow and wide short-reach interconnects, fast and narrow interconnects, pluggable transceivers, near packaged optics or NPO, and co-packaged optics or CPO. Many traditional photonics components for data centers depend on indium phosphide substrates, which have become a bottleneck for suppliers and their customers. Aeluma's technologies are manufactured with non-indium phosphide substrates that may range in size from 150 millimeter or 6 inch to 200 millimeter and up to 300 millimeter. Aeluma's photodetector and laser technologies have undergone significant foundational development, thanks in part to non-dilutive government funding. We have always been selective in bidding on government contracts that are synergistic with our commercial ambitions.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

An example is a Navy program that commenced in fiscal 2024 to develop high-speed photodetectors for short-reach links, a technology that is highly relevant to slow and wide data center interconnects for scale-up AI workloads. This Navy program has transitioned successfully into a second phase to focus on higher speed operation and transceiver integration. We have also made considerable progress with customers evaluating our differentiated photonics platform, which eliminates the need for indium phosphide substrates, supports high volume manufacturing, and provides a path to CMOS wafer scale integration and packaging. These engagements have helped shape the development of our Lynx S Series photodetectors, which target data rates from a few gigabits per second to 64 gigabits per second. Based on customer discussions and market forecasts, we believe these applications represent a substantial volume opportunity as deployment scale in 2028 through 2030.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

To support fast and narrow 200 gigabits per second per lane and future 400 gigabits per second per lane for scale-out interconnects, we are developing our Lynx F Series photodetectors. This represents another significant potential opportunity in the growing AI datacom market. The non-dilutive government funding we secured played an important role in advancing our technology while also providing a potential long-term customer relationship with the U.S. Navy. As the AI datacom market accelerates and demand grows over the next several years, we have prioritized our resources on the commercialization of our high-speed photodetectors to capture this opportunity. Another example is funding from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and from NASA to advance our MOCVD quantum dot laser technology. Today, our data customers are evaluating our non-indium phosphide quantum dot lasers for high-temperature operation, reliability, and isolator-free packaging.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

Our Quasar family of quantum dot lasers, currently under development, aims to address the demand for high-power lasers in scale-up and scale-out networks. We believe we are uniquely positioned as the first company to offer quantum dot lasers using MOCVD, an industry standard for high throughput production. MOCVD, for example, is used exclusively for large volume VCSEL manufacturing for facial recognition in mobile phones. Given the scale of investment and projects already underway for data center build-outs, we are more commercially focused than ever before. We stated that fiscal 2026 would establish the foundation for transitioning to commercialization. We delivered on this objective by expanding our team, establishing manufacturing supply chain partners, bolstering cash, and focusing on our go-to-market strategy. At June 30, 2025, Aeluma had 14 employees. As of today, we have more than 30 employees and we plan to recruit additional talent to execute our strategic priorities.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

In June, we announced the appointment of Dr. Brendan Moran as VP of Engineering, whose distinguished career at Lumileds included leading product strategy and development for mobile photonics components that generated $300 million in annual revenue, eight consecutive design-ins for a high-profile mobile customer, and shipping of billions of photonics chips. Brendan is driving Aeluma's product development and commercialization efforts with an emphasis on photodetectors and lasers for AI datacom. Along with Dr. Willy Rachmady, Aeluma's VP of Strategic Partnerships and Ecosystem, and myself, Brendan is helping advance our engagements with customers and define technology and product development roadmaps. We believe our product-focused strategy will benefit our business and our shareholders. We also recently appointed Jason Taylor as Senior Director of Program and Project Management. Jason has nearly three decades of experience in program management at Intel, Kyocera, Lumileds, and other organizations.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

Jason is leading program management across Aeluma and is building out a program management system to ensure timely execution of priority programs, including high-speed photodetectors and quantum dot lasers for AI datacom. Such a system is key to delivering on our strategic priorities. I am also proud to welcome Dr. Pramit Parikh as a strategic advisor. Pramit was VP and GM of the gallium nitride business division at Renesas following the acquisition of Transphorm, Inc., a pioneer in gallium nitride power semiconductors that Pramit co-founded and led from inception through its public company listing and acquisition by Renesas. He also held leadership positions at Nitres, Inc. and Wolfspeed. Pramit's expertise spans several areas important to Aeluma, including high-performance semiconductors, AI data centers, manufacturing, IP strategy, and partnerships. He provides a strategic and operational perspective to Aeluma as we position the company for commercial growth.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

We are again adding more office and meeting space to support our growing team. While we continue to be stewards of capital, the time for making investments in growth is now. Moving through fiscal 2027 and beyond, we will be even more selective with government funding and more commercially focused. This may mean sacrificing near-term government contract revenue to focus resources toward achieving commercial revenue and growth opportunities, which is what matters in generating long-term shareholder value. In previous communications, we shared our intention to move away from early-stage government funding and instead focus on opportunities that accelerate manufacturing and commercialization. Consistent with that strategy, on July 29, we announced a letter of intent with the Department of Commerce CHIPS R&D office for up to $30 million to accelerate development and commercialization of our scalable photonics for AI and advanced computing.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

This is not for a specific Department of Defense or NASA or Department of Energy or other agency-driven application with technical metrics established by the government agency. For the Department of Commerce program, we proposed Aeluma's own vision. That is to build the world's highest performance photonics with scalable manufacturing, leveraging domestic capabilities and advanced intellectual property to overcome supply chain constraints and to meet the demand for critically important AI and advanced compute infrastructure investments. These themes have been central to Aeluma's strategy since our founding. The CHIPS initiative is aimed at supporting semiconductor innovation across integrated photonics, compute architectures, advanced packaging, substrates, materials, and memory for the AI and advanced compute supply chain. This strategic government investment could accelerate our development and commercialization efforts.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

On scaling, I am happy to announce that we recently executed an important agreement with Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies to strengthen our relationship, increase wafer production capacity, leveraging existing MOCVD tools that we can run our processes on, and provide a path for further increasing capacity in the future. We have been engaged with Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies for several years, and this new agreement will support commercialization efforts and will complement Aeluma's in-house capability. The initial focus of this effort is on high-speed photodetectors for AI Data Comm. For future scaling, we are procuring multiple AIXTRON G10-AsP MOCVD systems. These types of tools are already in use by major tier 1 photonics component manufacturers for lasers and other photonics components for AI Data Comm. Aeluma recently configured these tools to implement our proprietary non-indium phosphide substrate processes, and we are planning for installation.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

While our precise strategy is confidential, we have communicated our multi-pronged approach to leverage different non-indium phosphide substrate types and sizes to pair technology with market demand in the most economical and strategic way. As we shared on our Q3 earnings call, we work with several supply chain partners. These include both compound semiconductor fabs and silicon fabs, whose capabilities range from 150 millimeter fabrication to 200 millimeter and some up to 300 millimeter. For many of our target markets, 150 millimeter wafers, either gallium arsenide or silicon, are appropriate. Aeluma's use of non-indium phosphide substrates at this size and partnership with volume microelectronics foundries provides a path to scale and meet demand while overcoming supply chain constraints and winning on cost.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

Aeluma produces starting wafers in-house but also works with partners such as Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies for scaling, and we have recently strengthened this relationship with a new agreement. Following epitaxy wafer production, our proprietary wafers are sent to foundries and other supply chain partners and then returned to Aeluma for test and validation. Like other photonics IDMs or integrated device manufacturers, Aeluma has developed several key compound semiconductor technologies to address different uses and functions such as wavelength specifications and market applications. As illustrated in slide 5, while our technology platform is broadly applicable, our current commercialization focus is AI Data Comm. Referring to slide 6, we are leveraging our large diameter substrate platform to commercialize our Lynx high-speed photodetectors and our Quasar quantum dot laser technologies. Lynx is designed to address both scale-up and scale-out AI interconnects.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

Aeluma's non-indium phosphide platform is attractive to customers who need to overcome supply chain constraints and enable scaling with a roadmap for wafer scale integration with CMOS, which is key for the slow and wide scale-up AI interconnects. To cover the playing field, the Lynx F Series photodetectors are aimed at fast and narrow 224 and then 448 gigabits per second scale-out AI interconnects. Our MOCVD quantum dot technology is driving Quasar product development. Current laser technology for AI interconnects is based on indium phosphide. As we have continually messaged, indium phosphide substrates are in short supply, are small, expensive, and fragile. The indium phosphide manufacturing doesn't scale to large volumes. Investment in 6-inch indium phosphide are being made, but this will take time to qualify, and costs of 6-inch indium phosphide substrates are increasing.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

Also, indications are that 6-inch indium phosphide is not sufficient for the AI infrastructure build-out. Our Lynx effort is focused on 6-inch gallium arsenide manufacturing initially, but will also leverage larger diameter silicon manufacturing in the future to enable further scaling and direct integration with silicon photonics. Our MOCVD approach is key to supporting this roadmap. Looking forward to fiscal 2027 and beyond, our enthusiasm continues to grow. The AI Data Comm opportunity is driving our near-term product-focused commercialization efforts. In addition to prospective capital from the CHIPS program that is under definitive agreement negotiations, we are negotiating several multimillion-dollar NRE agreements with commercial customers. NRE programs with top-tier manufacturers are an effective way to accelerate qualification and commercialization. We are ramping activities with our supply chain partners, expanding MOCVD manufacturing capabilities, and will continue to build out our team to support commercialization.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

It is highly motivating to see Aeluma's vision come to life as we execute our go-to-market strategy and the demand for high-performance photonics grows at unprecedented rates. Now I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Chris Stewart, to discuss the financials.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

Thanks, Jonathan. Over the last year, the opportunity for Aeluma, particularly in the AI data center interconnect market, has really come into focus. Census projections for the size of the opportunity continue to increase dramatically. We hear from customers and partners that our technology is well-positioned to support an industry that is currently struggling to scale up to meet the demand. This year, we made significant progress towards commercialization, and I am confident in our team's ability to execute our strategy to capitalize on the opportunity. Now, I will review our fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2026 financial results. Revenue in Q4 was $582,000, resulting in total revenue of $4.5 million for the year, near the high end of the range we provided on our Q3 call. Revenue primarily reflects our government contracts, was approximately flat to the $4.7 million we reported for fiscal 2025.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

GAAP net loss for the fourth quarter was $4 million, or $0.22 per share. For the full fiscal year, net loss was $9.2 million, $0.52 per share, compared to a net loss of $3 million, $0.23 per share in fiscal 2025. Excluding stock-based compensation, adjusted net loss for the fourth quarter, $2.7 million or $0.15 per share. Adjusted net loss for the full fiscal year was $4.6 million or $0.26 per share, compared to an adjusted net loss of $116,000 or $0.01 per share in fiscal 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was negative $2.9 million for the quarter and negative $5.2 million for the year, compared to negative $911,000 last quarter, positive adjusted EBITDA of $186,000 in fiscal 2025. The greater net loss and lower adjusted EBITDA were primarily driven by increased headcount and other operating expenses.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

We closed the fourth quarter with a strong balance sheet, including $56 million in cash and cash equivalents, compared to $37.8 million at the close of the March quarter, $15.7 million at June 30, 2025. We continue to have no debt on our balance sheet. During the fourth quarter, we issued 830,484 shares under our ATM facility at an average price of $24.87, netting proceeds of $20.1 million. As you may recall, in March, we established a $50 million ATM facility to provide flexibility to raise capital, believe it is in the best interest of our shareholders. We believe that maintaining a strong balance sheet is critical to executing against the significant growth opportunity we see ahead, reinforcing our credibility with customers and partners. At the same time, we remain committed to operating in a disciplined manner. Now, I will provide some color on our outlook for fiscal 2027.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

Over the past several years, government R&D contracts have been a great source of non-dilutive funding for development and relationship building. While we will continue to execute on R&D programs that are aligned with our commercial direction, our focus in fiscal 2027 is on commercialization. We expect to recognize approximately $2.3 million in currently booked government contract revenue in fiscal 2027, with the potential for an additional $2 million from opportunities under discussion. As Jonathan mentioned, we are also in discussions with several prospective marquee customers regarding commercial NRE programs that may bring additional revenue in fiscal 2027. We are continuing to work through diligence and drafting of the definitive agreements related to our letter of intent with the Department of Commerce, CHIPS R&D office, for up to $30 million in funding.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

While the terms are not yet final, our current understanding is that if finalized, this award is likely to be accounted for as an equity investment in Aeluma by the U.S. government and not as revenue like our previous government R&D contracts. We are proud to have been selected for this high-profile program centered around the development and commercialization of our products for AI. We have always viewed the U.S. government as a strategic partner, and an investment in Aeluma could help accelerate our commercialization efforts. With respect to manufacturing, we are focused on expanding epitaxy wafer production capacity, Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies, qualifying our processes with additional supply chain partners, and expanding our capabilities through the purchase of the latest generation of MOCVD reactors test and validation tools. As such, we expect to make meaningful investments in fiscal 2027, anticipating capital expenditures of approximately $10 million-$12 million.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

These investments are not a departure from our capital-light model but will help position us to ramp our proprietary process with supply chain partners. Finally, we will continue investing in the talent, systems, and processes needed to support customer and product development programs and to scale the business to move towards commercialization. We made investments in talent in fiscal 2026. Going forward, we will continue to build the organizational foundation required to execute our strategy. With our strong balance sheet and potential CHIPS funding, we believe we are well positioned to make prudent investments to capitalize on the tremendous opportunity we see ahead to create long-term value for our shareholders. Now, I'll turn the call back over to Jonathan for his closing remarks before we open the call to your questions.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

Thank you, Chris. To summarize, we are pleased with the progress made in fiscal 2026 to establish the foundation to transition to commercialization. We continue to execute our strategic priorities and are committed to our go-to-market strategy with a near-term focus on our Lynx high-speed photodetectors and Quasar quantum dot laser technologies for the AI datacom market. As always, I want to thank our incredible team for their hard work and dedication, and I want to thank all of you for your unwavering support and enthusiasm. Operator, you can now open the call for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. The first question will come from Danial Yermakhan with Freedom Broker. Please go ahead.

[Danial Yermakhan, Analyst at Freedom Broker]

Hey, guys. Congrats with big steps to the commercialization. Just a quick question. Last quarter, you mentioned the shortfall of fiscal 2026 revenue was entirely timing-based with the delayed government programs. Does it mean that the revenue is going to carry on fiscal 2027?

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

Well, the revenue, as we talked about in the third quarter mark, we're not providing official guidance this year, mainly because there's a handful of contracts that could really change the range quite a bit. We continue to deliver on the projects that we signed last year, and there are some programs that are continuing on from prior years. As we said, that booked revenue, including the new contracts that we signed this year, is about $2.3 million. Then clearly, there's a number of things that could bring upside from there. But at this point, we aren't prepared to give more visibility than that.

[Danial Yermakhan, Analyst at Freedom Broker]

Okay, thanks. Comparing two end markets, the AI and data center with the mobile and electronics market, where is your near-term focus now? Is it on photodetectors of data centers, or do you focus more on mobile end market?

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

We remain active in other markets, for example, mobile, and have some indications of the size of opportunities and timeline of those opportunities. Mobile, for example, is a market with a more concentrated customer base. AI datacom as a market is really at the forefront for us right now and for the entire industry. So this is the focus of our near-term commercialization efforts. I think we should always remember that given the nature of our technology, anything we do to advance commercialization for one market will benefit others. It is just that today the focus, today and into fiscal 2027, is AI datacom.

[Danial Yermakhan, Analyst at Freedom Broker]

Okay, thanks. That makes sense. That is it from my side. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question will come from Richard Shannon with Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

[Richard Shannon, Analyst at Craig-Hallum]

Well, great. Thanks, Jonathan and Chris, for letting me ask a couple questions here. Jonathan, I wanted to ask about your commentary about in some stage of negotiation in multiple contracts with NRE. I wanted to get a bit more detail here. If I caught the language right, and I probably missed some of it, but I want to be clear here. It sounds like this is all entirely within the datacom market in some manner. Is that accurate, or are there other engagements in other market areas as well?

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

I would say it's almost entirely in the AI datacom market in the near term. That's correct.

[Richard Shannon, Analyst at Craig-Hallum]

Okay. Kind of what I thought, but I just want to make sure. Can you maybe talk about how long these contracts discussions have been in place here and any sense of urgency you're seeing? The themes that you've been talking about for the last couple of conference calls really revolve around supply chain issues, and we've seen other companies in the broader space that we cover pretty well that suggest that the urgency is only increasing here. I'd imagine this is accelerating and going pretty quickly and a lot of interest here. Maybe you can help us understand the breadth and depth and the stage of some of these discussions, if you would, please.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

Yeah, I would say in the AI datacom market, that's correct. A lot of this is centered around supply chain constraints and how large the market opportunity is. It seems like every time forecasts are put out, they revisit and increase the forecasts, especially in that sort of 2028 through 2030 and even beyond timeframe. What we're seeing is that our customers and some of these discussions we're having to initiate NRE programs come from the fact that there are investments being made to sort of fill the gap in the near term. But investments being made are not going to be sufficient for that market a few years out. Without sharing significant detail, you can imagine what this relates to. I spoke about different substrate sizes that we're leveraging now, but how Aeluma's technology could take us to other substrate sizes in the future.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

There's interest in our technology to fill the gap now, but also to fill the gap that's expected for years to come, just because of how significant this build-out is.

[Richard Shannon, Analyst at Craig-Hallum]

Okay. That's helpful. Looking at the Datacom opportunity or another angle here, your prepared remarks and your slides here, you talk about both photodetectors and quantum dot lasers here. I want to get a sense of the balance between those two, even in terms of the number of engagements focused on one or the other and the opportunity sitting in front of you dollar-wise over time. If you could just qualitatively describe that'd be great, Jonathan.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

Yes. They're both significant. I can't quantify precisely on the call, but they're both very significant, and I think we've shared information in the past that typically people think about lasers. Everyone's hearing about the lack of indium phosphide substrates and the need for more and more lasers in the AI Datacom market, and there's plenty of discussions about the type of modulator that might be selected or types of modulators that might be selected as the industry starts to roll out 400G per lane, beyond 100 and 200G per lane. But the forgotten technology is the photodetector, and there's two angles there. Photodetectors need to keep up with those modulation speeds, the full photodetector receiver.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

And there's sort of this emerging market for slow and wide transceiver components, and those require arrays of emitters, micro LEDs, micro pixels, and then arrays of photodetectors that might have different specifications or characteristics than photodetectors that you can buy on the shelf. And that's what we refer to in the slide, the Lynx S Series for sort of the slow and wide, and the Lynx F-Series for fast and narrow. This market seems to be very significant in size in the coming years. And the laser market, I think most of us know, is so significant. Some of the suppliers of lasers for AI Datacom would be selling many more lasers than they're selling today if they had more indium phosphide substrates and if they had more fab capacity.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

I will just close this thought on, we are still a relatively small company, but these two technologies are so important that we are not going to choose to develop just one of them. They are so important, and we are putting resources to both. I would not say one outweighs the other, at least not today.

[Richard Shannon, Analyst at Craig-Hallum]

Okay. That is great characterization. My last question, I will jump back into the queue here, is probably more for Chris Stewart here. I just want to get a sense from two financial statement line items here, OpEx and CapEx here. On OpEx, you are notably above what we had estimated, but clearly you have been hiring here and a lot of activity going on. Maybe if you can just characterize how we should expect to see that OpEx in the first quarter of this year and then going forward. Then the CapEx here. Is this $10 million-$12 million kind of a one-time dynamic, or could we see subsequent years of similar level of CapEx? Thank you.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

Yep. Thanks, Richard. A couple of things on OpEx. You are right, we have been growing headcount through the year. But if you look, OpEx did not increase all that much from Q1 to Q3. In Q4, the combination of full quarter salaries for folks that we were hiring through Q3 and early Q4, as well as some kind of normal year-end accruals and things caused a little bit of an unusual bump in Q4. I would not expect a big increase in Q1, if any. Then going forward, like we said, we are going to continue to invest both in the R&D side and in headcount, so it will drift up from there. The big CapEx this year is the two MOCVD reactors that we talked about in the call.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

I do not really want to guide CapEx beyond that, but like I said, it is not a change to our capital-light model. We are increasing these, buying these two tools really to drive and facilitate the transition to scale and help our supply chain partners scale faster and give us a little bit more involvement in the process development. Think about those two tools in particular, more of a one-time thing this year. Then, as we go forward, we will talk more about the CapEx later.

[Richard Shannon, Analyst at Craig-Hallum]

Okay. Thanks for all that characterization, guys. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

The next question will-

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

Thank you.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

Pardon me. The next question will come from Suji De Silva with Roth Capital. Please go ahead.

[Suji Desilva, Analyst at Roth Capital]

Hi, Jonathan. Hi, Chris. Congratulations on the progress here.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

Thank you.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

Sounds good.

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

Thanks.

[Suji Desilva, Analyst at Roth Capital]

Yeah, no problem. The CHIPS funding, the $30 million that would phase in, I am wondering, is there any specific plan for that, or would that just be in the general pool of your spending? And did I hear you right, Chris? Because of the accounting, is there an equity component the government will hold in Aeluma, or is that not how it will be transacted?

[Christopher Stewart, CFO at Aeluma]

So again, it's based on the LOI and what we're seeing from the other CHIPS Act deals. It's likely, and again, until everything's finalized, we're not sure. The main point there was, it's not likely to be counted as revenue. It would likely look like an equity investment from the U.S. government. The key thing, and I think the important point is, it's capital that will allow us to accelerate our commercialization efforts. It does support the AI, the high-speed photodetectors primarily, as Jonathan talked about. And so, you could think of it as in a way similar to the government program revenue we've had in the past, but it doesn't show up on the revenue line. Still capital, advancing our commercialization efforts on AI data centers.

[Suji Desilva, Analyst at Roth Capital]

Okay, great. And then perhaps for Jonathan. I know there's just a supply-demand imbalance for lasers and so forth, but does the progression from traditional pluggables to NPO, CPO, does that create more demand for you? Does that have some specific opportunities for you to take advantage of? And just can you characterize the move to NPO in the marketplace and whether that's part of the conversations here?

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

I would say yes, but across the board, there's demand for pluggables, demand to transition to NPO, and in some respects CPO, although indications are that that will slowly roll out and it's not anticipated to sort of take over. These will all sort of operate in unison inside data centers, and obviously the mix of transceiver architectures that are used do depend on specific AI workloads. So this might be data center or AI customer-dependent. To your question, the transition creates additional opportunities for a number of reasons. One, when new formats or architectures are being adopted, that's usually a great time to intersect the market because there might be different needs. They may not be using off-the-shelf components, and some customization's required. And so that's a great opportunity to adopt new technology that doesn't necessarily exist on the shelf.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

And we have opportunities in front of us to not only build components with our non-indium phosphide substrate technology to displace what's already in the market, in other words, meet the specifications of data sheets that already exist, but use our same platform to develop new products where data sheets don't necessarily exist, and we're working very closely with our customers to define those data sheets. We have our own internal spec sheets, but they're very customer-driven when we build them. So with photodetectors, there's sort of both opportunities. Building the real high-speed photodetectors that are increasingly in high demand as the industry starts to adopt things like 400G per lane transceivers for 800G and 1.8T. But then this slow and wide opportunity that does require some custom arrays of emitters and detectors on the receiver end, and ideally direct CMOS integration.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

That's a very important aspect of our technology that our customers are attracted to, that not only can we manufacture on bigger substrates that happen to be more available, we're on substrate sizes that are amenable to wafer scale integration and packaging. The way we're packaging some of these detectors for these applications, especially the slow and wide, it's not sort of the traditional chip on carrier or chip on some mountain wire bond. It leverages more advanced packaging that you don't necessarily have access to when you're on the smaller substrates, like small indium phosphide substrates. Then to your question on lasers, the demand is very high across the board. Certainly for some of the folks that have been developing and are pushing to roll out CPO, they do need these very high-power lasers.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

There's opportunities to provide scale for those high-power lasers that are going to be fed externally into, say, silicon photonics CPO transceivers. There is some interest in maybe bringing the lasers into the package because there are new cooling technologies being adopted, and if you bring the laser in the package, you might overcome some of the losses. So you may be able to operate the lasers at lower power, and overcome some of the reliability challenges. So I would say for lasers, the demand is just so high. Reliability is sort of a top priority for customers, as is sort of simplifying the supply chain, because it's more than just substrates and lasers, it's other aspects like the packaging. The Quasar quantum dot lasers have the potential to eliminate the optical isolator in the package.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

So for a number of reasons, our customers are interested not only in the scale of non-indium phosphide, they're very interested in the fact that Quasar quantum dot lasers offer these other attributes, and that we build Quasar quantum dot lasers with MOCVD technology, which scales. Thanks a lot for the question.

[Suji Desilva, Analyst at Roth Capital]

No, Jonathan, that sounds like interesting conversations. Thanks for the color.

[Operator]

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jonathan Klamkin for any closing remarks.

[Jonathan Klamkin, CEO at Aeluma]

Thank you for joining our call today. We look forward to connecting in the future. Have a great day.

[Operator]

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Moira Conlan, Investor Relations
• Jonathan Klamkin, CEO
• Christopher Stewart, CFO

Analysts

• Danial Yermakhan, Analyst at Freedom Broker
• Richard Shannon, Analyst at Craig-Hallum
• Suji Desilva, Analyst at Roth Capital