BioLargo - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the BioLargo Annual 2024 Earnings Results. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. You can submit a question at any time by clicking on the Ask Question button on the left of your screen. Type your question into the box and hit the Send button to submit your question. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Brian Loper. Sir, the floor is yours.

Brian Loper (Head of Investor Relations)

Great, thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to BioLargo's Annual 2024 Earnings Results Conference Call. Everyone will have access to the earnings press release being issued tomorrow morning before market open, and the 10-K and 8-K reports have been filed with the SEC. This call is being webcast and is available for replay. In our remarks today, we may include statements that are considered forward-looking within the meanings of securities laws, including forward-looking statements about future results of operations, business strategies and plans, our relationships with our customers, and market and potential growth opportunities.

In addition, management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current knowledge and expectations as of today and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and may cause the actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. A detailed discussion of such risks and uncertainties is contained in our most recent Form 10-Q, Form 8-K, and in other reports filed with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. I now hand over the call to BioLargo's Chief Executive Officer, Dennis Calvert.

Dennis Calvert (CEO)

Hi, Brian, and hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We're going to jump right in here. BioLargo, we make life better, the innovation engine for a better tomorrow. As you everybody knows, we've been innovating for over 10 years now and have an entire portfolio, early market adoption on a couple of our assets, and a number of big projects in the wings that we think will move the needle for the company. Brian just covered all of our forward-looking statement safe harbor disclosures. Make sure we've got that. As always, let's see. Yeah, there we go. Refer to the Ks and the Qs. Look at all the risk factors. They're real.

We've been overcoming risk factors for well over a decade, and they do present some real challenges. We'll talk about some of those today, but really, that's the key to our business. We're overcoming challenges on the way to market adoption. Who are we, right? Innovators, scientists, engineers, passionate about doing something important for sustainability, human health, driven to make life better, high-purpose focus. We focus on best-in-class solutions, and we focus on problems that don't have a good solution, like our PFAS. There's just not a good solution until we came along.

We'll talk about that. All these assets, right? These assets represent the potential for transformation in the marketplace, and each one of these inventions and the focus as a cornerstone of building a business and a commercial opportunity of significance really focuses with that premise, right? Potential to change a market, transformative technology. Easy to say, very difficult to do. We aim for partnerships, very capital-conserving strategy.

We invent, prove, and partner, find great partners, leverage those partners to use our toolkit to go to the marketplace and make change. As a result, we're able to, once we find the right partner, get through that adoption phase, get it early market adoption, prove, prove, prove, de-risk them as far as we can, get early market adoption. When we find a partner to go and go big, it really represents a significant windfall of opportunity for us, as evidenced by the Pooph asset, of course. In the portfolio, we're investing in a whole series of platforms, really. The corporate office, right, focused on strategy and capital and organizational infrastructure, hiring people, CEOs. Often I get the question, "How in the world can you do all this?" The answer is I don't.

We have teams of executives and CEOs in each of these companies who are quite skilled in their art and their field, who really carry the ball. They do the work. We have an engineering group, of course, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Been with us now over five years, 30-year career, mega global company experience.

Literally worked all over the world. As a result of that core competency, that team of PhDs and scientists and engineers can come together and support these various enterprises, as we say, leveraging our core competency. Our core competency is science engineering for a purpose. In these assets, we've made substantial investments. In each of these, there's a history, history of how much money did we put in, where are we at in the adoption cycle, and why do we do the things that we do?

It is important to understand in the portfolio, we focus on leveraging that core competency with high impact, ultimately get the technology seeded in the market, focus on making money, do something great, make some money, but also the exit. There is often a time in the journey when you look deep into the company, you ask yourself, "How do you do all this and why?" Of course, as we become more skilled, gain traction in the credibility that is so critical in the marketplace by partners and by customers and by financiers, as we achieve that critical mass, we march down the journey towards exits.

We believe the exits that have a potential in our portfolio are of this magnitude. It is very critical. Big endeavors that can transform a market, right? There is a cornerstone that allows that to happen. Unmatched technology, that is right, number one.

Capital-conserving strategy, highly qualified people. Oops, a little bit of technology here. One second. I think I'll get it. There we go. Highly qualified people, engineers, scientists, a bunch of PhDs, smart people driven by this impact opportunity, coalescing around a mission, right, and driven for this high impact. We always say the high impact is really important too, in the darkest of hours. We've had some where you have to sort of just gut it out to get through the adoption cycle that sometimes has taken years, over a decade in many cases. Clyra is a great example. We're now at that moment of significance, and you look at the toll on people and capital and patience to get that technology just right for the adoption cycle that we believe is right here before us.

Of course, we look at a huge prize, not only in the impact it can make for human life and human suffering, for chronic wounds and infection control, but the financial implications for our company, our stakeholders, our staff, our employees, our leaders. Really, it's an economic engine that we've built, and now we get to watch the fruit of that. Of course, as you look in the portfolio, the PFAS is a big deal. Notice we said $1 billion yet and $1 billion. Each of these has a little different dynamic in the way they find adoption, but they're big. They're big. Of course, the battery tech, we really, when we look at the model and the implication for this technology and the way we're going to market, we think it's a multi-billion dollar opportunity or more.

We'll talk about how we got to that model. Okay, I get long-winded on this, and I won't do it. I want to open up a lot of question and answer, but next, I think I want to turn over to Charlie. Charlie, if you want to talk about our results briefly and any commentary you'd like to make, please do so.

Charles Dargan (CFO)

Okay, Dennis, thank you very much, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for being with us. Before I jump into the financial highlights, Dennis has touched on a few of my comments, which is simply it's taken us a long time, but I think the core strategy of using capital to identify and invest in new technologies with the help of experts in those technologies is working. You can see it, and I'll explain at least in three of our subsidiaries, but after identifying technology and putting great management teams around it, and then creating subsidiaries and giving them the capital to go make it work, I think for now it's coming to fruition. Like I said, I think we'll see it in the financial highlights.

Jumping into those, we did have an increase of 45% in our overall sales and revenue, which we hit almost $18 million. This has continued on a very accelerated growth path, as you see from the slide. To take that down into some specifics related to our subs, Odor-No-More had its revenue increase 36%, and we had a slight increase in COGS related to raw materials, but Odor-No-More ended up producing $5.9 million in operating income, a little higher than what we put here. A very successful year, and we expect that to continue. Of course, much of what that is being developed there is through the Pooph product. BLEST, our engineering division produced an increase of 183% in its revenue, and this would be third-party revenue.

As Dennis has explained, we have them doing a lot of R&D and work for BioLargo that does not show up in our numbers because it is a related party. For them, the operating loss reduced to $1.45 million versus $1.6 million. A lot of what has been going on is they have costs related to their fixed fee contracts, and that is a deeper dive than I am going to do here. The work also for the AEC water treatment has taken up quite a lot of engineering time. In any event, it has certainly made progress. Clyra, as we mentioned here, is the majority of our net loss. By the way, our net loss was reduced to $4.3 million from $4.6 million last year.

Clyra is obviously ramping up for its manufacturing, so we've hired additional consultants and professionals, and salaries have increased as we've brought new players on. We're very excited about what they're performing. Also, just to look at the balance sheet perspective, we've had a considerable increase in our equipment, and much of that, in fact, almost, well, a lot of it is due to the equipment and the progress that Clyra is making on its manufacturing. Some of the other increase is related to our battery and AEC equipment needs. Going to the balance sheet, I'll just quickly give you some of the highlights, which is we've got a very strong balance sheet, and we're still sitting on or have been able to have $3.5 million of cash.

We've had an increase in accounts receivable, and that's because we're developing more business, not that people aren't paying us. We have very few bad debts. Inventory has gone up, fixed assets have gone up, as previously mentioned, because we're spending related to equipment. Actually, overall, our debt has declined, certainly in accounts payable. We've had an offset to that because of the increase in the progress in manufacturing for Clyra.

We have taken on additional AP and some additional debt. Overall, that comes down to a reduction in debt through what we've been able to do. Just a quick discussion of the cash flow, because that really gets confusing. We're actually, from the purest perspective of operations, at the same level or actually have improved year-over-year, even though we're showing an increase in the cash flow from operations.

As part of that cash flow from operations, there's the working capital changes. Those can be confusing to many people because an increase in accounts receivable, which we had, is a good thing on the balance sheet. It is a negative on the cash flow statement because it assumes that you're not converting your receivables into cash, and that's another time for another discussion. Realistically, the increase related to our increase in operating activities is solely from our working capital perspective. An increase in receivables, which is a negative. Strangely enough, we have paid down our debt, and that's also a negative. Realistically, we're in an improved overall balance sheet and cash flow situation.

As we've mentioned, the offset to that is, of course, raising equity, but pretty much all of that cash flow from financing is related to Clyra's needs, and Clyra has been able to raise additional equity related to their needs. The rest of it is actually exercises from stock options and warrants, and that includes Clyra warrants. In our lexicon related to actual operations, we've had a major improvement. You can see it also in the next slide related to our stockholders' equity, which again has increased and it's at about $6 million. Overall, when I look at our year, we had a really, really good year. Going forward, we hope to replicate that and improve on that. Dennis, back to you.

Dennis Calvert (CEO)

Very good. Yeah, very good, Charlie. Thank you. Yeah, I think we also should mention that over the course of this last year, we added another 10 employees. So we're up to an employee count of about 44. We have other consultants who work with us on a regular basis. We've got some critical mass and talent now that's pretty extraordinary. The other thing I'll mention is some of these consultants even, they're just at the pinnacle of their career in their space. Clyra, in particular, has a number of really high-powered consultants that help us navigate the FDA and things like that. It's important because they journey with us and become almost an extension of our team, even though they don't show up in the headcount. The fact that we've got such a critical mass of talent gives us staying power.

I mean, we just have a lot of people that can do a lot of really special things, and it's showing up. The way it shows up is we move faster through the development cycle. We have more support on the customer side. We have the ability to reach out into the market for supply chain and sourcing to really get us into a co-man faster. It shows, and it shows up with our partners, and it shows up with our customers in a pretty awesome way. Okay, we are going to go through the business units. A couple of highlights real quick I think that are worthy of note. Remember, everyone on the phone may be an old shareholder, but there are new people too. We got to cover a little bit of the old.

We're going to do it quick, and I would encourage everyone again to go to look at our social media. We put a lot of information out. We try to keep it current. Pooph is the number one revenue generator in the portfolio. And just to, again, give a two-second war story, that's like over 10 years of work. We estimate we probably invested around $10 million approximately in the journey of developing this product line. It took a long time, and it was painful, I will say. Something happened along the way. Something happened along the way. We became expert. That's what happened.

Because of our expertise in designing these products and packaging them and labeling them and all the things that go with that, we were able to partner up with someone who brought extraordinary marketing talent, and that was the team from Ikigai Marketing Works who created the brand Pooph. That is our partner customer, right? Partner customer. We currently have eight unique products and 15 SKUs, and they have something like 35,000-40,000 retail outlets approximately with all the big national chains. Here is the thing. That product works really well, and Pooph has figured out how to market it in an extraordinary way, and they are so skilled at what they do. The major retailers are adopting. What we hear from feedback all the time is the products, they really do work, number one. People love them. They love the brand.

Retailers love them because customers come in and ask for them. There is an ebb and flow, but Pooph has just been breaking records like crazy. There is an ebb and flow, right? There are little peaks and valleys, but over time, they've had a record year, and of course, it's brought BioLargo into record territory year-over-year for the last three and a half years. Remember, they've only been to market about three years, three and a half years. The business deal is really pretty simple. We made a bargain. We said to Pooph, "We'll support you. We'd love for you to take products. We'd like to help you with the supply chain." We take a little cost, plus a little margin. We get a little royalty on sales, incremental.

Then we bargained for exclusivity for a piece of the equity upon exit. Okay, so just think about that, right? Supply chain, make a little money. Royalty, make a little money. Create an exit. We're building brand value. As Pooph builds brand value, our brand value goes up. That's one of those unseen values in the portfolio of BioLargo. You can't see it yet. You have to think about it. It just doesn't show up, okay? One day it shows up in a big way with cash. We really do believe that that product line is going to find a home with a big brand retailer because it's just so well-suited. Of course, it demonstrates great. Okay, and so what does all that mean? Here we go. Another year. Another record year for basic product lines. More products and expansion.

I want to reiterate that the product is the highlight of the story. The product is the highlight of the story. People love the product. The chemistry of it says, we know. The chemistry says it works. When that chemistry comes across organic matter, it's going to dismantle it. Molecule for molecule, when you put that product on an organic molecule, molecule for molecule, it's going to break it down, and it's going to eliminate it. Eliminate. Right? It doesn't come back. That is a winning formula. They discovered how to market that in an extraordinary way. We are very optimistic about it, even though there's been ebb and flow. Everybody knows that. We've seen some of that ebb and flow with the ad spend and the infrastructure and the build-up. Just remember, we represent about 20%-25% of their revenue.

If we're doing $15 million, it's probably three or four X on the other side, right? For what they're doing. That's pretty extraordinary. Show me a product in three years that hits that kind of number. They really deserve a commendation, and we're thankful to be in business with those folks. Next on the plate. Everybody's so anxious to know about Clyra Medical. I had the privilege of going to a conference in Barcelona this last week. Some of these pictures are from that conference. We were there for the European Wound Management Association, which is very much a clinical event. I got to firsthand sit there on the front line for a bit and watch clinicians come by and ask about the product. The punchline to that story goes like this.

They look at the stats, they ask a few questions, and you know what the number one question is? Where do I get it? Where do I get it? How can I get this product and use it? Often, clinicians will say, "Oh my gosh, I needed this last night for one of my patients." That is when you know you're hitting home. That is when you know you're hitting home. You got to remember that, again, in this asset class, the technology and the products are the key feature. Now, this is a 14-year investment. Fourteen years. I think the total invested capital is pushing about $19 million-$20 million. You say, "Who in the world can invest $19 million or $20 million in 13 years to watch an asset find its way to market?" We did.

The beauty in this case is that it has such a transformative opportunity to literally take the market, become number one. We looked at that. We said, "We got to get a big partner, a really good partner, somebody we can trust." We also did the same thing on manufacturing. Do not build manufacturing. Buy manufacturing, right? Rent it. Use a third party to really scale up. As everybody knows, one of the questions that came out of that, our partner for distribution came in and said, "We love you." I am paraphrasing. They did not say that. We love you. You have to be able to produce to scale. If we turn on our machine and start producing, you have to keep up. For a small company, that is a pretty tall order.

We just had a confirmation meeting with all the parties about seven or ten days ago. I can't remember. Last week. It was very successful to essentially confirm scaled capability. That's what we did. We confirmed scaled capability. What does all that mean? It means we're coming in on the launch pad, and we think it's near at hand. That's the point. There's a lot of work to do, though.

We described some of that in the 10-K. You can look at it. There's a lot of work to do, and there's logistics and some filings, and all this stuff has to happen to really see a product take a national rollout. The fact is that we've paid a dear price to be here. Now, our investment in direct and equipment is over $2 million. About $2 million, $2.1 million. Plus the burn rate.

I mean, supporting all this staff and all this infrastructure. I think the total number was $3.7 million last year total invested on the Clyra side. That came from a combination of two sources. One is from direct investors who invested in that project, that portfolio asset with the parent company, BioLargo. BioLargo also invested about $900,000 last year. I think about $1.4-$1.6 million, something like that over the last two years. We've made a—think about that. BioLargo is investing alongside the investors. Okay?

We're supporting that asset to make sure it can get through the gate and find its channel because we know the prize on the other side is so significant. Not just for us, but for human health, for the standard of care, for the distributors. There's a community that we're investing in, and that ecosystem is really critical.

Keystone's invested over $3 million. We think the number's going to be close to $5 million by the time they're done. We have developed a clean room for sterilization. Of course, our distribution partners are involved. We are coming in on that moment where we say, "Okay, what's missing? Check the box. Are we ready to go?" Stay tuned. We have significant information that will unfold that we think is near at hand.

Just to reiterate, the product is the showcase. The product is the showcase. Big market. Surgical procedures. The concept really is pretty simple. We have broad spectrum efficacy. That means it works across a whole bunch of different pathogens. It works really well. It's a copper iodine complex, right? It's gentle. No tissue damage, no sensitivity. It has proven efficacious, right? Efficacious means it works against biofilm, disrupting biofilm.

That's a big claim, and it has some sustained activity. Again, the summary of all those claims means really one simple thing. Show me a product that can do all that in one product. You can't find it. As a result of the set of claims that combine all those features into a product, it has the potential of being number one in the world. Make no mistake about what we're talking about. Number one in the world. Is it worth 14 years and $20 million? Oh yeah. It's worth a lot more than that. For impact, for ecosystem, for our investors, for the Clyra direct investors, for the BioLargo investors, I mean, it's taken a community to get that done. The market's so big, and again, it's a diverse portfolio. Many different markets we can touch.

Surgical, we think it's going to go big. Wound and burn is another big one. That is why we were in Europe at the Barcelona event to establish relationships with distributors. Now, there's a lot of complications that go with that international sales. Some of the markets will be able to take product based on an FDA label. FDA clear label will get us in the game, which we already have. Okay?

That is just about scaled support, making sure the distribution knows how to get the product seeded in the market. That is encouraging because it means you can go a little faster. The big prize, especially in the Western European nations, is going to require what's called a CE mark. That mark is basically certification for Europe. That takes a little clinical work and a little bit of money.

We're not anxious to plow money into it because we're so close to getting going. Perhaps we can find some early distribution using the FDA label. Secondary source with a CE mark. Makes a little cash. You got to put the cash to work, get through clinicals. It's all that's in the works. Again, the more we do it, the more we get affirmation that we're on the right track.

We are very encouraged and excited about the moment and the near-term catalysts that can really move the needle for the company. Okay? We'll open that up for questions in a few minutes too. Stick with me. I want to talk about battery tech because we think it's probably the biggest in the portfolio. Now, PFAS is running number two as well, or three and four. These guys, both of these are so big.

We did have a delay. I'll tell you. It took an extra year to get through the work that we've done to really prove out the technology internally. The next step is to get third-party validation for the battery tech. I'm going to show you the timeline in a second. That's the battery cell. That's called our Spartan Cell. That's a 300-watt-hour cell. That is a big cell. It's ruggedized. It's kind of heavy. It's got a little weight to it. You take those cells and you stack them up into racks, and racks make packs, and packs make modules, and modules go into a trailer. Next thing you know, you got a megawatt-hour of energy storage. It's grid scale. It has a bunch of features. The features really, again, promise a potential to be number one in its space.

We believe that. Make no question about it. We believe it. Wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think so. Remember our thesis. If we don't think it's number one, don't do it. Safer, sustainable, durable, efficient. Extraordinary efficiency. Why is this important? Because this is a humongous market. This article is now, I don't know, four months old, something like that. Clean energy is next trillion-dollar business. Long duration energy storage. That's batteries that are grid scale that can be drawn on for an extended period of time and provide energy for a balanced grid, offloading renewables. No matter what the source of energy, no matter what the source of energy, you need storage. They go hand in glove. Data centers, big data, AI. Okay? Renewable energy, grid balancing. You can't make batteries fast enough. Okay?

Again, in that model, there's also the safety risk associated with lithium. I note that the big lithium battery storage facility up in Moss Landing, I think they're on their third incident with a fire risk. Third. As a result of those activities, cities and city councils are now banning battery factories, especially if they're using lithium. There needs to be a better alternative. What's interesting about this too is in the international markets, as I go out and talk to people about the opportunity to be partners with us, some of the international markets say, "Fires are a real thing. You can manage it." The real issue is the geopolitical risk associated with China dominating the supply chain. Essentially, the world is in an outcry moment. We just can't do it this way. We have to have alternatives.

We agree. We are one of those alternatives that's going to have a chance to really make a big impact. I'm going to get to that third-party validation in a second, but it's coming. I just want to tell you, it was a lot more difficult to find that tool than I would have ever imagined. I'll explain that in a second. I'm not going to go through the data on this, but this is a direct comparison to lithium.

We put it in here so you can look at it later. Bottom line is it just has a bunch of features that lithium can't stack up. That's the bottom line. The next one's really very similar. This is a comparison. Again, it's got so much information packed into this little presentation of various other technologies and how we stack up.

Here's the bottom line. 2.9 times the energy density of lithium. High voltage. Okay? It operates at a higher temp, but we like that because you can insulate it and hold temperature in. No thermal runaways, no extraordinary fire risk and explosion risk. We have a cost of goods advantage that's astonishing. It can be a 60-70% cost of goods advantage. That's producing to scale. Okay? Not producing five batteries to scale. You have to get to scale. In our third-party testing—excuse me—in our internal testing, we've replicated the data from prior studies. Remember, this technology had eight years of R&D before we took over. We've been able to take it where it was and take it forward and continue to advance it, which we're doing, including improving the technology.

This little graph to the left, it's pretty tacky, okay? Basically, it's three reactions in one. As the voltage goes up, you get this reaction kinetics and the chemistry that represents a technical breakthrough. It's astonishing. As a result, we're able to generate energy density, which is sort of punch for the weight, right? Above your punching weight. A nice curve, even distribution curve of in and out. These are cycled curves on the right, which show charge and discharge. When you test the battery, that's what you do. You test the charge and the charge in, the charge out, time, stability. You're looking for chemistry breakdown. Then the reliability of the energy that's going to come out on a consistent curve. We've done all that, okay? What's missing? We got to get a third-party validation.

Somebody else has got to validate it. In fact, I've had groups say to me, "If once you get third-party validation, we're in, but I can't do anything until you get it." That did take some time. In fact, it's probably nine months longer than we would have ever estimated. We'll talk about that in just a second when I get to that timeline. These are the put-ups in the market. Okay? These are competitor products, but they give you order of scale. We're focused on the left side, really, because it's large format grid scale trailers. Here's an image of what we think our trailer would be very close proximity. We're at the cell technology level. Okay? Make sure you got that. Cell technology. We're developing the cells that go in those racks.

Notice that you open the door and you pull them out of the racks. They drop in vertical, they stack up. That's how you—again, cells go into racks, racks go into packs, packs go into module. What's a module? A module is a controller unit. It's a computer that attaches to these modules that spreads energy in and out, monitors its flow in, its flow out, its charge, its heat, all the details that light operates. It also allows to program uniquely to the integration of how it's going to interact with the grid.

There's a whole art to that. It's fascinating. We are in the cell-type technology business to produce cells at scale that then go into modules and modulate the in and out of energy for long-duration storage. What do you do with all that? There are just so many markets.

We think, of course, renewable energy and grid-scale storage is number one, but it's more. If you've got that capability, you're also in the microgrid development. Simple language, microgrid is this idea of a source of energy, the storage of energy, the metering out of energy. Right? A microgrid. You don't have to plug into the big grid. You got your microgrid. Self-sufficiency. Balance your microgrid. That's the future. Access to reliable, safe, long-duration storage is critical for microgrid development. Hence, the next trillion-dollar business, according to The Economist. We're going to get a piece of that. Okay? This is a long timeline. The first valuation was around $20 million. We're at about a $43 million valuation, just so you know. That's where we raised capital. Very gentle on the investors. Very friendly. We think a very ultra-conservative valuation.

We think we're going to go up 10x on the next couple of milestones that we click off. We're at this complete third-party validation testing. We've got a couple of groups that want to do it. We're coming in into May. Hopefully, we're going to be able to get that third-party validation that will help us really speak to the investment community. We think it's critical. As you can imagine, people say, "We love you, but I need third-party validation." We got it. We understand. On the business model, everybody knows this. We decided we don't want to sell batteries. We want to sell battery factories. What does that mean? Capital-conserving strategy, making partnerships who will put up capital because they want the prize. They want the prize. What's the prize?

Employment, job creation, net exports, energy, reliability, grid-scale deployment, all the above. Right? We're putting people in the business. It's like a franchise. We're franchising battery factories. Right? Great business model. When you run that model on 10 factories, we have about a $1.5 billion net present value. $1.5 billion net present value. $1.5 billion on the plan. Of course, there's risk to it. You got to show up with a battery and have third-party validation. You got some work to do. We're not trying to mince words on that. The point is it's a great plan. We have a number of major projects in discussions. The number one objection right now is, "Show me third-party validation." The second is, "Are you prepared to build to scale?

Are you prepared to scale up the engineering?" Of course, we point to the pedigree of our engineers and say, "We've been building massive infrastructure." Our team, in their 30-year career, have proven the ability to scale to this level. Very exciting. I would say not easy, but really meaningful. Okay? PFAS is last. We've got so much going on in PFAS. I'm going to keep it really light in the interest of time. PFAS, Forever Chemicals.

This is a byproduct of nonstick coatings that is estimated now to be a $17 trillion global problem. All in. Okay? All in. You can't look at internet search like Google. It's there every day. Every day. Hot topic in regulatory. All right. Here's the punchline. It's in the environment. It's been accumulated for 50 years, and it needs to come out.

It's been linked to birth defects and cancer. If you're going to take it out, the alternatives are carbon and ion exchange are currently adopted in the marketplace. That's old tech. You end up with a truck of spent material. A truck. We end up with a pound or two of concentrated PFAS. That's called selective extraction and super concentration. We super concentrate the contaminant. It turns out if you can super concentrate, then destruction is so much more manageable.

We've, I don't know, 15, 17 trials. We've got a couple of big industrial accounts now coming on. We're speaking all over the world, literally, as an expert in PFAS. Tonya Chandler. She is a professional expert in this field. What's happened—it's fascinating—what's happened—you may recall that I was invited to participate in the Environmental Technologies Trade Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Commerce.

We've had about four meetings. We're there because of PFAS. Make no mistake about it. We're there because of the PFAS and the innovation and a chance to potentially influence policy, which is awesome. We're in good company there. Some of the biggest players in the world. It's nice. It's a good situation for BioLargo's assets, its team, and our stockholders to have access, right, to that knowledge and relationships. It just points to the fact that people look at our technology as potentially a transformative tech in a very competitive field.

We have done the work to compete. Done the work to compete. Okay? I think we're probably three or four years ahead of pretty much most of the technology you'll see in the market. I mean, we've got an edge, and we need to hang on to it. Anyway, our data is compelling.

Here's the thing. People talk about drinking water, but it's not just drinking water. It's leachate. It's groundwater. It's industrial wastewater. It's municipal wastewater. On and on and on it goes. It's also stripping membranes. Notice we just saw patents on the stripping of membranes. That means some of the competition is using membranes to collect. We can actually strip the PFAS off the membrane. Some of our competitors can be our customers. Get it? Also PFAS destruction technology. Okay? Big deal.

What happens is this field is evolving, and the slowest to adopt and most difficult client in the world is municipal drinking water. Why? Because it's a political decision. Drinking water is human safety. Most of these people are public officials. They make very slow adoption decisions. Who makes fast adoption decisions? Engineers and business people. Industrial.

They want to move quick. We have got two just new relationships. We just got the go forward on a commercial scale pilot. That means we get paid to go through the customization for an industrial client who has a very special situation. That is where we shine the brightest. And guess what? We get paid for it. We get paid to prove it, and then we get paid to scale it up. Just think about all of our journey. That is how you do it. It is easy to say, and it is very difficult to do, but we are really excited about it. Of course, everybody is waiting for New Jersey, as are we. The New Jersey project, we thought it might push out to the fall, but it looks like we have got a chance in the summer.

They have broken ground finally because of the ice thaw. We are in the process now of trying to get the schedule to have access to the installation. Let me see here if I can get to the next one. Here we go. We just finished a case study. Now, this case study is going to get published all over the industry. This is a leachate system. It is unusual because we had access to competitive data, and it was published. The footnotes are hard to read here on the deck, but you can look afterwards. The footnotes go through this research history about the Competitive Profile of Competitors. Here is the punchline. We saved 90%. 90%. Are you kidding me? All right? Is that real? You have to prove it, but yeah, it is real.

This is an astonishing case study in which we can literally look at a client and say, "Look, if you super concentrate and use our system, you can reduce your maintenance. You can reduce the consumption of carbon. You can reduce the recycling of carbon. You can reduce the necessity to clean up the carbon before you do disposal." Because of the incremental cost of taking that action, we can say, "90%? Really? Over lifecycle cost?" That's pretty astonishing. That will get published soon, but it's a modified work product that's defensible. Here's our Lake Stockholm, of course. This is a small-scale unit, but still very important as a reference site, as you can imagine. I want to show you the leachate because it's really important. Here it comes. Leachate. Nasty, nasty water.

Leachate's the water that comes out of the bottom of a landfill. This is the whole market. I mean, and firefighting foam is the whole market. Industrial and municipal wastewater is the whole market. Each of these has a nuance. Our technology can work in all of them. The thing people say, "What have you been doing?" We've been refining the technique for using our technology in all these markets so that we have not one way to make money. We've got 20 ways to make money with one invention. Okay? The most successful that we're experiencing, which has just been awesome, is what the industry, especially in the engineering side, would call is teaming agreements, teaming agreements, teaming agreements. What does that mean? That means an engineering firm has a client that needs a solution.

People like us, our group, teams with them to bring the solution to bear for an engineering firm who already has a client. That's a team. You create a team. You go solve the problem for the client. We have engineering firms that now are working on five and ten, and we have one that's brought us 24 projects. Twenty-four. They don't go. This is a slow selling cycle.

Sometimes it's six months, a year, even two years. They are very big. They are significant projects. Our scope of the average project has gone up. Our confidence in our position to transform the industry has gone up. Our data has gone up, and our reputation has gone up. We are in a position now where, literally, we are presumed credible. That is new. That has taken us a long time.

Of course, it tak+es a lifetime to get there and a minute to screw it up. You got to show up, and you got to deliver. The good news is our engineers have a career of doing that. We are really confident. In summary, transformative technology. We had a couple of nice custom wins under our belt. We got more coming. We think the future for the company is just extraordinarily bright. Again, just think about small public companies trying to find their way on innovation. We have proven a model and a system that works. We have evidence, and we have money in the bank and almost no debt and knocking on the door for significance for Clyra and more coming. We just think it is the best time in the history of the company.

I'm going to stop now. We're going to open it up for questions.

All right. Thank you very much, Dennis. Lots of information there. A lot going on with BioLargo. Good times. First question we have here. In your 10-K, you mentioned a two-day inspection to confirm manufacture of the product.

Capability.

Yeah. Capability.

Capability. It's the verified capability. Right.

Okay. Yeah. The question is, how did the inspection go and what is to be expected over the near term?

It was very successful. There's a lot of techno speak and technical things that are going on in those meetings. It's a meeting of technical people. Generally, the CEO and the business guys, they'll go. It's QA/QC. It's tracking, project management, FDA compliance, the data tracking. What happens when there's a mistake? What happens when there's a fix? Who's doing QA/QC on the interaction between the companies? What are the system integrations? System integration is not just how do you get an invoice. How do you get an invoice track, QA/QC, comply with the FDA, hit all the trouble spots, and provide a system that provides confidence for the distributor? Right? It's all that's going on at the same time.

The key result of the meeting was to confirm that Keystone is prepared to produce a significant volume of product to meet what we believe is a very large flowing channel that requires speed and volume to be able to fill the inventory of their channels. That's the primary result. Of course, there's more work to do. The thing is that we believe that we're now in a position where we can say to our partners, "Okay. Is anybody questioning that we've got the chance to really do this in a very significant and meaningful way to scale?" That's the question. The answer is yes. We can do it. That's what happened. It was very successful.

What we hope to happen now is the meeting of the minds, cross the T's and dot the I's, and let's go. Let's get going. I mean, really. Okay? Yeah, it's very exciting. We always hesitate, as you can imagine, only because there's so much we don't control. That's good and bad, but it's just the way it is. As a result, we're very careful because we know we've spent—look, think about it. We've spent over 13 years and $20 million. Our partner at Keystone, we think, is close to pushing $5 million just to be ready to manufacture. You know what I say? Just don't screw it up. Don't screw it up. Take your time. Get it right. Let's go out and do this. Okay?

All right. Changing gears here to the battery. What is the status of the third-party validation of the Spartan Cell? What timeframe?

We're shooting for May. Yeah. We're shooting for May. Yeah. We've got a crew coming in, which is awesome. We think it's the right fit. We're going to come in for an onsite, and we'll spend a day or two really going through the technical evaluation. It took us a while, but we said what we want is someone who can come in and validate what we've done. Not what you do, but what we've done. Come see what we've done and help us validate it. Because it's all here. We've got infrastructure and people and processes and equipment and testing and sales. It's transparent. They'll come down and help us validate that what we're saying is the truth. We know it's the truth, but we need someone else to help us say that to the world.

We are hoping that we can accomplish that end of April, early May, hopefully get into a final report within the May timeframe. We will see. Right? We hope so. We have a lot of people really interested in seeing that. I can tell you that in the deal-making that is going on, the basic response is—and I hear it all the time—"If it is true"—here is the—ready?—"If it is true, you have a chance to be number one in the world."

I hear it all the time. I say, "We know it to be true. That does not mean everything is done." Let us be clear on that. What does that mean? Everything is done. It means the art of success in the battery manufacturing field is the scale of manufacturing. That needs robotics. It needs scale of supply chain. It needs offtake.

There is a lot of chicken and egg going on. All of that starts with a better technology. That is where we are at. Third-party validation, scaled manufacturing, then scaled offtake. There is a lot going on all at once, but it starts with a better technology in a market that is estimated to be the next trillion-dollar business. Understand that we are technically—again, here is the beauty. The inventors that invented this spent eight years doing the invention before us.

Just think about our model. We probably invested about $2 million. $2 million is real money, but $2 million is not $25 million. Most battery companies to get to this stage have dropped $25 million or maybe $150 million. Who can do it for two? BioLargo can. That is the point. That is the point. Because we picked it up with eight years of R&D.

We leveraged our core competency. We did incremental investing. We didn't have to go hire a CEO. We do all that. We didn't have to go hire lead engineers. We've already got all those. We didn't have to go hire chemists. We've already got all those. We hired a couple of people who are extraordinarily narrowly focused on the skill set and then developed a business model that says, "I will build you a factory. How many would you like?" It's incredible. There is a lot of work to do. I'm not suggesting it's fast or easy, but it's real. It's meaty. Therefore, we believe it's worth the investment. We are investing to see that future happen for our stakeholders. Okay?

All right. All right. Changing gears to Pooph. It looked like product revenue was down Q4 from Q3. Why is the product revenue tailing off if there's so much opportunity for more channel partners?

This is a conundrum for everyone. Our business model relies on other people, right, to market and launch the product. That means ad spend and distribution and all the things that go with that. We are in a position where that's Pooph's business. Pooph is handling their business. Regroup to grow more, stabilize to be ready for the next push, make sure infrastructure is in place, QA/QC. All those things are happening all the time. I do not have a direct answer.

I have an indirect answer, which is customers love this product. We have watched Pooph go from zero to a business model that's four or five X of our revenue. That put it in the $40 million-$50 million range in three years. That is remarkable. That is remarkable. Do not lose perspective. Okay? It is a brand that has staying power. The product works.

It's a unique play because it works so well. They've got an extraordinary brand. Our position is really simple. How can we help? What can we do to help? Let's continue growing and go out and get the market. Let's go Pooph. Right?

Love to hear it. How about CupriDyne Clean? Why isn't it growing in the waste sector? Or haven't any other alternatives to the CupriDyne Clean able to sell?

They're selling some, but you're right. They're not huge home runs. I was sitting at dinner just the other day with an institutional investor, and we were talking. I can write a little—I can write a term paper on all of these little product designs and how they fit in the world of demand, novelty, margin, acceptance, all these things. We lived it. We've been doing it a long time. Okay? Some of these products don't have a lot of margin. Okay? Industrial odor control is a low-margin business. All right? What does that mean? Low-margin business. It means that you don't have a lot of extra money to plow into marketing and promotion and branding and pay for the distribution of the product. It's hard-earned business.

We also find that in industrial odor, a lot of times people won't spend money unless they're forced to. If the regulator's not bumping them on the head, they're not spending money. All those things go into the mix. Yeah. It's really fascinating. We've even had customers say, "We love your product, but you can't ever mention our name and don't tell anyone we have any odor." Okay? This is the real world. Right?

The answer is that's a very nice piece of business for us, but it's not the main piece of business. It pays the bills. It supports infrastructure. It allowed us to become experts. It allowed us to know what we know. The knowledge and the Intellectual Property that was created from that journey made it possible to do what we're doing with Pooph. It's a good thing.

It is a good thing it is still here because we think it is a nice piece of business. Relative to where you are going to plow your time, energy, and passion, you are not going to do it in a low-margin product with a high level of turnover in the marketplace. It is that simple. It does not mean it is—it means it is what it is. It is a nice piece of business. By the way, every industrial odor control client in the market should be using our product. Will they? I do not know. Right?

Yeah.

There you go.

All right. Quite a few questions here on the water side of the business. We'll start with the toughest one first. Exactly what went wrong with the Garratt-Callahan partnership to market sell the Minimum Liquid Discharge units?

That is a good question. It has not yielded the fruit that we anticipated for sure. Everybody knows that. In fact, we had a really high level of expectation about seeing the fruit bear out sooner, and it simply has not. I would say it is a couple of things. Right? One is, again, it is very much a situation where we are working with a company that has an existing revenue profile with existing products, with existing margins, and I do not know, 130 years of experience.

They are one of the best companies in the market at that. It is still a new product. You have to find adoption. We have not found adoption yet. That could be early in the market. It could be margin. It could be sensitivity to shifting political winds. All of those can play a role. We believe that that asset will find its way to market. Here's the thing from a financial perspective, and we're thankful to have Garrett-Callahan in our portfolio. We believe they're a winner company. We're going to win with them. They're high-quality people with a commitment to excellence in the marketplace, and they've proven that over 100 years. Our association is a good one.

We're going to do whatever we can do to help support them in getting that technology adopted in the marketplace. We're actually very active still. Here's the thing to remember. Very active is an interesting word. It means that most of the heavy lifting is already done. Okay? The investment's already made. We're not continuing to plow significant capital into that asset. We're maintaining and operating so we get adoption. It's incremental.

Garratt-Callahan's committed to really lead the charge on the client adoption side. They have a huge presence in the market. The answer is it hasn't yielded the fruit that we expect it to yield, but we still believe it will. It is time to work with our partner and get those deals done. That is what we're doing.

Yeah. In that same light, what about the New Jersey AEC project? That's been discussed for months, but the 10-K indicates it's still not installed.

Yeah. It's hard to keep up. It's funny. I watch the political news. If you don't watch it every day, it's hard to keep up because it moves so fast. The same thing's going on at BioLargo. Okay? The general contractor controls the build of the building. Until that building's built, we don't have a place to put our machine. When the snow sets in and the ground is frozen, they can't build the building, lay the power, do the plumbing. Now the snowfall happens. When that happens, they can build the building. We can put the machine in the building. That's it. It's real simple. It's not complicated. This is the nature of the business. Permitting's have delayed, general contractors delayed, whatever. It doesn't matter.

We show up when we're able to execute in accordance with our commitment. We show up. That's what we always do. It'll happen. I wish it was faster because the reference site's very important to us. Here's the problem. It just is what it is. We're going to deal with it the best we can and show up when the building's ready. Hopefully, that's summer. We'd actually heard rumblings like fall. We're like, "What the hell?" Pardon my language, but I mean, really. Anyway, we're going to try and get this thing done right. We're ready. If the building's ready tomorrow, we're ready tomorrow.

Okay. Great. Besides New Jersey, are there any AEC projects ready to announce? Are you proceeding at a pace you expected for the AEC product?

That's a good question. I think that it's interesting because the level of confidence internally and the level of external confidence in us has increased so dramatically. Even the Environmental Technology Trade Advisory Committee role with the Secretary of Commerce. As we mentioned earlier, we've got agreement from the EPA to do joint collaboration and testing for validation purposes with both the New Jersey site as well as its research facility in Cincinnati.

Remember that Sally Gutierrez was the Executive Director of that research facility for 22 over a 30-year career. I mean, again, just cut to the chase. Okay? I'm sorry it's taken so long to get that done, but it's about as good as it gets in the world. We are at the pinnacle of publication validation for that technology. We have done the work to be credentialed and credible for the world.

What we're witnessing now is high level of adoption from companies that want to team with us. Team with us. What does that mean? Remember, we talked about it a minute ago. That means an engineering firm with a client has a problem. An engineering firm brings us to the table, and we work together to solve it. It's as good as it gets. We have so much of it now going on. Are we happy? Of course, we want more sales faster. Of course. We're doing everything in our power to do that. This is the nature of innovation. Again, I'm going to point out to you that every other innovator that's an alternative to carbon and the ion exchange, not one of them that we know of has a commercial account. We do.

We also have projects that are stacking up with these teaming agreements that are incredible and significant. We are going to win. I know it's hard for people to be patient, but it's dramatic. Yes, we've had clients that put pause on. They say, "We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it." And then they don't. Okay? What does that tell you? They're waiting for someone to make them do it. They're not going to do it until somebody makes them do it. That's the way it works.

Now, some of these markets, the clients are proactive. They have money. They have capital resources. They're proactive, or they're already under EPA mandate. Some of these clients are not even under EPA mandate. They're not going to do it until the government tells them they have to.

The good news is all the regulatory thrust is heading in the direction supporting our agenda. Right? That's good news. The other is that we've got the credibility and years of experience to position ourselves as a winner in a very competitive market against billion-dollar competitors. Make no mistake about it. They got more money. Just imagine you're on the front line. Oh, are they going to be able to support you? Yeah. The answer is yes, which is why we're continuing to muscle up on the infrastructure of our company to be credible in that way.

Here's the thing. When you can save somebody 80% or 90% operating cost over a lifecycle, and you got a proven tech that's now being validated. Right? Not done, but being positioned to be collaboratively validated by the U.S. EPA. Give me a break. It's as good as it gets. I'm sorry it's taking so long, but it's incredible. We're proud of it. We're going to win. We're going to win big.

Got that.

Go ahead.

All right. Since we've been talking, there's been a few questions. It seems investors are pretty excited about Clyra. Let's go back to that when we wrap this call up. Can you give us a launch date for that?

I wish I could. My lips to God's ear. We're saying prayers every day that we get that date in our brain. Look, the answer is we don't know. That's the answer. We don't know. I wish we did. I think it certainly seems like it's right here in front of us. We've done the work. We've been communicating regularly throughout this process. Our partner wants to know that we can produce to scale. We just did that one. What else? There's always something to do, but nothing that's a deal killer. That's the way to think about it. There's nothing that's a deal killer. We should be in go mode soon. We're going to be working very closely. What Steve Harrison, the CEO at Clyra, has done is assemble this extraordinary team. Thirty-year QA/QC med device production people.

Project managers extraordinaire for med device companies. FDA compliance people. I mean, it's just astonishing the level of talent he's had to put in place. Plus the CapEx. The CapEx. Just think about it. Most companies can't even get the people, and then they don't have the money to do the infrastructure. We've done all of it. We've put the people in place. We've done the infrastructure. We've done the QA/QC. We've done the financing of the equipment. We've brought in the partners. We've shown we can produce to scale, and we're dealing with some of the biggest companies in the world. It's a big deal. What I say in the presentation, just don't screw it up. Just get it done. Don't screw it up. That's the most important.

The most important thing is to make sure the systems are in place to provide QA/QC and produce to scale. When that's ready, it's going to go. We're coming really close to that mark. I think it's an investment for all kinds of reasons. Human health, high impact. This is a global product. I was just in Spain sitting looking at the—they look at you and say, "I want it yesterday for my patient." That's what we got. It's a game changer. It's really good. Soon. That's the answer. We believe it's really soon.

Brian Loper (Head of Investor Relations)

Yeah. Of course, folks are dying to know, do you have any sales estimates for 2025 for once Clyra does launch?

Dennis Calvert (CEO)

I think it's a little premature. The way to think about it is your partners are pretty big companies. I'll tell you what we do know. We knew that in order to meet the mark of proving we could produce to scale, right? That's the benchmark, that that was the ability to produce 1 million units a year times two products. Okay? 1 million units a year times two products. Okay. Are they going to do half that, all that, more than that? We're not really sure. We just have to go through the process. At any of those marks, it's pretty significant revenue for Clyra. Nobody says, "You got to do 1 million units, but I'm going to sell 10,000." It's just not going to happen. We just need to let it unfold. Right?

We're not in the position to really forecast that. Okay?

Yeah. All right. I mean, 2024 was an exciting year for BioLargo. I think it was something like 45% growth, company record. And I believe you've been doing that pretty steadily for some years. Can you just kind of wrap up with 2024 and kind of what you're most excited about in the coming quarters here?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, gosh, there's so much. Back to the thesis, right? Technology that just has a chance to be disruptive, high-quality people, capital and serving, right? Purpose, high impact. Clyra is a high-impact asset for human health that can impact the world for an incredibly good thing. Right? Healing wounds, avoiding infections. That's a big deal. That's fulfilling. I'm very excited about that. I think we now have scaled manufacturing capability, technology that's proven, clearance with the regulators. I mean, just get the parties in line and go. Go do it.

That's where we're at. Big deal. I believe that the PFAS will find adoption through significant teaming agreements with credible players that have been in the business a long time and got big balance sheets. We're going to see some hits there. Nice wins. Get some nice wins.

It's going to start to multiply. Battery tech. We're near to validation. I hope that we can put some real capital behind that asset directly into the subsidiary. Directly into the subsidiary. It's got the tools to really execute at a level that's required to compete in that market. That would be the next milestone. Of course, Pooph will find its way. We know their stated goals when we started. It's ebbed and flowed slightly with performance. The products are winners.

Pooph has proven that technology has a home in the right market with the right marketing. It takes marketing too. It's not just technology and all the support to get that distribution done, which is critical. It's a winner. The pet industry is almost, it's not recession-proof, but pretty near. People love their pets. Okay?

This is a market that we think will just continue to grow. Okay? This is what's the beauty of BioLargo. Multiple shots on goal, concentrating on its core competency, leveraging those pillars around, right? High impact, capital conserving, very protective of our capital base, in a stronger financial position than we've ever been in. We'll have a shareholders meeting coming up on June 19th. I want to encourage everyone to be there. We think that uplifting to a national market for our securities is a very critical piece of the step. We should, as we execute continually, see an upgrading of our valuation, which means price increase. We think that will only spurn the need to move quicker to get our securities listed in a national market.

As I've said since inception, we want to do that when the wind is fully in the sails and the expectations of growth and multiplication of our earnings potential is at hand. Okay? As we get adoption with a new market like a Clyra, that could do it. Any of these assets, as they find adoption, they can propel us into what we would consider prices that are more reflective of the underlying value, as described in the slide where we talk about the hidden value of our assets. I mean, right? That's the point. We put these big numbers up because underlying the core assets of our portfolio is a massive value. What does it take to unleash it? People have to know about it.

You got to get performing. You got to get off an OTC market. You got to get into a national exchange with the confidence in the revenue and some predictability in your sales cycle and all that's happening. Again, we're proud of the business. I always say, I'm just so sorry it's taken so long, but man, is it worth it? I mean, literally, we've got assets that are worth four careers, and they're in one business. What we're doing is awesome. I hope that helps you.

Fantastic. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that. Those are all the questions for today.

Okay, everybody. Shareholders are meeting 19th June. Look for the notice. Of course, as always, reach out to us. You can look at our website, read our filings for the most up-to-date knowledge, and reach out to us if we can do any questions. Thank you for your time, everybody. Great year, BioLargo. Appreciate it.