Peraso - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Transcript

Speaker 4

Good afternoon and welcome to Peraso Inc.'s second quarter 2025 conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. If anyone needs assistance at any time during the conference call, please press the star key followed by zero on your touch-tone phone. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, Monday, August 11, 2025. I would now like to turn the call over to your host for today's conference call, Mr. James Sullivan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Good afternoon and thank you for joining today's conference call to discuss Peraso's second quarter 2025 financial results. I'm Jim Sullivan, CFO of Peraso, and joining me today is Ron Glibbery, our CEO. Today, after the market closed, we issued a press release and related Form 8-K, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The press release and Form 8-K are available on Peraso's website at www.perasoinc.com under the Investor Relations section. There is also a slide presentation that we will be using in conjunction with today's call that may be accessed through the webcast link on the IR website. As a reminder, comments made during today's conference call may include forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed as forward-looking. Peraso advises caution and reliance on forward-looking statements.

These statements include, without limitation, any projections of revenue, margins, expenses, non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP operating expenses, adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP net loss, cash flows, or other financial items, including anticipated cost savings, as well as any statements concerning the expected development, performance, and market share, or competitive performance of our products or technologies, and any statements related to prospective future financing arrangements or capital transactions, and the evaluation of pursuit of strategic alternatives. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to Peraso on the date hereof. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause Peraso's actual results to differ materially from those implied by the forward-looking statements, including unexpected changes in the company's business. More detailed information about these risk factors and additional risk factors are set forth in Peraso's public filings with the SEC.

Peraso expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Additionally, the company's press release and management statements during this conference call will include discussions of certain measures and financial information in terms of GAAP and non-GAAP. With respect to remarks on today's call involving non-GAAP numbers, unless otherwise indicated, referenced amounts exclude stock-based compensation expense, amortization of intangible assets, severance costs, and the change in fair value of warrant liabilities. These non-GAAP financial measures, definitions, and the reconciliation of these differences between them and comparable GAAP measures are presented in our press release and related Form 8-K, which provide additional details. For those of you unable to listen to the entire call at this time, a recording will be available on the Investor Relations page of our website.

Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Ron Glibbery, for his prepared remarks. Ron?

Speaker 0

Thank you, Jim. Good afternoon and welcome to everyone on the phone and webcast. We appreciate you joining us for today's conference call. We had a solid and productive second quarter, marked by continued market momentum and growing demand for Peraso's industry-leading mmWave technology. Revenue from our mmWave products increased 45% sequentially and more than 200% year over year as we continued to ramp shipments to an expanding customer base and across multiple targeted end markets. Further highlighting sustained market leadership of our 60 GHz solutions, we achieved a significant milestone, having surpassed 2 million cumulative shipments of our mmWave devices. Complementing the growth of our mmWave products, we have continued to exercise disciplined cost management, resulting in lower run rate operating expenses and significant year-over-year improvement in our operating results for the quarter.

Looking at slide four, fixed wireless access continues to represent the largest and fastest growing market opportunity for mmWave technology. Due to its unique ability to deliver reliable, high-speed, and low-latency broadband connectivity to homes and businesses without the cost burden associated with fiber infrastructure, throughout the first half of the year, we have already seen a steady and broadening recovery in both market demand and customer orders for our fixed wireless access solutions. Highlighting our most recently announced win, in July, we announced one of our leading partners, Tachyon Networks, selected Peraso's mmWave modules to power its latest outdoor 60 GHz fixed wireless solution. Our advanced mmWave module enabled Tachyon's solution to deliver fiber-class speeds at a breakthrough price point, supporting rapid broadband deployments in both dense urban and rural markets.

More specifically, their latest solution offers gigabit connectivity, has an over three-kilometer range, and is compatible with Tachyon's existing TNA 300 series, with the ability to support up to 48 client connections per sector. This win and our ongoing collaborative partnership with Tachyon Networks are a testament to Peraso's recognized technology leadership for high-performance mmWave solutions. Today, we remain engaged with numerous wireless internet service providers that are utilizing Peraso's mmWave technology in proof of concepts for future fixed wireless access deployment. We expect these and additional new opportunities to contribute to our sustained future growth as we convert successful proof of concepts into new initial production orders. Now turning to slide five, in addition to capitalizing on the recent momentum with the fixed wireless access market, we continue to be excited about the growing interest in market opportunity for mmWave technology in next-generation tactical communications and military defense applications.

Following a series of early prospective discussions and initial engagement with potential customers and ecosystem partners, we have become increasingly confident that the inherent characteristics of our mmWave technology are well matched to solve a number of critical communication challenges encountered in tactical defense environments. As discussed on a previous call, we demonstrated our first commercial proof point earlier this year with a strategic contract with a specialized defense contractor to deliver mission-critical wireless applications to global military and defense forces. We have since been working in close collaboration with this lead customer to refine a jointly created and deployable system solution for a first-of-its-kind tactical defense application. In June, we announced a significant milestone with the delivery of initial production shipments of our advanced 60 GHz wireless solutions in support of this jointly developed solution.

More specifically, this new deployable system solution leverages Peraso's technology to provide heightened communication and situational awareness to help safeguard both military personnel and non-combatants, such as medics and humanitarian responders operating in high-risk environments. As a company, we are proud to be part of enabling this next-generation tactical communication solution designed to mitigate and prevent unnecessary human casualties. This notable win is also further validation of the performance and versatility of our mmWave technology helping to establish Peraso's commercial presence and accelerate our strategic expansion in the broader tactical defense communications market. With increasing awareness of its inherent performance attributes and advanced capabilities, including ultra-low latency, high reliability, and stealthy multi-gigabit data transmission, we believe that 60 GHz mmWave technology is poised to gain substantial market traction across a broad span of mission-critical applications.

As just one prominent example from our previously mentioned early discussions with prospective future customers and ecosystem partners, we've recently observed heightened interest around leveraging the benefits of mmWave for various drone-related applications. More generally, we are highly motivated by both the significant and growing commercial potential of mission-critical applications, as well as the associated opportunities to contribute to future positive real-world impacts. We believe Peraso's advanced mmWave technology and commercially proven solutions represent a unique strategic advantage that we can capitalize on and continue to scale over time. As such, we remain committed to expanding our market presence, collaboration with ecosystem partners, and customer engagement in the tactical defense communications market over the coming quarters. Move to slide six.

Although we traditionally dedicate a majority of our quarterly calls and commentary to updates on our two largest targeted markets, I want to take the opportunity on today's call to briefly highlight both the versatility of our mmWave products and the incremental growth opportunities that exist in adjacent end markets. Kindly note, we generally separate and refer to our collective target adjacent and end markets as two distinct categories. The first being transportation, and the second category we call professional video delivery. While the typical revenue contribution from both these categories is smaller relative to fixed wireless access business, we do have a combination of current or recurring customers, sales, as well as active engagements in both these adjacent markets.

Having provided that background as context, the most important takeaway is that mmWave technology delivers a uniquely compelling value proposition for overcoming complex connectivity challenges across diverse applications in both our targeted and adjacent markets. It's largely the same inherent high performance and advanced capabilities that mmWave brings to fixed wireless and tactical communications. These same attributes make mmWave a critical enabler and frequently the only practical economic solution for applications requiring robust, high data rate connectivity. As a recent example, further highlighting mmWave's unique capabilities and value proposition in adjacent markets, in June, we received and have since shipped the production order of our 60 GHz wireless solution in support of a new customer's wireless video system for classroom environments.

This customer chose to incorporate Peraso's 60 GHz wireless mmWave technology to enable its solution for the reliable delivery of high-performance, low-latency video in high-density school environments, while also operating completely independent of schools' frequently congested existing Wi-Fi infrastructure. Also notable, this was our first-ever production shipment in support of a solution specifically tailored for education and therefore reflected an expansion of our served addressable market. Looking now at slide seven, borrowing from the layout that we utilized to show our overall pipeline in previous quarters, we recently introduced this new pipeline slide in order to specifically track and visualize the progression of our customer base over time. Noting the timeframe between the two respective funnels from Q4 2023 to Q2 2025, representing approximately 18 months, we are very pleased with the substantial progress we made towards expanding our customer base over this relatively short period.

Especially when viewed in the context of how time and resource intensive it can often be to acquire a single new customer and then successfully advance engagement on a specific program from an initial evaluation through the design process and ultimately see a customer's finished product be released to production. Although doubling our number of customers that are now in production from 7 to 14 hopefully speaks for itself, there's another potentially more subtle takeaway that I want to highlight. In addition to successfully attracting and securing new customers, this slide also demonstrates our ability to effectively advance a growing number of funnel opportunities and program engagements across an increasingly diverse group of end market applications.

Turning to slide eight, this is another view of our pipeline over the same 18-month period ending in June, but shown in terms of the number of SKUs or individual device models, irrespective of whether an individual SKU is associated with a new or existing customer. The overall trajectory is definitively positive and, similar to the prior slide, also demonstrates our substantial progress on advancing a sizable number of engagement opportunities and to finish customer products released into production. The other two takeaways that I want to briefly highlight are, first, the number of customer SKUs that are now currently in production have increased 90% over the last 18 months. This metric alone reflects a dramatically more diversified base of existing products with the potential for revenue contribution.

Lastly, as of quarter end, we had seven additional engagements in the pre-production stage, representing potential incremental revenue contribution in the relatively near future as customers release these products into production. In summary, we are pleased with our demonstrated growth and market momentum through the first half of the year as we've continued to ramp production shipments of our mmWave solutions in support of an expanding and increasingly diverse customer base. Combined with our ongoing commitment to disciplined expense management, we have meaningfully improved our operating results and significantly reduced our quarterly cash burden. Looking forward, we have good visibility into near-term orders for our mmWave solutions with an existing backlog that supports continued sequential growth. In fact, we currently expect record quarterly revenue contribution from our mmWave products in the third quarter.

Having said that, we continue to be diligently focused on converting our healthy pipeline of existing customer engagements into new designs and incremental production orders in support of sustained growth in 2026 and beyond. I'll now turn the call back over to Jim to review the financials and provide our current revenue outlook for the third quarter of 2025.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Ron. Turning now to the results for the second quarter of 2025. Total net revenue for the second quarter was $2.2 million, compared with $3.9 million for the prior quarter and $4.2 million for the second quarter of 2024. Product revenue in the second quarter was $2.2 million, compared with $3.8 million in the prior quarter and $4.1 million in the second quarter of 2024. The decreases in product revenues for the second quarter of 2025 compared with the prior quarter and comparable period of 2024 were attributable to the previous completion of EOL shipments of memory integrated circuit products during the first quarter of 2025. Specific to sales of millimeter wave products, revenues were $2.2 million in the second quarter of 2025, compared with $1.5 million in the prior quarter and $0.7 million in the second quarter of 2024.

GAAP gross margin decreased to 48.3% in the second quarter, from 69.3% in the prior quarter and 55.5% in the year-ago quarter. The decrease in GAAP gross margin for the second quarter of 2025 from the prior comparable periods was primarily attributable to revenue being comprised entirely of millimeter wave products. On a non-GAAP basis, gross margin for the second quarter was also 48.3%, compared with 69.3% in the prior quarter and compared with 68.8% in the second quarter of 2024. GAAP operating expenses for the second quarter of 2025 were $2.9 million, compared with $3.2 million in the prior quarter and $6.8 million in the second quarter of 2024.

The year-over-year decrease in operating expenses on a GAAP basis was primarily attributable to reduced stock-based compensation expense and $2 million of charges for software license obligations and severance costs incurred during the second quarter of 2024, and amortization expense related to intangible assets fully amortized in 2024. Non-GAAP operating expenses, which exclude stock-based compensation, amortization of intangible assets, and severance costs, were $2.7 million in the second quarter, compared with $3.1 million in the prior quarter and $5 million in the second quarter of 2024. The year-over-year decrease in operating expenses on a non-GAAP basis was primarily attributable to a $1.6 million charge for software license obligations recorded in the prior year, as well as previously implemented cost reductions and ongoing cost containment initiatives.

GAAP net loss for the second quarter of 2025 was $1.8 million, or a loss of $0.31 per share, compared with a net loss of $0.5 million, or a loss of $0.08 per share in the prior quarter, and compared with a net loss of $4.4 million, or a loss of $1.88 per share in the same quarter a year ago. Non-GAAP net loss, which excludes stock-based compensation, amortization of intangible assets, severance costs, and change in fair value of warrant liabilities for the second quarter of 2025, was $1.7 million, or a loss of $0.28 per share. This compared with a non-GAAP net loss of $0.4 million, or a loss of $0.07 per share in the prior quarter, and a net loss of $2.1 million, or a loss per share of $0.88 in the same quarter a year ago.

The weighted average number of basic and diluted shares outstanding for purposes of calculating both GAAP and non-GAAP EPS for the second quarter of 2025 was approximately 6 million shares. Adjusted EBITDA, which we define as GAAP net income or loss as reported, excluding stock-based compensation, amortization of intangible assets, severance costs, change in fair value of warrant liabilities, interest expense, depreciation and amortization, and the provision for income taxes, was negative $1.6 million in the second quarter of 2025, compared with negative $0.3 million in the prior quarter and negative $1.9 million in the second quarter of 2024. With regard to the balance sheet, as of June 30, 2025, the company had approximately $1.8 million of cash and equivalents.

The net change in the company's cash and equivalent balance for the second quarter was approximately $1 million and included approximately $1.1 million of net proceeds from the company's at-the-market offering program during the quarter. As of today's call, the company has approximately 6.2 million shares of common stock and exchangeable shares outstanding. Lastly, before discussing our outlook, I wanted to briefly acknowledge the recently announced decision by our Board of Directors to explore potential strategic alternatives, including the merger, sale of assets, or other similar transactions, as well as various potential sources of additional capital. As previously disclosed, we have retained a financial advisor to assist with the exploration process, which includes evaluation of the unsolicited non-binding proposal received in June. Aside from confirming that a formal review process is currently underway, there are no related updates to be shared today.

Now, turning to our outlook, as Ron previously discussed, we are seeing positive market momentum for our millimeter wave solutions, as evidenced by the ramp of production shipments to an expanding customer base. Based on the current backlog, we anticipate continued sequential growth and record revenue contribution from our millimeter wave solutions in the September quarter. More specifically, the company expects total net revenue for the third quarter of 2025 to be in the range of $2.8 million to $3.1 million. This concludes our prepared remarks, and we thank you for your time this afternoon. Operator, please commence the Q&A session.

Speaker 4

Certainly. Everyone, at this time we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your headset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone. Your first question is coming from David Williams from Benchmark. Your line is live.

Speaker 1

Good afternoon, gentlemen, and thanks for taking my question. I guess maybe first, lots of nice progress there across the space, especially in the tactical communications segment. Ron, I think you mentioned being engaged on some drone opportunities there. We've heard that at least this earnings season, a couple of folks have talked specifically about just the demand they're seeing develop in that space. I'm wondering if you could give us maybe a little more color on the number of engagements or just kind of what you're seeing in the different opportunities in that military space. Thanks.

Speaker 0

Thanks, Steve. Thanks for being on the call. The fundamental concept to keep in mind is stealth. When we communicate on the battlefield, it can be very difficult or impossible for the enemy to detect our signal. We got a customer engagement today whereby we use that on the ground with the battalions and infantry. That same company is now looking to move that concept to drones. The idea is you move the concept to drones whereby when you're using a drone for some kind of attack, you can determine whether the target is a friend or foe. That's one of the opportunities on the drone side of things. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1

Yes, it does. One of the other things they've kind of brought up was the targeting on the battlefield from the RF communication. I'm just wondering if your kind of envelope or your precision in terms of the signal, does that give you an opportunity maybe to participate there where they're concerned with maybe picking up that RF signal and targeting those infantrymen?

Speaker 0

That's exactly the point, Dave, because as you know, we use a concept called beamforming, and we can create very, we develop some custom beamformers for this application whereby we have a very, very narrow signal, and that signal is essentially impossible for the enemy to detect. That's really what we've been doing on the battlefield side of things. This can be also applied to not just that application, but also on just strict standard signal communication. The core concept remains the same, which is this ability to operate on the battlefield in a stealthy capability.

Speaker 1

Okay. No, that's great. Maybe secondly here, I know you probably can't discuss or comment much here on the acquisition, but the press release seemed a little floppy, at least in our opinion, and had multiple misstatements, I believe. First, I just want to see if you could confirm that that was a legitimate offer. Any updates in terms of how you're thinking about the business, given your balance sheet, and just kind of where you're positioned today? Lots of opportunities, but the balance sheet is a little constrained here. Just anything around that would be helpful. Thanks.

Speaker 0

To me, it's a DUNE, David.

Speaker 1

To whomever?

Speaker 3

Sure. I mean, I can comment on the balance sheet. From our perspective right now, we have cash into the fourth quarter of this year. We'll have an updated disclosure in our 10-Q that will be filed here by Thursday. In the previous 10-Q, we had said we had cash into the third quarter. We've obviously extended our runway. As we disclosed on the call, we've done some trading under our ATM program to bring in additional capital. We remain in pursuit of various opportunities to raise capital, and first and foremost, attempting to do it non-dilutively. We did sign an NRE agreement in the month of July of a good amount for us, but a modest amount overall, and are pursuing other engagements. Those NRE engagements are non-recurring engineering. It's a great way for us to bring in additional capital and offset costs, etc.

We continue to pursue all activities on the financing front and remain pleased with our execution, in particular with our outlook for Q3 and in particular our visibility towards that outlook, which is frankly as good as it's been based on our backlog. With regard to the proposal we received, yes, we can confirm that is a valid proposal, and we don't have more to say other than what I said on the call and what's been included in our SEC filings.

Speaker 1

Okay. Fantastic. I appreciate the color there. Jim, as you kind of think about the growth that you're seeing here, your inventory had a nice step down this quarter as well. Obviously, that's beneficial on the cash side. How do you think that inventory level is going to trend, and do you feel like we burned through much of the inventory digestion that we had been kind of struggling with the last several quarters?

Speaker 3

Yes, absolutely. We're definitely seeing movement, not with all customers, but in particular, as evidenced by the large purchase order we announced earlier this year from our largest internet equipment customer. We still have one or two other customers there that are still working through their inventory. We're in a position now where the inventory we have in hand is basically spoken for on future shipments, and we've had to go ahead and start replenishing certain other products that go in the chipset. Not everyone's through it, but enough are there. We're seeing things turn back on and burning through the inventory that we had and have started placing new orders.

Speaker 1

One last, sorry to take the time here, but I did want to ask on opportunities on the military side. It seems like you've got such an interesting and unique capability here that this would be an area of opportunity, especially for maybe defense NREs or to work with maybe the DOD or some of the others. Are you seeing any traction there? Do you think they're aware of what you're doing? Is that an opportunity maybe to drive some near-term NRE or other revenue?

Speaker 0

Oh, you know, Dave, we are driving NRE. This is actually a very custom design. What we're finding with the military is it's not fixed wireless. It's not your father's fixed wireless solution. NRE is definitely a part of our strategy moving forward. The thing to keep in mind, I would say we have maybe three levers, including software, the modules, and our antennas. We can adjust all of those. For example, the example I gave earlier whereby we use extra antennas to create this very narrow beam on the battlefield is a very, very strong advantage for us. You can see that our ability to adjust some of those parameters on our products through the NRE, as you suggest, is a very powerful tool for us. That's something we're executing on. That's a terrific point. We've got our first NREs in the bag.

We just didn't publicly announce them, but NRE is going to play a big role in the next year and a half, and we're hoping to build that beyond where we're at today.

Speaker 1

Thanks so much for the color, gentlemen. I certainly appreciate it and best of luck on the quarter.

Speaker 0

All right, thanks.

Speaker 1

Thanks, David.

Speaker 0

Thanks for your question.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Kevin Liu from K Liu & Company. Your line is live.

Speaker 2

Hi, good afternoon, guys, and nice progress here on the millimeter wave side. I know you guys talked a little bit about some of the wins you've had with Tachyon and others in the quarter. With the seven pre-production wins in the pipeline, just wondering if you can add in more color to some of the other wins that you have there and when you would expect some of those to start contributing to your revenue stream.

Speaker 0

I could say that basically a lot of that is fixed wireless. I think what we're seeing in the market is a lot of the previous chipset vendors like Qualcomm and others have just kind of gone by the wayside. I'd say our thesis that we're becoming the dominant player in fixed wireless is coming true, Kevin. A lot of that is in the fixed wireless side of things, just because we've got so many customers, so much credibility in that space that we continue to grow and dominate that space. Obviously, we've got designs on the military side of things as well. As Dave said previously, our ability to operate in stealth mode and the ability to operate without really being detected by the enemy is just an extremely important characteristic of our technology on the defense side of things.

I'd say out of the seven, most of it's fixed wireless, some of it's military. We have other, you know, video is certainly a kind of an interesting area for us. I would say fixed wireless and defense are the main areas of growth for us right now.

Speaker 2

That's good to hear. Just as it relates to your backlog, as you come into Q3, and obviously you're going to see some nice sequential growth here, just wondering how strong that backlog is. Have you guys fully shipped everything against some of the larger orders you received earlier in the year, and have you continued to build upon that? Anything you can share in terms of your visibility for the remainder of this year would be helpful.

Speaker 0

Jim, do you want to start?

Speaker 3

I think I'll stick.

Speaker 0

Yep.

Speaker 3

I think as I mentioned in my response to David, we have excellent visibility on the third quarter. We're very comfortable with our backlog relative to the revenue number that we provided for guidance. Not all of that has been shipped. There's always the possibility for shipments not to go, etc., that anyone has. We're very comfortable with where we sit. It's probably, for being where we're at, in one of the best shapes it's been, kind of halfway through the quarter. We're still filling in for the fourth quarter, still expecting some additional orders. Obviously, as I mentioned in response to David's question, still waiting for a few customers to run through inventory and turn back on. Definitely pleased from where we sit right now. I feel very good with Q3. We still have a little more work to do on Q4.

As I also mentioned and Ron mentioned, we did secure one non-recurring engineering deal in July. Until we've gone through the revenue recognition and talked to the auditors, we put a modest amount in 3Q and expect more of that in 4Q. Right now, we've been modest on 3Q. Pleased with where we sit. We even have a fair amount into the early 2026. Definitely seeing better visibility there.

Speaker 2

Sounds good. Just on the non-recurring engineering deal, I know it's early and you haven't quite figured out all the accounting behind it. Conceptually, how should we think about the implications from that? Does that provide you guys with a revenue stream that could contribute all the way through the next year and a half, or would it be fairly lumpy in terms of the periods you get that? Also, just from an expense standpoint, do you need to make some investments on the R&D side to staff up to handle those types of arrangements?

Speaker 3

I'll do the question on a LIFO basis. Modest expense. It's only, you know, a finance person could answer it. You know, modest, any expense adjustments are pretty modest. Didn't need to go out and add headcount. It's supporting an existing customer. Right now, I would say we need to make modifications to satisfy the needs for the customer's application. Something that's certainly in the forecast. Obviously, we are pursuing additional NRE opportunities. Obviously, the goal for companies like us is, again, you get the cash, it offsets your engineering expense. Ideally, you come out of it with a future product to offer to others. Often, the way I've seen these, whoever pays for the NRE may get some exclusivity, etc., depending on how it's negotiated, features, exclusive, etc. You obviously look to add another set of SKUs in our toolkit to sell to other customers.

Hard for me to say on the revenue recognition. We obviously didn't, it's a modest six-figure amount. Hard to say. We've just been racing on the current quarter, and it was a July transaction.

Speaker 0

I'm sorry, focusing on the Q2 quarter, I should say, not the quarter. I would just, I think in terms of your question regarding whether it's lumpy, Kevin, I guess my takeaway, knowing that certainly there's a focus on one customer right now, my kind of guidance would be that it's going to be an ongoing NRE for, you know, for at least a year and a half, I would say. Not so lumpy, kind of steady state. I would also make the point, I think it's very important, is when, you know, A, as Jim's point was very important, which is we're not adding a lot of or even any new expense. This is all, you know, it's existing engineering talent. The other thing is that anytime we do NRE, it's for production.

Like we get, you know, we get paid on the engineering side of things, but we will not do NRE if it's not leading to production. For us, production is the most important metric, frankly. I think that's really important to make, a point to make for us, is that all of this is leading to, you know, what we consider significant production. That's kind of the model we have right now. What we're trying to do is ongoing NRE that kind of pays for engineering with programs that lead to good production.

Speaker 2

Understood. Congrats again on the progress and thanks for taking the question.

Speaker 0

Our pleasure.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Your next question is coming from David Williams from Benchmark. Your line is live.

Speaker 3

You couldn't get nothing, David?

Speaker 0

No, no, take my pocket.

Speaker 3

Hey, he's trying to avoid going out in the delicate.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's exactly right. I didn't want to go over all the time and give some time to others, but I did want to ask on the BEAD funding, and we've got some clarification. I know there are some changes there in terms of the, you know, more technology neutral. Just curious if you're hearing anything from your customers in terms of, is that a benefit yet? Do you think it will be over time as now for that BEAD funding may roll into fixed wireless access?

Speaker 0

I'd say there's two things on the regulatory front we should highlight. One is the BEAD. It's a little early. I mean, BEAD was for like a couple of years very fiber-focused, and people got into that kind of mode of operation. I think people are just trying to understand now how it's going to change for fixed wireless. Obviously, it's a benefit to us, right? I don't know if it's obvious, but it is obvious. I mean, the main benefit we have over fiber, frankly, is just the cost of the rollout and the time. There's two major factors there. One is the cost, so no trenching. The time, there's not that many trenching machines, for example, right? We have a very strong advantage when it comes to fixed wireless in those environments. We're hearing from customers that they're very happy with the changes that they're seeing in BEAD.

The other point I think we made on the presentation was that in the big beautiful bill, for lack of a better term, that was recently passed, there's a real chance that a lot of the open and the unlicensed spectrum is going to get auctioned off, except for ours. That helped us as well. From a regulatory perspective, that's kind of a net bonus for us. A lot of people aren't aware of that, but that's kind of a positive regulatory update for us as well.

Speaker 1

Okay, great. Just one last one. Did you feel funny saying big beautiful bill?

Speaker 0

I don't.

Speaker 1

Again, thanks for the time.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 0

I thought that's what it was called. Sorry.

Speaker 4

Certainly. I show there are no further questions in the queue at this time. That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Speaker 0

Thank you.