AEye, Inc. (NASDAQ:LIDR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Bob Brown: Yes, absolutely. Thanks for the question, Joe. So yes, as you said, we had $94 million in cash at 12/31. So from where we’re staying today, we feel confident we’ve got at least a year’s worth of cash on the balance sheet from today. So we’re in reasonably good shape from that perspective. We do intend to raise more capital in the future. So you’ll see that in our 10-K that we mentioned that when that is published here shortly. But as you know, given the cash balance, we do have some flexibility on timing. So there’s not an urgency to do something, although we do intend to raise some capital at some point here. So we’ll see more about that in the future. We’re not going to guide further than that at this moment. Given Matt’s only been in the chair for 30 days here, I think I want to give Matt a chance to finish his strategic analysis here.

And then I think we’ll come back in May with some further thoughts about how we’re going to take the company forward and what that implies for the cash.

Matt Fisch: And I’ll just add one thing to that. I’ve been digging into especially the customer engagements. Over the last 30 days, there’s definitely opportunity for focus and looking at those signals and that I mentioned earlier, I think we can get more focused. That’s really a key initiative from my end.

Joseph Osha: Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Diffely of D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, can you hear me?

Bob Brown: Yes.

Unidentified Analyst: This is Linda with D.A. Davidson on behalf of Tom Diffely. Congratulations on your progress, and thank you for letting us ask questions. And welcome, Matt, and best of luck with your next steps, Bob. So my first question, if I remember correctly, you expected some supply chain challenges to last longer. And I was wondering if you could provide any update on the round swift 4Sight given those supply chain challenges. And then if you could give us some color on how the order bookings look like at the moment and then add the growth trajectory there throughout next year?

Bob Brown: Yes, you bet. Thank you, Linda. So in terms of the supply chain challenges, some of those problems are still there. So there are still some key parts that we would classify as long lead time types of parts. So it’s taking longer to get those. There are also still some PPV challenges where parts are still priced above where you would normally see them priced if there were not the supply chain challenges in place. I’d say it’s getting better. So we are seeing some improvement, but I would say those issues are still lingering. So it’s not hurting us too much in terms of the production at this point. As we said, for Q1, the key issue there is just doing this software revision and then the testing and validation. So I don’t think that will be a big limiter in terms of production for this year.

We are working closely with customers, as we said in the prepared remarks, we are focusing and we’re going to spend quite a bit of time at so there will be a lot of focus around that area this year. So Matt, I don’t know if you want to add further in terms of the customer engagements and visibility from what you’ve seen so far?

Matt Fisch: All right. No, I think it’s a good summary, Bob. And as we’re looking at things right now, it’s the software and getting those updates done, that’s really on the critical path.

Unidentified Analyst: Great. I appreciate the color. And then last quarter, you had mentioned some successes in tracking. And I was wondering where at the moment, you’re sitting with that? Have you seen any more engagement there? How are you looking at it?