Vuzix Corporation (NASDAQ:VUZI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Paul Travers: The bulk of the revenues, I think, is going to be choppy because that’s the nature of engineering revenues, right? I mean you’re doing something, you do a lot of work, you deliver in a quarter, and then they’re evaluating. And then the quarters later, you’re rolling on the next piece just trying to get into production. So the but we have a bunch of those things that are happening, Christian. So I would suggest that you’ll see continued choppy growth, but it will get bigger and bigger over time, upwards of 100% to 200%.

Christian Schwab: Okay. That’s perfect. And then my last question, kind of given that back-of-the-envelope outlook for revenue and the capital investments we’re making, what should we — what is the fair assessment that we should assume for cash burn this year?

Paul Travers: It should be similar to ’22, I think.

Grant Russell: It shouldn’t be any worse between — our plan is to be better than lose less cash than —

Paul Travers: I’m sorry, forgive me, 20% because the revenue size is climbing.

Grant Russell: I mean we’re still making some big investments in 2023, as mentioned on the call, regarding expansion of our waveguide capabilities and manufacturing. And if you dig into the K, there are some further investments we’re making related to our Atomistic technology licenses.

Operator: Next question is coming from Jim McIlree from Dawson James.

Jim McIlree : In the K, you talked about the Atomistic agreement being, I don’t know, amended or changed. And my question is what was the genesis of that. And then, secondly, does that change the cash obligations or timing that you have with Atomistic?

Paul Travers: It really doesn’t. I mean I think we’ve got a bit more of a window on one piece of it, but for the most part, it doesn’t change anything. There’s no extra cash needed. It’s just — there was a way for us to get some more technology that we could bring on board, and we thought that, that was important. So we made some modifications around it to do that.

Jim McIlree : And so the change was around getting the additional technologies. Is that right?

Paul Travers: Yes. That’s 100%.

Jim McIlree : Got it. And so when does that investment, that partnership with Atomistic, when does that turn into a product — or a revenue-generating product?

Paul Travers: That’s a good question, Jim. Let me say that between now and when it does, there should be a lot of data points that we’re going to be able to share along the way. I’m been saying that, but things are starting to come together now. We’re, knock on wood, about ready to file the intellectual property pieces on the stuff that we need to do. And we’ll be able to share a whole lot more coming up. I will say that they are doing around some other things that we’re also doing, may bring revenue generation sooner rather than later. But there’s a lot in the air that I’d rather not talk about just yet on this one.

Jim McIlree : Okay. So is it reasonable then to think that this is a 20 — let’s put it this way, not a 2023 impact.

Paul Travers: Correct.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Jack Vander Aarde from Maxim Group.

Jack Vander Aarde: I appreciate the update. It was great. It was also great to — I was at CES this year. So it was great to test out your latest products and the new platform at CES. A couple of questions. I was wondering about the multiple OEM purchase orders you announced in early January of this year. There’s a press release with the 3 defense firms and the one commercial customer. I know you mentioned some of those orders were at least partially shipped in 2022, and I think the rest would be in 2023. But just a couple of related questions here. Could you give any more color around maybe the size of these deals or just relative — if you can’t give — talk about the size of the deals themselves, maybe just talk about how much percentage-wise shipped and was recognized in the fourth quarter versus what you expect in the first quarter of ’23? And then are these shipments included at least $3.5 million of product revenue you’ve locked in, in the first quarter?