Eco Wave Power Global AB (publ) (WAVE) Earnings Call Transcript

Good day. Welcome to the Eco Wave Power Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Aharon Yehuda, CFO at Eco Wave. Aharon, you may begin.

Thank you, Paul. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I will begin with a review of Eco Wave Power's financial results for the 6 months ended June 30, 2026. During the first half of 2026, we remain focused on financial discipline and efficient capital allocation while continuing to support the advancement of our technology and global project pipeline. Our operating expenses for the first 6 months of 2026 was approximately USD 1.45 million compared with approximately USD 1.59 million in the same period of 2025, representing a decrease of approximately 9% year-over-year. Looking at the individual expense categories, research and development expenses decreased by approximately 45% to USD 218,000 compared with USD 399,000 in the first half of 2025. This decrease was primarily attributable to lower labor and other research and development costs as well as increased grant funding received during the period. Sales and marketing expenses were USD 134,000 compared with USD 123,000 in the same period last year. The increase was mainly related to payroll rather than investor communication activities as we continued expanding our international presence. General and administrative expenses remained relatively stable at approximately $1.07 million compared with approximately $1.09 million in first half of 2025. Other income increased by approximately 3% to USD 64,000 compared with USD 62,000 in the first half of 2025. We also saw meaningful growth in external grant support. Grants received through programs, including the European Green Deal's ILIAD Consortium and Innovate UK, increased by approximately 56.8%, supporting our continued research, development and technology-advancement activity. As a result of our focus on cost discipline, our operating loss improved to approximately USD 1.45 million compared with approximately USD 1.59 million during the same period last year. Our net financial loss decreased by approximately 27% to $221,000 compared with USD 304,000 in the first half of 2025. This improvement was primarily attributable to foreign exchange fluctuations, including the appreciation of the Swedish krona and the New Israeli Shekel against the U.S. dollar. Overall, our net loss decreased by approximately 12% to $1.67 million compared with $1.89 million in the first half of 2025. Another important development during the period was the strengthening of our balance sheet. In June, Eco Wave Power successfully completed a USD 4 million registered direct offering with a single institutional investor. The offering consisted of 400,000 American Depositary Shares at a price of $10 per ADS, representing a 10.7% premium to the previous Nasdaq closing price. In connection with the offering, the investor also received warrants to purchase up to 300,000 ADSs at an exercise price of $12 per ADS, representing a 32.9% premium to the previous Nasdaq closing price. Following the financing, our cash position increased by approximately 58% compared with March 31, 2026. As of June 30, 2026, Eco Wave Power held approximately $8.4 million in total liquidity, consisting of approximately $8.15 million in cash and cash equivalents and approximately USD 250,000 in restricted short-term bank deposits. We believe the combination of lower operating expenses, increased grant support and the successful capital raise has strengthened our financial position as we continue investing in our global project portfolio. Importantly, we remain focused on maintaining financial discipline while directing our resources for the project and technology milestones that we believe can create the greatest long-term value for the company and our shareholders. We enter the second half of 2026 from a stronger financial position with additional resources to support the continued advancement of our projects and our broader growth strategy. That said, I would like now to turn the call over to our Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Inna Braverman, who will discuss our operational progress, international projects, AI strategy and priorities for the remainder of 2026. Inna, the stage is yours.

Thank you, Aharon, and thank you to everyone joining us today. The first half of 2026 was an important period for Eco Wave Power. We strengthened our financial position, continued advancing our key international projects and significantly expanded our activities at the intersection of wave energy, artificial intelligence and next-generation energy infrastructure. Most importantly, we continued making progress towards our long-term objective of taking wave energy from demonstration project to commercial scale deployment. I would like to begin with Israel. Our EWP-EDF One project at Jaffa Port continues to operate as Israel's first and only grid-connected wave energy power station. The project generates clean electricity from ocean waves and export electricity directly into Israel's National Grid under a power purchase agreement with the Israel Electric Company. Since the beginning of 2025, the station has maintained 0 downtime, providing us with valuable real-world operational data and demonstrating the ability of our technology to operate continuously under actual marine conditions. For us, Jaffa is not only a demonstration project. It is also an important technology development platform. We are using the site to continue advancing the integration of artificial intelligence, digital twins, predictive maintenance and energy production optimization into our wave energy system. We were also encouraged by growing government support for Marine Renewable Energy. Following the end of the first half, Israel Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure and the Israel Innovation Authority announced a new ILS 6 million Second Blue-Tech energy initiative, supporting technologies, including wave energy, offshore energy systems and AI-powered marine energy management. We believe this is another indication of the growing recognition of wave energy as a technology with potential to move beyond research and demonstration, toward commercialization and real infrastructure deployment. Turning to the United States. During the first half of 2026, we successfully completed and submitted the final report of our pilot project at the Port of Los Angeles, developed in collaboration with AltaSea and Shell Marine Renewable Energy. The project has provided us with important technical, operational, regulatory and economic experience in the U.S. market. It has also demonstrated key advantages of Eco Wave Power's technology. Our system is designed to be installed on existing man-made coastal infrastructure, such as breakwaters, jetties, piers and ports without requiring offshore seabed installation. We believe this approach can simplify deployment and potentially reduce both installation complexity and environmental impacts. We were also pleased to see Eco Wave Power and our Port of Los Angeles project specifically referenced in California Senate Bill 605 process. As the state continues evaluating potential pathways for the development and commercialization of wave and tidal energy, California represents an important potential market for Marine Renewable Energy, and we believe that the experience gained in the Port of Los Angeles, together with increasing regulatory attention, provides an important foundation for potential future commercial deployments in the United States. As to our Portugal project, reinforcement works at the Barra do Douro breakwater are currently underway, including works affecting the infrastructure designated for our future installation. At the same time, we are advancing discussions with Portuguese subcontractors expected to participate in the execution phase of the project. I will be in Porto this month to meet with APDL, the Port authority, our subcontractors and other local stakeholders and to review progress at the project site firsthand. The Porto project is particularly important to Eco Wave Power because it represents our first move into a megawatt-scale installation. We believe the experience gained through this project can support our transition towards increasingly larger commercial deployment, both in Portugal and in other international markets. We're also continuing to expand our activities in Asia. In Taiwan, our partner, I-Ke International Ocean Energy, has secured a 5-year land lease at Suao Port with an option for extension. The application for the transfer of land use rights has been submitted and the required work permits are currently expected to be obtained by October 2026. An important aspect of our Taiwan strategy is the planned use of local manufacturing. The project is expected to incorporate locally manufactured Eco Wave Power floaters, together with the deployment of our turnkey wave energy conversion system. We believe this model can support the development of local capabilities while also providing the foundation for potential expansion into additional ports and coastal markets across Taiwan and the broader Asia Pacific region. In India, we continue advancing our collaboration with Bharat Petroleum Corporation. The collaboration is expected to begin with the site assessment study and potentially progress towards a pilot installation at Bharat Petroleum's Mumbai oil terminal. India has an extensive coastline, growing electricity demand, and significant investment in renewable energy infrastructure. We believe these factors create an important potential long-term opportunity for wave energy and for Eco Wave Power. I would now like to turn to one of the most exciting areas of development for our company during the first half of 2026, artificial intelligence. During the first half of this year, Eco Wave Power's technology was featured twice in a keynote presentation by NVIDIA Founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, first at GTC in California and again at GTC in Taipei. Eco Wave Power U.S. also joined NVIDIA Inception program, giving us access to NVIDIA developer tools, technical resources, training and ecosystem support as we continue developing AI-driven applications for renewable energy infrastructure. In June, NVIDIA also featured Eco Wave Power in its corporate blog, highlighting our work with AI infrastructure, NVIDIA Omniverse libraries and digital twins as well as the longer-term potential for Ocean Energy to support data center infrastructure. For Eco Wave Power, we see two complementary opportunities in artificial intelligence. The first is using AI to improve our own technology. We are deploying AI-driven tools that can improve system monitoring, predictive maintenance, performance optimization and digital-twin capabilities. Over time, we believe these tools can help make our wave energy systems more intelligent, efficient and scalable. The second opportunity relates to the rapidly growing electricity demand being created by artificial intelligence and data centers. As AI infrastructure expands globally, the need for reliable and sustainable electricity generation is increasing significantly. Many of the world's largest cities, ports, industrial centers and digital infrastructure assets are located along coastlines. We, therefore, believe there is a long-term opportunity for wave energy to become part of the broader renewable energy mix, supporting this growing demand. We have begun exploring this opportunity with academic institutions, technology companies, infrastructure partners and data center developers. Importantly, our AI strategy does not change the core of what Eco Wave Power is. Wave energy remains our core technology. Our objective is to use artificial intelligence to make the technology smarter, more efficient and more scalable while also positioning wave energy within one of the most significant emerging sources of global electricity demand. As we look towards the second half of 2026, our priorities remain clear. We intend to continue advancing our first megawatt-scale project in Portugal. We will build on the progress and experience achieved in the United States. We will work to advance Taiwan and India towards their next development milestones. We will continue generating valuable operational experience from our grid-connected project in Israel. We will continue expanding our AI, digital-twin and predictive maintenance capabilities, and we will maintain the financial discipline required to execute our strategy responsibly. We believe Eco Wave Power today is positioned at the convergence of several important global trends: the transition towards renewable energy, the growing need for energy security, the modernization of coastal infrastructure and the extraordinary increase in electricity demand being driven by artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure. We entered the second half of 2026 with a stronger financial position, meaningful progress across our key markets and growing opportunity to position wave energy as part of the future global energy mix. I am very proud of what our team has accomplished during the first half of this year, and I would like to thank our employees, partners, shareholders and investors for their continued support. We remain focused on execution, commercialization and building long-term value for our shareholders. Thank you for joining us today.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect at this time. Thank you for your participation.