KULR Technology Group, Inc. (KULR) Earnings Call Transcript

Welcome, everyone, to the KULR Technology Group Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. In just a moment, I will be joined by the CEO of the company, Michael Mo; and the CFO of the company, Mike Kimel. Before we can get started, please listen to the following safe harbor statement covering this call. This call may contain certain forward-looking statements based on the company's current expectations, intentions and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements made on this call are based on the information available to management as of the date hereof. KULR Technology Group's actual results may differ materially from those stated or implied in such forward-looking statements. Due to risks and uncertainties associated with their business, which include the risk factors disclosed in their Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 31, 2026, as may be amended or supplemented by other reports filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the company's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as anticipate, believe, could, estimate, expect, intend, may, should and would or similar words. All such forward-looking statements that are provided by management on this call are based on information available at this time, and management expects that their internal expectations may change over time. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise required by applicable law, the company assumes no obligation to update the information included on this call, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. With that, I will now turn the call over to Michael Mo. Michael, the call is yours.

Thank you, Stuart. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining. On our last earnings call, we told you 2026 will be measured by 3 things: product revenue growth, gross margin improvement and cost discipline. I want to start today by being direct with you. Second quarter fell short. Second quarter revenue was $2.1 million, down significantly from both prior year and the first quarter with a gross loss. That's not the quarter we planned, and I'm not going to make excuses. What I'm going to do is walk you through 3 things: what challenged us in the second quarter, what we're doing to resolve those challenges and the growth we expect to see in the second half of this year and why. KULR builds high-power battery systems for the physical AI era, autonomous systems, drones, underwater vehicles, robotics and telecom critical infrastructure. In June, I wrote to shareholders that battery is infrastructure, and there is no grid in the sky, in the orbit, in the ocean or on the battlefield. Everything we do is in service of that mission and nothing about this quarter changed it. Four things challenged us this quarter, and I'll name each one. First, supply chain. New programs mean new parts. And in this environment, new parts mean long lead times and critical bottlenecks. These constraints delayed the production and delivery of our battery products and shipments we had planned for, for the second quarter were delayed. Second, execution focus. KULR is carrying more customer programs that our resource can execute with the speed and quality our customers demand of us. Now in one sense that this is a good problem. It reflects real demand, but it's still a problem. And in the second quarter, it costed us. We're evaluating all of our customer engagements and prioritizing our engineering and manufacturing resources towards the highest value opportunities. Third, alignment. The Board and management changes during the quarter consumed a significant amount of management bandwidth and slowed decision-making. That transition is now behind us. Mike Kimel, our Chief Financial Officer, will talk about how we're taking this opportunity to step back and reassess some of our business processes. Fourth, production capacity. Our new Texas facility was not yet contributing in the second quarter. The good news is that the facility and the production lines are coming up nicely, and we expect them to be operational in the third quarter. As we walk through these challenges, I believe that the demand for our products and services remains strong. Our business shifts to the right, and we're in the very early phase of this market growth in the United States. Look underneath the quarterly fluctuations, you can see that our core energy platform business remained essentially stable on the first half basis. Energy Management platform revenue was $4.76 million versus $4.73 million in the prior year period, slightly higher year-over-year. Total first half revenue was $6.03 million versus $6.1 million a year ago. And the composition of that revenue shows that demand is broadening. Second quarter product sales was driven principally by 2 large orders, both from new customers and both involving new battery configurations. We're not just selling more of the same product to the same customer base. We're bringing new battery configurations into new accounts, and that's exactly the type of customer expansion we want to see as quarter 1 scales. Now let me tell you what we're doing to resolve these challenges, both things and they map directly what I just described. First, we're prioritizing the operating business above all else. Our priority is clear: deploy our technology, our capital, our people towards scaling KULR ONE and building a world-class energy system platform for physical AI economy. That means the same 3 accountability measures that we laid out in June, product revenue growth, gross margin improvement and cost discipline center on 5 markets: Space and Defense, Drones and Autonomous vehicles, Telecom and Critical infrastructure and Robotics. And within that, we're qualifying our customer engagements more carefully, concentrating our best engineering and production talent on the programs with the strongest economics and strategic value. Second, we're simplifying. Since the second quarter close, we exited Bitcoin mining, and we repaid our $20 million credit facility in full using proceeds from Bitcoin sales without issuing a single share through our ATM this year. The Board and the management team have decided to divest our Bitcoin treasury to focus on -- to focus our balance sheet on the operating business. Mike Kimel will walk you through the balance sheet logic. But the principle is simple: reduce volatility, preserve flexibility and let the management team and investors see the operating business fairly. With approximately $60 million on our balance sheet and no debt, we believe we have the financial resources to execute our growth strategy. We have also brought some early-stage activities to an orderly conclusion with the conservative reserves Mike Kimel will describe. Third, we're fixing alignment and execution. The leadership team is now set aligned with technology go-to-market strategy-oriented Board members, a CFO who is operationally focused and clear priorities. On that foundation, a company-wide operating review is underway to standardize our data, refine our workflows, strengthen the systems that give management real operational visibility and become more selective about the vendors and customers that we partner with. Fourth, we're building capacity. We're building a full stack operation in Texas, design, prototyping, testing, certification, manufacturing, battery management, software and electronics, all together under one roof. In May, we signed a lease on approximately 25,000 square foot facility to expand our manufacturing footprint and a new automated production line for both cylindrical and pouch cells will be operational in that facility. On the supply chain side, we're multi-sourcing components to reduce single supplier as a critical bottleneck. Our cell-agnostic architecture let us qualify multiple chemistries and form factors. And we're investing more in production readiness. Raw materials inventory is up roughly fivefold since end of 2025, and you should expect inventory to increase further in the second half as we position ourselves to meet anticipated demands. The infrastructure we're putting in place is designed to shorten the path from customer requirements to prototype to qualification to volume production. That vertical integration is central to how we improve speed, control and ultimately, economics. Now let me share with you on why we expect the second half to look different. The American drone market is converting from policy to purchase orders. The United States is at the early cycle of its unmanned system build-out. Europe shows where that curve goes. Ukraine produced roughly 4 million drones last year and is targeting 7 million this year. The United States by comparison, produce on the order of 100,000 small drones a year, and Washington has decided to close that gap. Department of War's $1.1 billion drone dominance program moved from plan to purchase order this summer. The first delivery order has been accepted. Roughly 30,000 units are being delivered right now. And the department has said it will order 60,000 more in September on the way to hundreds of thousands of drones by 2027. The fiscal 2027 budget request include more than $70 billion for drones and counter drone systems, the largest such investment in the U.S. history. Here's why that matters for KULR. American drone makers are being required to stop using foreign parts, including batteries. That makes American-made power like ours more important every quarter. And when drones are classified as consumables, batteries become consumables, too, which means recurring demand. The rest of the market tells the same story. One of the largest drone battery cell suppliers in the market reported this month that about 16% of its latest quarterly revenue came from North America, while roughly 70% came from Europe and the Middle East, much of the shipping directly to Ukraine. The overseas cycle is at scale. The American cycle is just beginning to convert to orders. That's the demand wave that KULR is positioned for. We're executing across dozens of active customer programs supporting drone dominance-related customers, maritime programs and [indiscernible] space programs. In the second quarter, we secured initial defense drone battery orders from a U.S. drone maker participating in the drone dominance initiative. It is a customer opportunity that exceeds $5 million. We demonstrated KULR ONE Air with next-generation solid-state cells at over 350 watt hour per kilogram and we were selected by Oracle Space as battery providers for its orbital transport mission. Meanwhile, we're building the ecosystem around batteries, not just the pack itself. We're now sampling NDA-compliant 6S chargers supporting both cylindrical and pouch cells. We have completed our 18S charger prototype. And by the end of 2026, we expect to be shipping NDA-compliant chargers to U.S. customers. Power, thermal management, BMS charging, all from one compliance stack engineered and built by one supplier. That's how we're positioning KULR ONE to be the power platform for physical AI. So here's how the second half of 2026 could look like in summary. Delayed shipments will be recovering. New Texas facility and battery production lines will be operational and contributing to the business. Pipe volumes starting to ramp and NDA-compliant power electronics and chargers shipping by the end of the year. While U.S. drone procurement cycles is converting into orders. One quarter doesn't make a turnaround for us in Q1 and one difficult quarter doesn't break the plan. Hold us accountable for the same 3 measures we set out in June, product revenue growth, gross margin improvement and cost discipline. The mission has not changed. The market is driving and our job is to execute, build more batteries and sell more batteries. With that, let me turn the call over to Mike Kimel to take you through the financials and operating changes underway.

Thank you, Mike. We make batteries and we sell batteries. That's what I wanted to discuss today. Unfortunately, our second quarter results were below our expectations. And today, I want to focus on the actions we are taking to strengthen performance and position the business for growth. We fell short on both revenue and profitability, and we're not satisfied with that outcome. Since quarter end, though, we've moved quickly, sharpening our priorities, simplifying the business and concentrating our resources on the opportunities we believe we can create the most value. There were also meaningful areas of progress during the quarter. We reduced SG&A spending compared with both the second quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year, which reflects real if early progress in making this company more efficient. SG&A declined about 9% year-over-year in Q2 and approximately 5% in the first half. First half R&D expenses -- expense was also about 3% lower. But cost discipline is not enough. A company cannot cut its way to prosperity. We also have to convert demand into revenue, serve our customers well and execute consistently. That's where we are directing our attention now. We're becoming more deliberate about where every dollar goes. To be clear, the goal isn't just to spend less, but to move resources away from activities that are not central to the business and to the products and programs that can drive revenue and manufacturing scale. Increasingly, that means focusing our capital manufacturing capability and commercial efforts around KULR ONE. These actions reflect the company becoming increasingly focused on production, commercialization and disciplined capital allocation. From my perspective as CFO, that means maintaining conservative financial practices, strengthening our processes and building an operating structure that can support a larger business. I also want to talk about our Bitcoin position. The treasury strategy provided financial flexibility, including the ability to repay our $20 million credit facility after quarter end. At the same time, though, carrying a large digital asset position introduces meaningful volatility into both the balance sheet and reported results. Of our approximately $51 million first half net loss, about $31.4 million reflected the noncash mark-to-market change in the value of our digital asset holdings. That's worth repeating that movement was unrelated to the operating performance of the battery business. As we evaluated our capital priorities, we determined that simplifying the digital asset position would give us greater flexibility and allow us to concentrate more fully on the operating business. That's why since the quarter closed, we've exited Bitcoin mining, begun reducing our Bitcoin holdings in a deliberate manner and taken steps to simplify the balance sheet. We used proceeds from the sale of 333 Bitcoin to fully repay the $20 million Coinbase loan, releasing the 565 Bitcoin pledged as collateral. We also terminated our mining services agreement, eliminating about $2.1 million of remaining operating expense commitments for a $150,000 termination fee. Going forward, the Board has authorized management to sell any and all Bitcoin holdings and to focus on the core business. Each of these steps reduces balance sheet volatility and simplifies the business. They also increase our flexibility to allocate capital based on the needs and opportunities of the operating business. The principle behind these decisions is simple: support the operating business, preserve flexibility and remain mindful of dilution. Consistent with that approach, we were able to avoid issuing any shares through the ATM during the first half of 2026. At the same time, the Board and management have been refining the company's strategic priorities and operating structure to support the next stage of KULR's development. The Board changes announced on April 28 and the management realignment in June accelerated that work and gave us the opportunity to sharpen priorities, simplify decision-making and align resources more closely with the core business. That company-wide operating review is underway right now. As part of the review, we've identified opportunities to improve data consistency, increase the use of existing ERP functionality and strengthen the operational visibility available to management. We've also reviewed our professional services relationships with a clear focus on cost, performance and value. Depending on the situation, we are evaluating bringing work in-house, renegotiating terms or moving to a provider that better fits our needs. We are applying the same discipline to how we evaluate customer and program economics. Not every opportunity warrants the same commitment of engineering and manufacturing resources, and we intend to prioritize the programs that offer the strongest combination of economics and strategic value. Our engineering and production resources are valuable and the resources applied to one program are resources that cannot be deployed elsewhere. As the company grows, we can be increasingly selective about where we deploy those resources. And since quarter end, we have strengthened the way we qualify new opportunities and evaluate existing ones. Now that doesn't mean walking away from difficult work. It does mean being more thoughtful about whether the economics and strategic value of a program justify the engineering and manufacturing resources it requires. We're standardizing data, rebuilding workflows and building better systems. As KULR moves from a business historically centered on R&D and highly customized lower volume work towards larger and more repeatable production, our operating infrastructure is evolving with it. We're designing processes to support greater scale, accountability, visibility and speed. But the point of that is not to build more bureaucracy. It's to give our people better information, clearer accountability and systems that allow the company to grow without adding unnecessary complexity. This is an ongoing process, and a number of changes are already underway. We're building a company that's more focused, more efficient and better positioned to scale. So where does that leave us? Q2 was a challenging quarter, but our view of the underlying opportunity hasn't changed. Demand remains. Our customers are engaged, and we continue to see attractive opportunities across our core markets. Our focus is now straightforward, concentrate our resources around the core battery business with KULR ONE at the center of that effort and convert demand into revenue more consistently. We believe strongly in our products, our customer relationships and the markets we serve. The changes we're making are designed to put more of our capital, manufacturing capability and management attention behind those strengths. Becoming leaner and more focused doesn't mean retreating from growth. It means directing resources toward the programs and customers where we believe they can create the greatest value while building the operating infrastructure necessary to support a larger business. We've also identified additional applications for our battery systems that could open new markets over time. We'll talk about those when they're further along and appropriate to share. But the immediate priority is the business already in front of us. Demand remains as the company concentrates resources around KULR ONE. Management's job is now to convert that demand into consistent revenue, improved profitability and sustainable growth. That's where our attention is focused, where our resources are going and how we intend to measure our progress. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mike, and thank you very much, Michael Mo. That concludes our call for today. I will now turn the call back over to our operator. Thank you so much for joining us. Operator, the call is yours.

Thank you. This does conclude today's webcast and conference call. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you once again for your participation.