Free to submit your questions at any time using the Q&A function located at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We will address them at the end of the presentation. With that, Frank, I will now hand it over to you.
Thank you, Lou. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. Today, we are going to start with a brief overview of the business, the commercial momentum we have been seeing, and importantly, an update on the expansion of our Burgettstown, Pennsylvania campus. I will then transition to talk about the powder and alloy business segments, the continued support we are seeing from the U.S. government, the financial updates from Jonathan, and then our outlook of the near future and what we are expecting to see. With that, let us start with, for those that are new to the story, with a little bit of background. We are 6K Additive. We are a producer of high-performance metal powders and alloy additions, all from domestic sources of feedstock. Our materials are really ending up in the most demanding of end-use applications around the globe.
Our products are in flight, they are in space, they are in the human body, and they are in the hands of the U.S. war fighter. What really differentiates our approach is the core of our technology, our UniMelt process, as well as proprietary feedstock and post-processing technologies. What really makes the model more important today is the fact that we are able to take domestic sources of feedstock and convert them into strategic materials that are all produced here in the U.S. and going to a variety of end-use applications. This has really become, instead of just an additive manufacturing story, which is the bulk of the product we are producing, the powder, that is the big growth engine for the business. It has transitioned from just an additive manufacturing story to more critical materials and advanced manufacturing platform.
That is supporting aerospace, defense, space exploration, medical, energy, and a wide variety of industrial applications. At the center, as I mentioned, of our products is our powder. Our powder products are highly spherical powder products. That is the big growth engine for the business. That is where we see the largest growth opportunity, and that is where a significant portion of the expansion capital is being deployed. Really, the underlying base of the business is all about converting scrap, domestic scrap, into high-value performance products. I think before we talk about where we were for the first half, maybe just a quick little view of the journey. What we have been building over the last couple of years before the IPO is really a foundational business. This is where we were deploying a new state-of-the-art technology, establishing processes, engaging in the marketplace, and building a pipeline.
That pipeline is now over $260 million annual buy, where we're in qualified positions of over $70 million in an annual buy. Really, the goal pre-IPO was building a foundation, building a platform technology that was widely accepted in the marketplace. Now it's a growth story. This is all about execution. With that, the first half of the year was really a strong indicator of what we're able to do from a growth perspective. Our revenue is continuing to scale, and I think if you're going to take anything away from this presentation today, this slide really sums it all up. Record revenue, Q2 exiting at over $28 million annualized run rate. Second, we're not really dependent on any one customer.
We're now serving more than 100 customers across a variety of end markets, aerospace, medical, defense, space exploration, and industrial. Third is we've got a strong balance sheet that's supporting the overall growth. We've got government support that we're adding on to that to help execute a current expansion plan. Fourth is the actual physical expansion of the campus in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. That's now underway. That's transitioned from planning to now execution. Well underway and excited to see what happens here over the next couple of months as we're moving from basically ideation to facility coming out of the ground and installing and commissioning new equipment. Ultimately, what we're doing is we're building domestic capacity at the time when our customers and the U.S. government are really placing much higher value on a secure, resilient U.S. supply chain.
I'm going to hand it over to Jonathan for a recap of just some of the high-level financials.
Sure. Thanks, Frank. As Frank mentioned, very happy with the significant revenue growth year-over-year, but also even sequentially from the second half of last year to the first half of this year, seeing that revenue grow 33%. The other key item that I want to point out is our gross margin performance. Essentially, in the first half of the year, we were around break-even gross margin performance compared to a negative 19% in the prior year. This is really exciting in the sense of we are now at that scale, and this is even before the consolidation and the capacity expansion come online at the end of the year. Really excited for the progress we've made on the gross margin, and this is really where we're going to see a step change once that capacity comes online at the end of 2026.
OpEx was up to $7.1 million. That is up $2 million year-over-year, largely driven by the fact that we are now an independent, publicly traded company. I do want to highlight that despite the dollar increase, it is down as a percentage of sales, and we also do not expect there to be significant increases here going forward as we continue to grow revenue. We do feel like we have the overhead in place to support the business. Maybe some minimal adds, but again, we feel like this will scale as we go forward with our capacity growth. Last but not least, our loss from operations was $7.2 million, slightly worse than the past two comparable periods, largely driven by that higher investment in operating expenses.
Thanks, Jonathan. I mentioned the capacity expansion and the overall development project going on in Burgettstown, P.A. We have demonstrated we have got demand, and so really now we are deploying capital to remove the capacity constraints. This Burgettstown campus expansion is one of the most important initiatives that we have currently underway as a company. We are increasing powder capacity by more than 5x . We are ultimately going to end up with a facility that is capable of 6,000 metric tons of total annual capacity across all product lines. The campus expansion is also allowing for the consolidation of several facilities that will drive much improved operating leverage, much improved efficiency, and ultimately leading to much improved gross margin. During the first half of the year, we really focused on finalizing the plans, issuing major contracts, ordering the major equipment, the significant equipment that is going into the facility.
All of those contracts now executed, and now we are really focused going into the second half here on the expansion, bringing the buildings up and installing equipment. A couple key milestones here already met, and now it is transition to the execution phase. We will take a quick dive here into the two segments, the powder segment being that big growth driver for the business, and really, the powder is what is demonstrating and validating the investment thesis. I think let us start with $9 million in revenue for the first half, 77% year-over-year growth. The key here is we are converting pipeline opportunity to actual orders. We are growing the backlog now over $10 million on the powder side of the business. Seeing some increased unit economics moving in our favor as we continue to scale, even without adding additional capacity.
Getting to that gross margin breakeven point and continuing to better as we continue to add capability and increase utilization of the existing facility. That is a key factor. That theme carries through, and Jonathan will touch on that in more detail here in a minute. Really the same key kind of story on the alloy business side. Pretty significant growth year-over-year, 66%, $4.2 million in annual sales. Seeing a lot of the same fundamental tailwinds that we are seeing on the powder side of the business here, increasing a focus on onshoring efforts. You are seeing new facilities being built and commissioned in North America and U.S. specifically, and brought online, all focused on the production of critical materials.
This business, seeing all those same tailwinds, saw a nice increase in revenue, saw a slight decrease year-over-year in overall gross margin, just driven by product mix and some increase in export sales. Expect those numbers to continue to improve as we move forward and continue to work to grow this side of the business and capitalize on some of the momentum that's been building. From a government perspective, this is one of the key validation of what we're building and why it's strategically important to the U.S. We've talked in the past about our DPA Title III grant and the support we're receiving from there. Over $13 million of critical funding left in that program that we'll be deploying here over the next year and a half, as we continue to build out the campus.
We talked about the continued support from the Defense Logistics Agency. Two projects kicked off in the first half of the year, totaling nearly $4 million, all focused on supporting the increased capability around upcycling US Department of Defense depot scrap for alloys like titanium, tungsten, niobium, and nickel-based alloys. The EXIM loan facility, that's over $27 million that's been approved, and we're in the final documentation phase of having that capital unlock as well. Continuing to see strong support. Collectively, what this means is it's all validating our process and our approach to market, and it's also minimize the shareholder capital required to build out the factory. And the continued interest in the facility demonstrated hosted EXIM Chair, John Jovanovic, and Congressman Guy Reschenthaler throughout the first half of the year. Very impressed with the facility and the team that's executing on the strategy.
Expect these relationships to continue to develop and expand. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Jonathan to take a deeper dive into the financials.
Sure. Thanks, Frank. Let's focus everyone's attention on the profit and loss statement on the left. Again, just want to highlight a couple key things here. One that I already talked about was the improvement in gross margin again. As our revenue scaled, even on the existing footprint of our business, we were able to get to a near break-even level. And this is an area that, again, when the capacity expansion and consolidation is rolled out, at the end of the year, is going to be a key step change for our business going forward. Excited that proving that scaling even in our existing footprint is driving gross margin improvement. The other area I want to highlight again is the operating expenses.
We did see an uptick, again, of $2 million, but again, we expect that to get a lot of volume leverage there with minimal adds there to really decrease going forward as a percent of sales. Our net loss for the first half, versus last year was down 42%. Again, largely driven by the improvements we made on the gross margin line as well as the non-recurrence of debt interest from the parent company in the prior year period. From a balance sheet perspective, we've been saying we ended the quarter at $22.1 million of cash. Again, I want to reiterate that that gives us enough cash to complete our capacity expansion and get the business to profitability. Not going back to the market for additional capital. That will not be needed.
Also want to highlight that we have made some investments in working capital over the year. Again, to support the sales growth, to support the customers that we're growing with, we've made investments there. Last but not least, minimal liabilities, no debt outstanding at this point. Again, strong liquidity position that's going to help us growing going forward. From a cash flow perspective, in the first half of the year, we used $6.3 million of operating cash flow. Again, a big focus area here versus the prior comp period is really the investment in working capital that we made to support the 77% increase in sales that we've seen. The other area that I want to focus on is the CapEx. We have spent $1 million of CapEx. This is a number that's going to be back-ended weighted.
As Frank mentioned, a lot of the construction of the buildings are starting to frame in and go up between now and the end of the year. So we're guiding that full-year CapEx number between $10 million and $11 million. So that will significantly increase in the second half of the year. Again, like I mentioned before, $22 million of cash on the balance sheet, again, remaining around $14 million of government grants outstanding. Also, the EXIM bank facility that we're looking towards final documentation here in the near future.
Thanks, Jonathan. In closing, I'll bring the pieces together. So we've demonstrated significant customer demand. The revenue's growing, the repeat orders are up over 90%. The backlog continues to build, the margins are improving, and now we're making investments to significantly increase our ability to serve that overall demand. So from a capacity standpoint, going from currently across all products, 1,600 metric tons to 6,000 metric tons, specifically within powder, a 5x increase in overall capacity, getting to over 1,000 metric tons. That customer demand, more than 90% repeat order activity, is giving us confidence in the underlying quality of the revenue that we're continuing to grow. And that, as I mentioned, that powder business is the primary growth engine for the business. At 77% year-over-year growth in the first half alone, that will continue to drive this business forward and unlock more and more potential.
From a funding perspective, fully funded, $22 million in cash at the end of June. $13.7 million of remaining DPA support to be coming and then working through, as Jonathan mentioned, the final documentation phase of having that EXIM facility of a little over $27 million. Well capitalized, and fully funded to get to that step change and achieve that profitability mark. So continuing to see strong momentum at Q2 annualized run rate of $28 million. The increasing backlog to nearly $12 million. As we're entering the second half, we're really focused on the execution of the campus expansion. That's going to unlock a meaningful portion of that powder capacity.
That's going to allow for the consolidation of some key facilities, and our goal now is to really grow that backlog, focus on growing that backlog so that we're teed up and going into 2027, we'll be able to unlock and realize that capacity coming online with a well-supported and healthy backlog. With that, I'll hand it back to Lou for questions.
Thank you, Frank and Jonathan. Let's move on to the Q&A session. Frank, you just touched on the backlog just then. How can investors think of the company's backlog figure moving forward? How much of the backlog is tied directly to the completion of the campus expansion?
Yeah. The reality is that the bulk of this backlog currently, the nearly $12 million, will be served in the next six months, say. As we're stepping through the second half of the year, the commercial team is out working with the market and some key long-term agreements to really underwrite a significant portion of the 2027 plan. The goal would be that as we continue to step through the balance of 2026, we're building additional backlog beyond the $12 million you see here today to help serve and be on tap for when the additional capacity comes online.
Thanks, Frank. Just building on that, for scale, do you expect demand to fill the expanded capacity immediately, or will utilization ramp over several years? For example, how fast can you convert that $260 million customer pipeline?
Yeah. The full build-out of the facility really will be through 2027. So full unlock of the campus potential going into 2028. As I mentioned, a meaningful portion of the powder capacity coming online going into 2027. So there will be a ramp and a meshing of backlog and capacity as we bring those facilities and increase the utilization. I completely anticipate a step change here in the near future. Meaningful portion of the powder capacity will be coming online going into next year. We'll be building a backlog here in the near term to help match that capacity capability. We anticipate a step change in 2027 in overall performance.
Thanks, Frank. Just that you've mentioned the step change, there's a question about how do you think about allocating the step change in capacity when it comes online in Q1 2027? I'm interested across different alloys, nickel, titanium, refractory, and how you balance short-term margins with longer-term strategic relationships.
Yeah. Certainly the demand signals that we've seen here over the last couple of months, and we anticipate them to continue to grow in the second half, the big drivers would be nickel and titanium alloys. By volume, nickel being the big driver, but titanium closely behind. So the meaningful portion of the demand will be allocated in those two areas. That being said, the real beauty of our approach and the UniMelt technology is the ability to flex. We really love the opportunity and what's on the come when it comes to refractory metals. That's the highest ASP, the highest margin, and an area that we can really differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. Any one of our systems can pivot really at any time and convert to run refractory metals. I expect volume-wise, nickel and ti to continue to drive the story.
As we continue to go and we're seeing the demand signal improve for refractory metals and continue to increase, we'll be well-positioned to serve that market as it continues to grow and we transition from a lot of R&D to what I consider serial production. Programs that are running day in and day out.
Thanks, Frank. On demand, as the pipeline converts, do you expect growth to be characterized by a larger number of customers or by significantly larger order volumes from existing customers as programs move into production? Which end markets, particularly aerospace, defense, or medical, are likely to contribute most of that volume growth, and what gives you confidence in those sectors?
Those are a lot of questions in one. Let me see if I can tackle them here one at a time. I think the answer to the question on the number of customers, as we're continuing to increase utilization of our existing campus and we continue to add capacity, we're already seeing the transition. We're doing larger and larger deals where we did single ton, couple ton, metric ton type order quantities historically. Now we're negotiating 100 metric ton, 150 metric ton type volumes. Expect moving forward, you'll see some large players. As we continue to increase capacity, you'll see some large players start to rise to the top of the list, as we negotiate longer term deals and much larger deals than we have been doing in the first half and previously.
From an alloy perspective and an end market perspective, certainly defense is a big driver of the business. It continues to grow. We expect that growth to continue. When you see numbers like $1.5 trillion being proposed for a budget in the current administration, there's a lot of spend. By nature of that, as we look at how they're looking to deploy the capital, a heavy focus on advanced manufacturing and additive manufacturing being right in the mix there. Expect titanium, nickel, and refractory metal alloys to be all part of that. Defense will continue to grow. Medical, for us in particular, will continue to grow. We've got a couple of medical customers today. We'll be looking to continue to add medical customers to the mix. That's primarily titanium-based alloys.
As we bring on more titanium capabilities, we will continue with our qualification efforts with the end market there as well.
Thanks, Frank. Just to break it up a bit, maybe this one is for you, Jonathan. What is your CapEx over the next 12 months?
Yeah, sure. We guided, obviously, the rest of this year. We said full year will be about $10 million-$11 million, so call it 9-10 remaining this year. And then as you go into next year, we will have the powder building complete, and then we will start getting into the ingot refractory building. So I would say probably an additional two in the first half of next year after we complete, so call it 12 overall.
Yeah, thank you. Frank, coming back to the EXIM, I think you have mentioned this in your presentation. Is the EXIM still to be documented? Maybe if you can expand on what exactly does it mean to be working towards the finalization of the documentation for the EXIM Bank loan.
I'm going to let Jonathan handle that one. He's been at front and center on the EXIM discussions.
Yes, I know. We've talked about this a lot. Just so everyone knows, their board of directors has approved the loan. We're going through the documentation process. 6K has agreed, and EXIM has agreed to all the terms. Really, the only thing that is outstanding at this point is, you may recall us talking about this is the first time EXIM has ever partnered with the Department of Defense as part of a project. So really, our waiting is basically those two agencies figuring out a couple more items, and then the documentation phase will be over. But in terms of 6K Additive and EXIM, we have already agreed to all of the terms. It's just one government agency working through documentation with another.
Thanks, Jonathan. On funding, as 6K becomes increasingly important to domestic supply chains in defense and advanced manufacturing, do you see opportunities for further non-dilutive support from government agencies, and what would need to happen for those opportunities to materialize?
Yeah, the answer is yes, we do. It basically starts with an idea and a capability around a particular alloy or critical material that they've identified. I think we've certainly gotten a lot of support thus far, and we're in several discussions with the US Department of Defense on the needs for the coming years, and our focus is to continue to develop those relationships and expand on them. I think while I can't say for certain that the opportunities will converge, but we are certainly right in the heart of those discussions, right in the thick of it, and expect further support from US DoW.
Thanks, Frank. The next question, do you expect that customers are holding back orders knowing that you do not have the capacity today?
No, the answer to that is no. We are being very thoughtful in our approach to market. Our goal is we have a core customer set, and our intent here has been to maintain our relationships and our market share within our core customers, and we have been careful with the new customers we have been bringing on. Now that we have line of sight in terms of when the capacity is going to come online, that is what is allowing the commercial team to really. I have used the term they were on a short leash, and we have lengthened the leash because we know and have confidence at when the capacity is coming online. That is now what is allowing them to go out and have larger conversations. The last thing we would want to avoid, and we have avoided, is getting out over our skis, making a commitment that we couldn't deliver on with our customers.
We have been careful in avoiding doing that, and our goal is to never let our customers down. Now we are getting to the point where we have line of sight on when the new capacity comes online, so that is allowing us to have deeper level of engagement with new customers, and active qualifications are ongoing. So expect that to continue, and that is what will lead to growing the backlog.
Thanks, Frank. Maybe back to you, Jonathan. Looks like financially, revenues and profitability 2H CY 2026 will be very similar to the 1H CY 2026, with the exception of a step-up in CapEx. Is that a fair assumption?
Yeah. Well, I would say that, yeah, we would be having capacity coming online in the back of the second half of the year. That will be the next step change in terms of our trend. But the one thing I will highlight is 6K always looking to improve every day. That's one area, again, that we can always do better and perform better. But again, I think at this point, our next step change is going to be when the capacity and consolidation comes online.
Thanks, Jonathan. How much of the expected 2H CapEx of $10 million will be funded from the remaining $14 million in DPA funding? From CY 2027, what is the remaining expansion CapEx budget?
The piece that I was talking about, the $10 million remaining is our piece of the capital. That is our piece of the capital. There'll be, obviously, a government piece as well, I would guess around $3 million to $4 million. Then, I don't know that we want to get into 2027 allocations at this point.
Amazing. Thanks, Jonathan. Just to wrap up for today, what kind of other costs and considerations will still need to be considered for the campus expansion? Besides the construction and equipment, for example, an increase in workforce additions or new customer qualification requirements, anything to help realize the new production capacity?
Yeah. I think the key takeaway here is that while we're expanding the capacity pretty significantly, and consolidating several of the remote facilities to one larger campus, what you will not see is a significant increase in overhead. What drives that, to anyone that's been at our facility in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, it is a very automated approach to manufacturing. With just a couple of key hires here over the next year, 12 months, to support this increase in key areas, that's basically what you will see is literally a minimal amount of overhead increase that's going to support that. Beyond that, it will come down to purely the CapEx required to build out the buildings and add the equipment, and then obviously, some small investment in working capital as we continue to ramp, that would be commensurate with the level of operations that we're adding.
Thank you, Frank, and thank you, Jonathan. That was the last question for today. Before we wrap up the webinar, Frank, any last comments?
Yeah. I think if we just look back, the start of the journey pre-IPO was building a platform that really enabled upcycling domestic forms of raw materials and converting them into these highly advanced materials for mission-critical applications. With that, we really believe that the opportunity in front of 6K Additive is considerably larger than where we are today. The first half demonstrated that ability and validated the approach of the platform and the materials that we're able to bring to market. The underlying economics are continuing to improve as we scale, and now we're executing on that capacity expansion that's going to capture the opportunity in front of us and convert that $260 million pipeline of opportunity. We're really excited about the execution phase that we're in and the growth phase we're in.
We're looking forward to the step change in 2027, and I think lastly, continue to appreciate the continued support we're getting from the market. With that, we'll continue to put the head down and execute on the capacity expansion, and look forward to update folks here in a few months.
Thanks, Frank, and thank you all for joining us for 6K Additive Inc.'s half year 2026 results webinar and investor briefing. A recording of today's session will be made available on the 6K Additive website in the coming days. We appreciate your time and interest, and we look forward to hosting you again soon.