Summer edition of Inside FOM. My name is Anders. I'm the marketing manager here at FOM, together with our CEO, Michael Staal. We'll go through the latest quarter of news here at FOM. And if... Just to check and be sure, you can hear me right before we continue? Can some of you please write in the chat or questionnaire in the corner? I can see, yes, so things are coming in, so everything's good. If you have any questions during the presentation here, please write them in the chat or in the question area down in the corner, and I'll stop Michael in between some of the news he's going through. Else, I'll pass it along to Michael and share the presentation.
Thanks. Thanks, Anders. Yeah, it's summertime, and we have passed Q2. The first sort of news we would or have shared in our newsletter is that we have received an order from a company that is founded of no other than Bill Gates. It's called Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which is sort of the investment arm. They have invested in a portfolio of companies, and one of those companies is specializing in electrification within the transport sector, and is doing research within this hydrogen electric engineering. And we have been able to sell some of our equipment to them, and it's a really exciting customer for us. So that was one of the interesting stories from our side during Q2 here in 2024.
As we wrote out in the investor news, some companies that we work with decide to be anonymous, and of course, we respect that, but this has been through our UK distributor, MBRAUN, as we have also mentioned.
So-
The biggest story of Q2 is that we have decided to move a little bit further or wider in our supply chain, and we have acquired a company that we have worked with for the last 4-5 years, which is a small production company in Sweden. It's called Industrikonsult. And we have done so because we want to secure our supply chain and make that even stronger, and also be able to secure quality going forward. They're based in Helsingborg, about one hour's drive from Copenhagen, and the company will change name to FOM Technologies AB, which is the company form that you have in Sweden. And we are starting the integration since we acquired the company, which was a few weeks ago.
So that is interesting news, growing in that direction.
Let's see, there's a question here. "Is it in the plans to acquire more companies or sub-suppliers in any regards?
Yeah. No, absolutely not, not for the time being. We are fine with this, and we don't have any other plans for any additional companies in that respect, but an interesting question. Yeah.
Next up, conferences and events.
Yeah, conferences and events, and, as we also call it, exhibitions, is something that we are having a, like, great focus on. Before we started, I'd ask Anders, "How many conferences or events or exhibitions are we actually participating in here in 2024?" We counted 12, so it's almost, or it's actually, one a month, but it's not... They're not split, but 12 over the year, and we listed some of them here. So, to go out and present what we do, sometimes we have booth-
Mm-hmm.
We bring equipment, machinery, and so forth, demonstrate our technology, and plant a seed, so people will come back and say that they have heard about us or talked to us and, and have seen our equipment. So, so that is a big part of our marketing plan.
Yeah. Very good.
Uh, has been-
Yeah
... previously. 12 events this year, and going forward, and as you can see with the slides, it's globally all over the world, the States, Europe, Asia, and so forth.
Yeah, the last one of the year, I think, is in Japan.
Japan, yeah.
In November.
Yes.
Before we continue on this conference tour, and the next one is presentations, there's a question for the acquisition before.
Oh, yeah, we can go back to that.
So, why is it an important move for FOM to move in this direction in the supply chain and do this kind of M&A instead of, for example, a horizontal acquisition?
Yeah. It's because that we believe that it's important for us to secure our supply chain. We provide a physical product, machines, equipment, and we are dependent on very few, maybe a handful of really, really important sub-suppliers. And as they're independent companies, if something happens to the company or they decide that they will not serve us anymore, then we have to start from scratch. So for us, it's been a strategic move to acquire this company, which had a size that we think we could absorb and integrate into this company. So that is why we have done so.
... If there's no follow-up, please come to follow-up questions if you need, else we'll, we'll move along to the presentation by Cesar.
Yeah, that is the extension of the theme about the reconferences, events, and exhibitions. We have a department here at FOM Technologies that is consisting of seven PhDs with their educational background, and they are called Science and Learning. So they sell knowledge and know-how. They're experts within our field, and these representatives is joining these conferences, doing presentation talks, and is actually often invited.
Yeah
... to present the technology and do talks. So we have just given an example here, so people can get to know what we do and what kind of competencies that we have. In this case, it was a Mexican employee called Cesar that had the opportunity to present in Dresden, in Germany. And as we also mentioned here, that he will have several throughout the year and also by the end of the year, also in Germany, but that's in Berlin.
Yes. A little event here in the office.
Yeah. So why did we mention that? It's to build communities. We believe that the network is very, very important to create network in small Denmark within various of communities. In this case, it is a community called DCES, Danish Centre for Energy Storage, that we invited for the people to come and see what we do and plant some seeds. So that happened throughout the last quarter.
Yeah. No questions to them. Then we had a visit again. It's the second time Katawa r is visiting us.
Yeah. We are building a distribution network around the world, not in every country, but in country where we see a potential for commercial activities. In this case, it's a Taiwanese distributor called Katawar , and we are proud when they travel to Copenhagen to see our stuff and do training and so forth. It shows that they are committed. And of course, it's an honor to meet the founders of the company and have the experts to come here and be trained. So that is a part of how we would like to grow and increase our distributor network around the world.
And I can't remember if we mentioned that last quarter, but we also had a new distributor earlier this year, Salm en Kipp , from Holland, here visiting us.
Yeah, we have these workshops with distributors regularly.
Yeah
... and actually, are trying to convince them to come here to get to know our technology, see the machines demonstrated, and so forth. So that's very important in our onboarding of new distributors.
Yeah. Then on to company news.
We have delivered the biggest machine and the biggest solution that we can provide, we call it the modular system, and this was in the United States. We see a big potential in the US, and we are very proud of having Georgia Institute of Technology as a customer. The professor there is called Tequila Harris, and we had a handful of people to go there to do the installation and to do the training. So, this is a really interesting customer for us. It's a customer that we believe we can build a strategic partnership with, going forward, and they have a lot of US visitors, other academia, other companies that can actually go there, and then be a part of their research department.
So, we see a big potential and prospect for that going forward.
Absolutely. More on the people from the United States.
Yeah.
Visiting us.
It's just to stress that the American market is very important to us. We have mentioned, and it's no big news, but we have established a wholly owned subsidiary called the FOM Technologies Incorporated. That was initially established and placed in Silicon Valley, Palo Alto. And that was when we started that, but the domicile will be moved now to Seattle, where we have a strategic partnership with the University of Washington, based in Seattle. And the people that we have employed is based in Seattle. That's also where my partner, Martin Kiener, will be going to when he's going permanently to the U.S. here in autumn.
Yeah
... the two employees we have invited them to Copenhagen for several reasons, is to do training. It's also to build the culture and get into the headquarter mentality and meet everyone here. So that is an investment that we do with our overseas staff. So they came here and have been here for some weeks during May and June. So we believe that's a very important investment to make.
Yes?... Then we're getting close to the end.
Yeah. We have hired another two people here during Q2. One is a gentleman that is responsible for all our mechanical products and machines. We believe it's very important to have a highly skilled competencies for mechanical products. And also we are ramping up and building a whole new service department called Service Lifecycle Management. And to serve our customers the best, we have hired people that can travel to do installations, to do training, and so forth. So, these two people we have hired throughout the last quarter, and yeah, we'll continue to look for skilled people.
We don't need a lot more, but we are, we're getting there, having the organization where we have more or less filled every single position now. To an extent that we believe is very balanced to the activity level that we see now. So we always add our newly hired and employed people in our quarterly news here. So yeah, this quarter we also had a few ones.
Yeah.
Yeah, and-
Summer holidays.
As we all know, summer holiday is coming. We have a tradition for what we call industrial holiday here at FOM Technologies. That is always, for the last 5-6 years, we have been sort of closing down during the end of July. We are not completely closed, but most of the people will be taking time off, and we are just running the company at sort of the lowest activity level, meaning that we still have people present, but we are-
Yeah
... we are sizing down.
Yeah.
And it's also because that end of July is a very calm time for us, so we rather wanna have holiday, make sure people are recharged batteries are sort of getting into shape again back in August. And then, yeah, we have another half year to perform.
Yeah.
With those words, we would say-
Yeah, let's-
Please write some questions.
Yeah, if there is any questions, I see some is coming in here. What is FOM's slot-die offerings' competitive position versus ultrasonic spray coating?
Yeah. Spray coating is a completely different technology compared to what we do. We are not involved in spray coating at all. We don't see that as a competing technology to exactly what we do. We do acknowledge that it's also to coat, but the competitors that we see is not customers that would decide to buy from us or they would buy from spray coating companies. So it's a very different technique. And that's not the type of segment that we are competing with.
Yeah, I think that covered that one. There's a follow-up question or in a different range: Who do your R&D customers approach for full production equipment?
If you want to be a successful company, and a small company that is growing to become a bigger company over time, we believe that you need to find a niche. That also means that there are areas where you don't make a value proposition on a product offering. So we can't do big processing lines, because we have to have a much bigger company. We have to have a much longer, stronger heritage and history. So our niche has always been the smaller systems, the more compact systems that you can integrate into glove boxes and to have on tables, tabletop solutions.
But tapping into what we call upscaling, and the big, big production systems we don't provide, and we actually not sure who exactly is doing the really big systems. We are concentrating on the R&D segment and also corporates that is in the upscaling phase. So that is a niche where we have been good historically, and that's also the area where we would continue to be going forward, and not the big production lines. We had to be much, much bigger company to look for that market.
Yeah. Please come with any follow-up else. There's one here. I'll translate as we go along, so please excuse me for it, but during the fall, Denmark will get this new AI supercomputer, Gefion.
Mm-hmm.
Which mainly is for medical and green energy. Is there any of your research or techniques that could be used on a computer in this scale?
Yeah. In the context of the Danish AI supercomputers, we are not involved, but right now, we are in the process of applying for funding for other AI projects around the world and is hoping to see if our applications and the ideas that we have is good enough to attract the funding. There's a process, so you seek, and they will be evaluated. So we believe that during the H2 of 2024, we would get the results whether funding would be awarded to FOM in context of our technology. So it is an area that we are very focused on. We believe that it's the future and therefore, we are teaming up with other consortium partners and areas where we can combine AI and our technology.
So, we're very focused on that, but we will not be a part of the Danish R&D project here.
Yeah. Thanks a lot.
Mm-hmm.
I don't see much more coming in, so I think we'll round off a little early today with the words that we normally do, that you can follow us on various social media profiles, and you can always write questions to us at ir@fomtechnologies.com. It goes directly to us, and yeah, with anything, always reach out if there's anything.
Yeah, yeah, and questions in relation to investor relations, we would reply within 24 hours always.
Yeah.
Any kind of questions or anything, just drop us an email, and we will reply ASAP.
Yeah. I can see that there is one question coming in, being typed, so we'll just hang on for a second or two. That was just a comment. "I wish you all a nice summer.
Mm-hmm.
Likewise.
Likewise.
We wish you all a great summer.
Yeah, and hope to see you again when we send out our newsletter for Q3.
Yeah.
Have a nice summer.
Take care.
Bye-bye.