Hi, welcome to Inside FOM, now in English, as we've had some requests for that. We'll try it out this time, and in our new office location here. My name is Anders, and I'm digital marketing manager here at FOM, and I'll be helping our CEO today with today's Inside FOM. Before we start, I would like to check if you can hear us. Could you please write in the question tab or the chat tab at the bottom if we come through clearly? I will wait for first response. That's there. We've got a thumbs up or a sign, that's good. With the questions, the question tab and the chat tab, please use that throughout the entire half hour here.
I'll interrupt Michael, if he's going on about something, if there are questions. Other than that, I'll hand over to you.
Yes.
actually start sharing the slides.
Thanks a lot, Anders, and welcome to everybody here on a sort of a late July evening. This is our Q2 2023 Inside FOM. Yeah, as Anders said, we are here making a recap of the last quarter. Yeah, what better way to start to have a look at this beautiful premises? We have relocated from the premises, the rooms we had at Islands Brygge, and now we have moved very close to the airport, close to the bridge to Sweden, and also the Blue Planet. We are here in Kastrup. This beautiful premises is 207 years old. It's been renovated, and this is the place where we will grow and stay for the next hopefully many years.
We have a space to grow, we have a showroom, and we also have a site where we can do quality control stories.
Mm.
so forth.
All the needed elements that we were missing so much at the other place.
Yeah. In relation to the organization, we have also grown quite dramatically. In the annual report, we were 17, what you say, FTE, full-time employees, and now we just hired number 32.
Yep.
We are almost doubling the organization just within the last six months. We've been very, very busy.
I can say tripled since I started.
Since you started?
Yes.
Yeah, that is correct. That means that you have been, what, employee number 8, 9, 10?
Five.
[crosstalk]5. Okay. Yeah, things are going fast. Yeah, we have a few interesting topics. We sent out the newsletter this morning, so we can fly away. What about going[crosstalk] to the.
I think.
first slide? Yeah.
[crosstalk]This next slide here, ESG initiatives.
Yeah. We published our first ESG report, or we didn't call it report, we call it the ESG initiatives. The reason for that is that we would lay sort of the foundation for a report that we will publish every year alongside our annual report. Next 1 years from now. This is all the initiatives we do related to the environmental, social, and governance dimension. Yeah, if people would like to know more about that, browse through and always feel free to write questions or bring them up when we have these Inside FOM sessions.
There's a small question here, which is good: What do you hope a full ESG report can give your company?
For us, it's very important that we start, sort of, making initiatives and reports related to ESG. This is here to stay. We know as the company grows, it will be mandatory for us to report on these elements.
Mm-hmm.
Before we were actually obliged to do so, we would very much like to do it on a voluntarily basis. That's why we have started now, and then we can build on top of that. We have now the skeleton, we have the template for a full-blown ESG report, and now we have started, and now we can just add on.
Yes.
That was sort of the intention about it.
Okay, if that answers it, then there's no more. I think we'll jump to the next slide. Oh, sorry, next slide here.
We're moving into what we call the product news. This is related to our bigger systems. We have the biggest of our machines called the Modulo R2R, stands for roll-to-roll. That means continuous coating when our customers would like to coat again and again and again in a continuous way. We have had this branding or marketing video made so people and customers can see what we actually do. This has been launched very recently, and this is what we're hoping to sell more of.
More of[crosstalk]. Yes.
You have been involved in making this.
Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's been some time coming. We've had the Modulo R2R for a while, but we also need the machine physically and available for us to do some marketing material. You will see products that you might have heard of if you're a client or even own, that we will sort of feature. We won't call it launches per se, we will call it features because it could be existing products that is then now being launched. Some sales news?
Yeah. We have two interesting stories. The first one is that we have had yet another MedTech, medical technology, customer in our pipeline. Yeah, we managed to do a sale. It's for a U.S.-based MedTech company. This is not the first MedTech company, it's actually the third one.
Mm-hmm.
We're starting to see a trend. Why is this interesting? It's interesting because we previously have been focusing very much on solar and batteries, but now we also see the medical, industries, buying our equipment.
Mm.
We think is interesting. The other one is related to a new geographic region, it's sales to Japan, where we have sold one of our-
Mm
... flagship, products to Japan. Japan is notoriously a difficult country to penetrate from Western country. We think that is interesting for us.
Yeah.
To sell.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
There's a couple questions in regards to these sales news. First of all, there's a question, Should you ask questions in Danish or English? You can ask them in any of the two languages. I can, I will translate them and ask in English to Michael, so he can respond. The other question is regarding to the MedTech. You were talking a little bit about that it's the third sales. The question goes, With your latest sale to the U.S. MedTech company, is that a sector you are increasingly looking towards?
Yeah, absolutely. You know, when you decide to have two strategic areas you focus on in that. When you see, sort of one or two and three inquiries coming from a new area that you have not sort of been focusing a lot, it makes you start thinking, Okay, maybe there's an untapped potential. It would definitely be an area that we will start looking to talk to the customer, what are you using for? Do you have other sort of, companies that you could rent our equipment?
Mm
... and rent and so forth. We would definitely start looking into this strategic area as well.
Yeah. I will also jump into our collaboration with Stokk.io.
Mm.
[Foreign Language]Anna Ehsvan.
Yeah.
That's a platform where you also can ask questions, pre, the show. We will take them here. Two of the questions are actually regarding Japan.
Mm.
I think it's suited to take them now that we've discussed this. The first one, "The latest sale in Japan was done through a Japanese distributor.
Yeah.
In which markets do you sell in-house, and which markets do you use distributors?
Yeah.
How is distribution agreement set up? The distributions have to commit to a certain amount each year, and what kind of margin cuts do they usually take?
Yeah. No, that's a very good question. We have decided to interact or engage with distributors around the world. It's primarily in the geographic regions where the culture is different or maybe also the legislation is different. Japan would definitely be a market that is notoriously difficult. It could also be China and India, whereas we are a little bit more reluctant to team up with distributors or partnerships in the USA and in Europe, because we know the culture, we are used of doing business. Having said that, we do have distributors in these regions.
Mm
... but we are very much focusing on things that are further away from us and more difficult in terms of culture and also legislation. In terms of the amount, the ideal scenario is that you would make frame agreements. You would say, Hey if you would like to be a distributor, then you have some privileges. That also means that you have to buy a certain amount. That will always be in a case-by-case situation, and you have to start up the cooperation to see if it gets going. Starting to have big frame agreements when you start up a cooperation, it can be difficult. Often you would start and see if things fly, and then you can increase the cooperation.
In relation to the margins, it's confidential, everybody knows that if it's within equipment and machines, it's very likely that the margins for distributor would be anywhere between 12%, 13%, 14%, and up until 20%. It all differs about the other payment terms, in that range.
Okay. We'll take the second one from Stockio, and then we have one in chat.
Mm-hmm.
As you have now entered Japan as well, can you maybe provide an overview of the competitive situation in the different markets you operate in?
Yeah.
Do you meet the same competitors in all markets, or do you have some markets where the competition is higher than others?
Yeah, that's also a good question. We can say that we have competitors that are global just as us. We would say that we typically look at in 4 or 5 competitors that are doing something very similar to what we do, not exactly the same types of machine, but in the big perspective, similar. We have one company in the U.S. we have a few in Asia, and then 2 or 3 here in Europe. And those are on a global scale where we are competing each other. very much focused on here, Europe, 1 in the U.S. and also 1 or 2-
Mm
in Asia. That's how we see the competitive landscape.
Yes. We'll take the one in chat. Which brings us a little bit backwards, there's written: What a nice office you've gotten! Thank you, we agree. We really love being here. Yes, just saw it on social media presence on Instagram, you're certainly growing fast. Where do you see the company in 1, 5, and 10 years? Before you take that, Michael, I would like to add, yes, we are now fully on Instagram, thanks to our new colleague, Michelle, from January this year. Our social media presence is going on everywhere. Please join us and follow along if you want to see the journey.
Yeah.
In 1, 5, and 10 years?
Yeah, it's a good question, Maria. We often get this question, or I often get the question, and my standard answer would be that to look more than 2 and a half years ahead is very difficult because nobody knows what will happen in 5 or 10 years' time. It could be that there's a different ownership or people don't work here anymore, and so forth. I tend to say maybe a horizon of a couple of years. We would continue to grow the organization, that's why we moved here. We will continue to focus on exactly what we do and not broaden our perspective.
I believe that if you have to be successful as a Danish company or a Scandinavian company, you have to find a niche and be super good at that and only focus on that. That would be sort of what we will do for the next few years. We will continue to focus on solar and batteries. Why? It's a major trend. We believe that that will exist in three, five years' time, and so forth, and try to see how fast and also profitable we can grow. What will happen in the future, we will see. Hopefully, we will be much bigger than we are right now. 10 years is a very long time horizon, it's difficult to predict.
We have, however, without saying too much, gotten this place, so there is room to grow, but we know we will, as you say.
Yes.
We won't be moving again next year.
No, no.
Uh,
It's hard work to move.
Yeah.
If you have tried that, it is.
Yes. Another question, which is a little bit off these topics, but it's very, very investor related. What's the plan in regards to being going on the Main Market?
Yeah. Also a question I get regularly. I also got it when I went to this podcast that we had on the radio the other day in Jyllands-Posten. The answer to it is that by the beginning of the year, we announced that we would try to seek application to moving to the Main Market this year. It is still the plan. It will not be before the summer holiday because everybody going on holiday on Friday.
Yeah.
It's still the plan that by the end of the year, at the latest, we would try to see if we can be on the Main Market. It's not only entirely up to us, it's an application and dialogue that you have with the Nasdaq platform and also Finanstilsynet.
Yeah.
They would need to approve both of them, and then you are allowed to move to a different platform, but it's still in the line what we expected.
As you said, last quarter, that our annual report and our ESG initiatives and so on, we've started to build up on those requirements that will come along with this. We are ready in-house at least.
Yes.
All right. let's go to the next one. Maybe I can talk a little bit about that study.
Yeah.
It's more of a marketing.
Yeah.
Our good friends at QD Solar have had a record breakthrough on the what do you call it?
Efficiency
... the efficiency you get out of a solar cell. We reached out and asked them if we could, do our first case story with them, and they happily said yes. We are starting hopefully to get more and more, customers involved in our marketing material. This first one is luckily a really good one from QD Solar. Sorry.
It's okay.
A Canadian-based company. It's been running a few years. If you're interested in what our clients do and so on, please follow along and there will be more of these news coming.
Yeah.
Yeah. Distributors, there's also some news there.
Yeah. Again, a new region for us, U.A.E. in the Middle East. We have signed up an agreement with a distributor called ISS Lab Laboratories, covering U.A.E. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman, and Kuwait. A lot of universities, a lot of money being poured into clean energy in this region. We believe that was also an excellent region for us to be present. Yeah, we're happy to share that news.
Absolutely. Careers at FOM, also, semi marketing, stunt, in regards to marketing, being, having built this, platform together with, our HR department. With the increase in us having more and more people, of course, we needed a better platform to cater for applications and the ease of them coming in. We've spent some time building this platform and getting it up and running. Yes, do you have anything?
Yeah, we can say, as we grow, more and more people know about us, we're seeing an increasingly, sort of, amount of, unsolicited applications, that we're getting.
Mm-hmm.
Therefore, we felt that it was the right time of sort of doing some promotion on our internet, what it's like to work at FOM, what career opportunities can we offer, and so forth. We're slowly ramping our up on all the things that much bigger company have already. This is just a natural development for us.
Mm-hmm. There are some new hires, of course, this quarter as well.
Yeah.
Speaking of.
Yeah, we can just start from the top. We have hired Allan de Neergaard as new Chief Sales Officer. Along with him, we're also ramping up on the supply chain channels, supply chain and procurement. Dubravka Olsen has joined us from another listed First North company. We have hired Krystal Andersen also to joining the sales team, along with Emma, who will be our new office assistant, actually starting today formally.
Yeah, formally today. Yes.
The first. Then also our first hiring in the States, Holly Brunner. So, yeah, we are ramping up month by month and quarter by quarter. Yeah, we will continue not in the same pace, because we also need to be able to sort of adjust all the hirings…
Yeah
... the learning, and all that. Yeah, I think it's important that the signal that we're growing and things are going well. That's what we sort of wanted to inform everybody, about.
I'll take a little question around the new hires. You've hired your first employee in the U.S. Holly.
Yeah.
Is that something you've done to hopefully expand there?
It's a very deliberate choice. We see U.S. and Canada for that sake, as a major market for us. We believe that having a physical presence will increase the business that we can get. We can go out and meet the customers there, have meetings, demonstrate our equipment, and so forth. Bear in mind that a few years ago, we opened our American subsidiary. It's called FOM Technologies Inc..
Yes.
It's a virtual office in Silicon Valley, where we are, based next to the embassy.
Right.
We have our address there, but we don't have any people hired yet. We will have that from the first of August. It's simply to ramp up the business in the States. That's a very sort of deliberate choice.
As you might have noticed on the slide, Holly has a PhD, so she's one of our additional PhDs here who knows a lot about what we do, and how the applications our machines are used for is needing what they need there. We will, of course, also use her a lot from a marketing perspective with the conferences we go to in the U.S. because we go to 4, 3-4 conferences a year, maybe more next year with Holly there. It will be easier to send a person who actually can speak the language of the clients or customers there on site, which we will use, of course.
Yeah.
Okay. Going further, 2 questions.
Mm-hmm.
If there are any, final questions, please, we'll give it a few moments. I can see someone is writing here. There is also a question here in the question tab. Do you have insights in how much the lack of natural resources, rare materials, et cetera, will affect the market for batteries and solar in the coming years?
That's a very good question that we get there. It's without a question that if you look at batteries in general, a lot of scarce materials and scarce resources are being used for these things. That's also part of our equipment that people around the world, whether it's academic customers or corporations, that they test and try new materials in order to build or develop energy storage, cobalt, and a lot of other materials are scarce. The, the industries, the EV, electrical vehicle industries, is having difficulties to keep up with that if you look 5-10 years ahead. The same goes for solar. You also use scarce resources.
We also know that China have bought a lot of mines, natural resources around the world.
Mm.
That goes for Africa, it goes for Asia, it goes for China, and so forth. Not only are people doing research and development in relation to prices, cost prices coming down, efficiency being increased, but also to look at the situation where some of the materials would be scarce, and you need replacement for that. That's definitely a race to look into these things, and that's also a part of what we are focusing on. That's a very good question.
Yes, following a little bit along those lines, there's a question here: How does FOM's innovations and focus with sustainable batteries, solar panels, Power-to-X feel about the entire green transition? The UN 2030 plan, everyone driving electric cars in the near future, look like? Have you already gotten interest from any big EV companies?
Yeah. Yeah, we can just repeat that, when you read our sort of post, our investor news, and so forth, we are announcing, if we get the big customers related to solar panels, batteries...
Mm
EV manufacturers, and so forth. We will continue to do so. We believe that this entire green transition is here to stay, and will just continue. A lot of money is being poured out for governments in the U.S. and Europe, also in Asia, in order to conquer this green transition. We can just say that that is what we are focusing on. That's what we do.
Yeah. I can see there's someone writing. We'll just give it a few moments to finish up. If you have any questions, please don't hold back, by all means.
Yeah.
We have a couple of minutes left.
Yeah, maybe a last question, that one of the participants writing, if we have gotten any interest from any big EV companies. That's naturally not something that we can comment on.
I'm not going to say, yeah.
We are announcing, if we have orders that we think have the magnitude and the size, then we announce that to the market, but not besides that.
Not before they happen, no.
Yeah.
Anything else we can add?
We can just add that, this time, it was very close to the end of the month.
Yes.
Whether we would do the Inside FOM podcast here on the same date, we will test it out and see if it works.
Yeah.
Maybe next time there will be one day or two days between we send out the newsletter and when we do the actual podcast in the evening. Yeah, we're trying different formats, and also to do it in English and see if we can sort of widen out the audience by doing so. We're trying a little bit of various things and then evaluate what works and what doesn't.
As we've said before, if you have any questions on a normal Wednesday evening or anything, you're always welcome to send an email to ir@fomtechnologies.com.
Yeah, please do. Any questions, you know, send an email, and then we'll be happy to answer the best we can.
Yeah.
We have a question before we round off here. It goes for the market size, what is the market for batteries, solar panels in the future, and the potential of the technology? I've got that question many times. The answer is that we really don't know. They are massive and counted in billions of dollars. Not exactly what we do. The market for batteries and the market for solar panels are huge. It's counted in trillions of dollars. There's a lot of research being put into increasing the efficiency and improving batteries on a global scale. That is what we can say for sure. It's very difficult to say exactly how big your market size is for our specific technology.
I think that's it. There's no one that seems to write anything or started formulating a question, so should we round off...
Yeah
... and say, and say thank you for tonight?
Yeah, and.
For those who have been here before, thank you for coming in, and the new ones, thank you for joining. I hope you will coming in three months.
Yeah
when we have the next one.
Have a nice summer to all of you.
Yeah. Have a very nice summer.
Take care.
Bye.