Evening. My name is Seppo Orsila, and I'm here with my colleague, Mrs. Anca Guina, our CFO. We're talking about Modulight Q2. Let's go directly into the highlights. Before that, just to recap what we do. We fight cancer with science and technology, as most of you probably know. Besides that, we use the same lasers for other high-value applications. Last quarter, we had many, many exciting things happening. The sales grew 100%, and we reached almost zero EBITDA, i.e., progressed according to our strategy for the financials. Our pipeline, our most important metric, increased by one project, and we made, most importantly, steady progress across the pipeline, different projects towards a more mature state. I was also extremely happy to see order intake, particularly from returning customers, taking a majority of the stake, and that reflecting also the progress of the pipeline.
We're going to talk more also about overall customer activity and the amount of sign-ups that we reached during the spring and summer. Also, about wintertime, we reported issues with certain operational things, delays related to third-party regulatory things. It's preventing certain customers from treating patients, but also certain delays in customer projects. We have now finally concluded that those were related to supplier quality issues, and our technical team has done a fantastic job in fixing those things, working together with our suppliers to improve their quality, whether in Japan or Europe or the U.S.. Our revenue was originally at EUR 2 million, i.e., doubling from a reference period. I said EBITDA close to zero versus EUR 1.2 million on the negative side a year ago. Also, cash flow continues to improve per our plans. Anca, will you please take it away for the financials?
Thank you, Seppo. From a finance point of view, Q2 highlights our revenue growth and continued improvement in efficiency and profitability in light of our strategy. This summer was a bit atypical for us, as we have seen increased customer activity compared to the previous years. The growth of over 100% in revenue was driven by the backlog we accumulated from the orders placed, mainly by our existing customer base. However, due to our superior technology, we also won new customers, and some of them even from multi-billion euro contractors. We have seen steady and repeated customer returns. Some of the indications still continue to be affected by the delays caused by third parties, but we were able to increase the number of the treatment sites by the end of the quarter.
We have also made significant progress with the progress which we mentioned last quarter in the presentation with the prototype statements. The increased revenue, combined with our actions to improve operational efficiency, resulted in a raise of EBITDA by 96%, which Seppo mentioned already. Product development activities, as well as geographical expansion, have increased. The U.S. continues to be our main market, and our operations in that territory are progressing well. We have continued to strengthen our local manufacturing capabilities in the U.S . The U.S. tariffs have not had a notable impact on our sales, although some customers are considering being a little bit more cautious with future actions. Our exports to the U.S. have mostly been tariff-free so far, but recent news suggests that there could be changes, which may have significant impact both on us and on our customers.
However, the details we have at the moment are currently insufficient for a more thorough assessment. The project pipeline grew to 32 projects from 31 to 21. The goal of all these projects is to commercialize Modulight state-of-the-art products manufactured here in Finland. For H1, revenue increased by 76% compared to last year's same period. Our customers are best characterized by diversity. For some of them, the business is developing faster than before, while others have slowed down the development and adoption of new technologies. The revenue was clearly influenced by ongoing strategic transition to the PPT business model, along with the delays caused by inconsistent quality of certain purchase materials. EBITDA was - EUR 635,000 for half a year, with 75% higher than last year.
Our total operating expenses have decreased by 12% compared to the reference period, in spite of continuous increase in product development and sales and marketing activities. We will continue improving long-term operational efficiency as we go. Growth of revenue, along with improvements in profitability and cash, can be seen both for quarter and half-year period. We believe that by following our growth strategy and capitalizing on our strengths, our business will return to strong growth by the end of the strategic period, which is end of 2035. Headcount is full-time equivalent at the end of June of 70 compared to 79 and 80.
Thank you, Anca. A little bit about the pipeline. We are now at 32 projects versus 31 at the end of Q1, 30 a year ago. Just to remind that the aim of all the projects is to commercialize our own products. PPT sites are now 60 from 50 at the beginning of the year. While we still continue to have certain problems, which we mentioned earlier, we are quite fortunate that demands were almost exclusively happening in our most profitable sites. This means that with the different sites, there is different profitability due to the nature of the indications. Certain more serious conditions are naturally more extensive and thus more profitable to us. This time, we were a bit lucky that the mix trended very, very much towards the best sites we could possibly get. Earlier reported third-party induced delays.
Here I'm referring to these regulatory changes which expand the kind of recruitment criteria for certain projects. They had kind of delays. Of course, that increases the market size, as we explained, to wintertime, but on the other hand, that prevents recruitment and expansion of the trials. As I said, towards the end of the quarter, we were able to solve some of those issues and get acceleration on the installations, but also treat patients. Pilot production started with some customers, which is obviously one of the most important short-term revenue generation impact things. This is something that we are extremely pleased with. The certain supplier quality problems that we finally discovered, that our technical team was able to help suppliers bring the quality of the respective raw materials to the right level, has been very significant. Even if the revenue impact of that during the quarter is very limited.
New projects are in the fields of biology and semiconductor applications and continue the kind of focus where we have in the life science and other high-value applications. I was particularly proud of our sales team's efforts in winning new customers. We got three new multi-billion dollar global customers, and some of them even winning from multi-billion global competitors. These are future projects which have limited revenue impact today and in the quarter, but are basically ranging decisions for the long term. We view them as very interesting if we are able to meet the customer's requirements. The fact that we were chosen for these kind of long-term projects over existing billion-dollar companies is a strong message about the technology our team is making. Yes, the mix of customer maturity continues to progress.
Three years ago, or almost three years ago, we said that our strategy to increase the amount of larger companies and public companies, and this continues to happen slowly and surely. This does not mean that we will shy away from the starters, but we are more critical of us when we are focusing our work and tend to lean more on the more stable institutions. This is visible also in the, let's say, customer adaptation of the projects. Just a recap on where we are doing against our five strategy programs. First, in the geographical expansion, a lot is happening, obviously, in this domain. Anca already mentioned an exceptional number of customer visits, both June and July. Perhaps even more concretely, we can share that typically July has been almost dead to us, that practically no commercial activity.
For some reason, the amount of purchase orders kept on flowing very steadily in July, which is kind of obviously a hotter period. We feel that that is part of the Q2 dynamics, as in most of the world, it's still business season. This is something that we are very, very nicely, and most of it is coming from the United States. We are also seeing activity in other geographies, maybe Japan and some of the other markets. We continue to strengthen our presence in the United States, and the activities we started in the wintertime to create capabilities for local manufacturing have been taken forward. This is more like a mitigative action to counter possible tariffs. As Anca said, we have not seen direct impact of the tariffs so far.
For example, certain prospective customers have said that they have to put their new projects on hold because they need to rearrange their supply chains, et cetera. I.e., there is certain indirect impact and obviously some overall nervousness on the market. As such, we have not seen kind of revenue or margin impact in our business directly. There is actually a question I see on the line. Are your PPT income from the U.S. subject to the tariffs or exempt as a service? This is exactly correct. The PPT is considered a service and so far has been exempt from the taxes. We have decided to note these tariffs as a part of the risks, at least because, as probably all of you know, it seems that the rules on the tariffs are changing, if not daily, at least weekly.
For example, a couple of weeks ago, the White House announced a 100% tariff on semiconductors and a couple 100% tariff on the pharmaceuticals. Yet again, at that time, they also mentioned that certain companies, some of them in our customers, are exempt specifically from the semiconductor tariffs. As far as I know, yesterday, they even announced that semiconductors would be going with the 15% tariff, with a long list of exceptions as well. So far, Modulight semiconductors have been exempt from the tariff, and we have been using the same export codes for 25 years and intend to continue to do so. Clearly, the climate is turbulent and no direct impact so far, but definitely the overall changes and uncertainty is not good for the global economy based on our observations. In the new business models, we made a lot of progress.
We are now having 60 sites with the PPT installed. The stability of the pre-PPT revenue, even if still relatively small, is already meaningful. Most importantly, it is quite steady. Even with these changes that we mentioned about certain segments having recent recruitment holes, et cetera, we are seeing a steady, meaningful revenue. What is something that is quite also interesting to see is that so far, when we look at the first half of the year, the usage per site in terms of euros spending seems to be a little bit above our own predictions, while it takes more time to sign up new sites than we have anticipated in the past. That is progressing too.
Regulatory issues related to third parties hinder our progress, but we still achieve sales growth, especially due to these activities at the end of the quarter where certain kind of new sites were activated. As I said, they happen to be among the best possible sites from our kind of commercial point of view, which, of course, makes us very happy. Overall, the key focus is an increasing number of sites and number of patients treated per site remains a core focus here. We have made a lot of work on this during the summer months as well. Please see the progress. Most clinical work is the focus in the new indications and applications. As mentioned, we also won three new interesting customers, all multi-billion dollar companies, globally major companies, signed up. We expect to add all of them if all those were in the pipeline later.
On the short term, and on the shows also already a little bit on the revenue side, we see recurring orders, our return customer orders, but we also see a little bit of impact that certain customers now move to pilot production, which is obviously from the kind of pipeline and progress point of view, a very important step. What is something also interesting for us relates to both new indications as well as PPT, i.e., the business models, is that several customers tend to make upfront commitments with PPT. This, i.e., means that some of them commit even to a few years in the future of buying a certain amount of treatments, even if our basic offering is that you can basically treat the patients and then based on your consumption, we're making the payment.
Nevertheless, the larger organizations, particularly large hospitals, insurance companies frequently seem to quote that the rationale for making upfront commitments relates to their budgeting and other processes. I don't think these cultural changes are a relevant factor. This is this we can conclude. Commercial and operational excellence. We continue to work very hard with [Argosly] on operational efficiency and are making clear steps in that to improve margins as well as improve our cost structure. This work will definitely continue. We also did some changes in the operations during the summer to improve our product further, which is not yet visible in our numbers, but will have a slight positive impact in the future. We are not part of that area of reductions, but changed certain models that will impact the cost structure. Overall, good track with the ESG and other related projects, as reported earlier.
On the area of technology development, I mentioned already that our technical team has done fantastic work both to develop the platform as well as work with the suppliers to improve quality issues. This has led to progress in several of the pipeline projects. While this is not visible in the revenue, this is very important to us going forward with certain projects forward later this year. Our own factory in Finland is increasingly valued as a competitive advantage by the customers. Not least for that reason, we have probably seen a record number of visitors, particularly from the U.S., but elsewhere as well. I think this is the same moment about Outlook. We're not issuing the Outlook because of the before mentioned reasons. In summary, we have sales and EBITDA continuing progress according to the strategy, doubling the sales and reaching nearly zero EBITDA.
Big progress from the reference period a year ago. It is very important to keep growing the number of PPT sites. The fact that growth is coming from the most important sites is obviously good for us. New customer sign-ups will mostly impact future revenue, but these are critical steps to both kind of leveraging the company's technology as well as kind of broadening the scope of the customers, and thus making us more resistant to upheaval in the economy or geopolitics or whatever. Almost all the customers are from the United States, so maybe not so much impact on the geopolitical side. As they grow, companies, they are definitely good for stability. Pipeline now on 32 projects, first 30 a year ago, and 31 in the Q1.
I would say that the main progress in the pipeline, besides the PPT sites' progress, pilot production started with a couple of customers or some customers. We paid orders from existing customers showing a high percentage of new orders. It's like a great recognition for our product. Progress within the projects, namely unlocking certain third-party things and so forth, as mentioned earlier, are in my mind key things to show the changes. Really concrete in the pipeline. Revenue, EBITDA, and free cash flow, all projects, even better than last year's strategy. On the right side, we have a bladder cancer patient, but for obvious reasons, we have to do some smearing of the picture. This one is from the South of the United States. Thank you. Any questions? Maybe we start with, according to usual practice, with our analysts. Daniel, do you want to go first?
Hi, Seppo. Hi, Anca. It's Daniel Lepistö from Danske Bank. Can you hear me all right?
Yes.
Great. Thanks for the presentation. I have a couple of questions, maybe starting up once again with the order intake. You still don't give us the numerical figure anywhere, but I guess the commentary in the release that the summer was exceptional for the orders received speaks quite well on this topic. Are we still on this same ballpark that we have been in the past quarters, meaning several millions worth of orders quarterly? Can you comment on this topic at all?
I wouldn't say that we have been in the several millions quarterly, if you, for example, look about Q1. Yes, we are on a similar level. What I think that made this summer particularly special regarding the order intake is the kind of mix of orders coming. Obviously, no very large orders as they would have been announced. I want to lay out, first of all, from customers with whom we have been working for a longer period of time, and they were very widely mixed across the range of customers. That aspect can be difficult to hide. Secondly, as Anca mentioned, the July side tends to be, or basically after midsummer, the order intake and this kind of customer activity very often is limited. Now, for some reason, which is not fully clear to us, many customers are coming and placing orders.
This is something that I don't believe we saw during the history of the company. Anca, do you remember anything like that in the 25 years?
No, I may have a poor memory, but this I don't remember.
Okay. The momentum is, you know, looking bright. Obviously, as you said, there are no very large orders, but the order, there is like stable income of reasonable ones coming in.
Yes.
All right. Thank you. The second question, you don't report directly or cross-margin, but looking at the materials and services, it's been quite high during this year, around 70 %- 80% even. It has been trending clearly upwards for the past two years. How should we see and forecast this going forward? Is this sort of a new normal level for you? Has the PPT model contributed to this? To what extent? Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, definitely, the PPT model is kind of purely immaterial, and thus that has a high gross margin. From my point of view, we are now more like returning to the normal levels, which we saw for almost 10 years in the previous decade. I don't see here a big change. Mainly, or obviously, a good progress versus the recent years, but I think that we should be more likely to do normal rather than some big increase versus the history. Anca, maybe you comment more from both sides.
Yeah, of course. I mean, we kept announcing that we take actions across all operations to improve the efficiency. This obviously falls under that as well.
Maybe one, let's say, more kind of business and product-oriented comment that you may have noticed that we have been working quite a lot with the prototypes in the past. Those who are familiar with the technology know that it costs sometimes even more to make one or two units than it costs to make 10 in terms of absolute euros. Thus, definitely, the material expenses have been kind of overburdened by the sheer number of projects where we are doing various stages of prototypes and development with the customers. As the projects mature, the share of the prototypes is reducing, and thus you are enjoying the economies of scale, even if the scale is still very limited.
All right. That is very clear. Final question is on the capital expenditure. It was up EUR 300,000 from Q1. Can you remind on exactly what contributed here? Was it more R&D activities or perhaps some maintenance CapEx? How do you see this CapEx for the rest of the year, mining off, of course, the current cash burn of the business?
Actually, this has been keep going monthly. It was ordered like a very long time ago, but only after we finalized this year and after, before the testing and the protocol for having it in production, then the equipment is fully approved. Only at that time it becomes, you know, like capital expenditure. Before the equipment is approved, it's just advance paid.
This is sort of a maybe one-off increase that should not be maybe extrapolated for the rest of the year.
Yeah, it should not be extrapolated, but we should also bear in mind that, you know, there are always some small bites here and there, one new test measurement station, which we didn't have before for a new technology, and so on and so forth. They are not significant.
All right. That is clear. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Kimo, do you want to go next?
Yes, it's Kimo here. Hi from OP Markets. I trust you can hear us. Hear me? Good. The cash burning rate, as was also mentioned about the last speaker, it's still going on. Maybe you can share something that what the board is thinking, that you have this target to reach profitable growth due to this year, but you still have no guidance for the financial year. Has there been any talks to give some guidance on the markets? Although the numbers are getting to the right direction, the pace is really, really slow if you look at the cash burning rate that you're having still at the moment.
We had a board meeting most recently yesterday, and there were no decisions to give any updates on this. Whether it is slow or fast, that is a subjective matter. We feel extremely happy about the progress we're making, making steps in accordance with the strategy. Things, including the cash flow, are going in the right direction. There are even certain good developments that we need to stay in time. Other than that, we have nothing to add and have no plans to do so far due to any changes.
Okay, maybe I'm asking another way. You are not worried about the rights issue or something like that, that you have a sufficient capital structure to go on with this transition period and getting back to at least 2026 to cash flow positive or EBITDA positive at least.
Like we said, we have been now making good progress. If we feel otherwise, we will immediately, obviously, share that with you and the markets. We feel that we can retain and keep to our earlier statements that we will return to profitability. While that is not directly, of course, talking about the cash, it's clear that if the company would see needs to raise more cash or do other market actions, this would be something that we would inform the market as soon as such a decision is made.
Okay. Then about the projects, you gave two new projects. It's now 32, and I think you have a little bit less than 70 employees. Do you have resources to push all these projects up, or are some of the major parts of the projects on hold, or do they all get enough resources to push them forward?
Yeah, excellent. Another excellent question. We also discussed in the past that in life science, the delays are more like a norm rather than an exception. We said this strategy of having many, many parallel projects for this year's reason. Remember that the company was living totally based on customer kind of proceeds, i.e., paying customers from 2003 all the way to the IPO to 2021. So 19 years without a single investor. We learned the hard way that we must always have multiple projects ongoing in parallel because we cannot be in a situation where certain customers' delays, which in this business are unfortunately unavoidable, would be too high risk for the company. Thus, we have continued to build up the parallel projects. We have, especially since last year, been able to enjoy also economies of scale.
We have reported that several of the customers now, even in the same indications, are using our technology, i.e., the total amount of work per project is reduced. Also, as our platforms have been maturing, this also reduces the total amount of work needed by the platform. We are both having the situation that, due to the nature of the industry, certain projects are progressing and some are delayed not because of us, but mostly about the other reasons. The fact that the same product is essentially cargoing from project to project creates you the total amount of work needed per project. I would even say that today, it's kind of more about the external factors than the internal people and other resourcing. We are definitely not at the moment limited by the number of people at the company, even if the number of projects is growing.
Okay, thank you. That's all for me.
Thank you. [Anti], do you want to go next?
Yes, thank you. I have just one question to better understand the Q2 revenues. You had a previous order for the quantum computing and also new installations of medical lasers. Did these have a tangible impact on the Q2 revenues?
Yes, thank you. We made good progress with our particular quantum customer that you are referring to. There are no formal reports about that, but the informal talks with the customers have been positive or even positively surprised. It's obvious that we will have to wait for the next steps, but we expect to hear something more tangible later this year. Here I want to caution because when you are building a system such as a quantum computer, it's about the size of an ice hockey hall or a stadium. There are many, many things not anyhow related to us. We know that our staff is now progressing well, but these kind of complex, or I would say ultra-complex systems, have also other elements. All those need to be in concert for the project to go forward.
We have no reason or information at this time to expect such delays on the other parts, but I want to just keep caution to avoid negative surprises. As I said, we even received very, very positive feedback on our work so far. What was the second part of your question?
I was just wondering, you had some installations of the medical lasers. Do these kind of bring any one-off revenues that had effect, or is it more like only PPT revenue in the future?
Thank you. Yeah, and there are minor installation fees. They are mostly to cover things like travel costs, etc. As we said in our release, we had some adds, especially towards the end of the quarter. We were, I guess, lucky due to the fact that they are really at the top end of our profitability in terms of indications. There are also certain fixed monthly fees that those units are generating. Really, the bulk of the revenue expectation is from the number of patients treated. These minor adds, like installation fees and monthly fees, have been agreed together with the pharmaceutical companies to compensate for certain delays at least a little bit. The bulk of the expectation in the business model is pure based on the patients treated.
That's clear.
Contribution, not huge.
Yeah, that's clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, [Anti]. So far, we don't seem to have too many questions or any questions open at the online. Unless someone wants to put a question, I'll still wait for 15 seconds. Other than that, in that case, we adjourn. Thank you, everybody, for participation and look forward to the autumn and the easy rest of the year. Thank you.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye.