Good afternoon, everybody. Just waiting for everybody to load in here. Welcome to the LeddarTech's call to discuss their groundbreaking deal with Texas Instruments. With me today are Frantz Saintellemy, LeddarTech's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Stewart, our Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, LeddarTech is an automotive software company specializing in AI-based low-level sensor fusion and perception software that enables ADAS and AD applications. On today's call, Frantz will provide an overview of the TI deal, and following his remarks, we'll have time for one or two questions. If you request a question, please use the raise hand button on the webinar. Before we begin, I remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements based on management's current expectations and beliefs.
These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements contained in our business update releases and the company's Form 20-F filed with the SEC. I'll now hand over the call to Frantz.
Thank you, Kevin. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. This announcement with Texas Instruments, as Kevin mentioned earlier, is a significant announcement in the sense where we have a collaboration with Texas Instruments where we deliver a bundled solution that includes the LeddarVision AI-based fusion perception software that is pre-integrated and validated on TI's TDA4 portfolio of systems-on-chip. This is unique in many ways. It's unique because the software is available today. It's demonstrating market-leading performance KPIs and is available for customers to integrate for the next generations of automobiles that will be released in the market between 2026, 2027, and 2028. This is also groundbreaking in the sense where it's the first time an AI-based fusion and perception software is ported into an embedded system in real-time automotive applications and ported to a low-cost SoC processor.
The TI TDA4 scalable portfolio family of chips is available in the market, and our software is the final piece of the equation that allows them to deliver ADAS and AD systems to various customers across the globe. This is a very compelling solution because it creates a bundle of an open architecture that delivers high-performance, cost-effective solutions for pretty much all levels from, call it, Level 2 entry basic safety systems all the way to Level 4 advanced driver systems and eventually even autonomous driving systems, so covering the entire landscape of automotive and Tier 1 suppliers. This agreement comes with approximately $10 million in prepaid royalties with the expectation that additional royalties will be paid over time. This is non-dilutive financing for LeddarTech, meaning that we can use the money in any way to support the development of the company. If you go to the next slide, please.
This, we believe, is the cornerstone of the go-to-market strategies that TI and LeddarTech will be driving future innovations across the globe. It's a cost-effective, fully integrated, pre-validated, scalable software bundle that also delivers a unique competitive edge that provides accelerated time to market that de-risk the commercialization both on the TI side that the software is fully available, and as well as on the LeddarTech side because we are leveraging TI's global sales and support infrastructure to really de-risk customers in their adoption as well as accelerate their development and reduce the risks associated with undeveloped software. So this solution, we believe, is breakthrough and makes it easier for all customers to adopt ADAS and AD technologies in the future. If you go to the next slide, please. The essence of this is really there are many, many positives for this.
We have talked to various customers and partners across the globe. And what resonates is this accelerated time to market. The software is available. It's fully ported onto the TI architecture. It's scalable and flexible. It's one platform that can scale across different models, different brands, different tierings. So same software, multiple end products can be developed by the OEM or the Tier 1 for the application. It's a cost-effective solution. The LeddarVision sensor-agnostic platform helps reduce the number of sensors and optimizing on TI's low-cost processor architecture. This comes up as well as we demonstrate the solution to customers. It delivers highest performance across the different applications. And we believe that we have pretty much one of the reference solutions on the market in terms of performance.
And then finally, this is an end-to-end solution that really covers the entire life cycle from design, development, all the way to deployment. But also, it's a single architecture that can provide not just the capability to the entry basic systems, but it's a unified model that really allows the OEM to develop their own applications on top of that perception stack. So we believe that this really is groundbreaking, and we think that it will accelerate the adoption of ADAS systems leveraging this bundled solution by TI and LeddarTech. So if you go to the next slide, please. So what to expect? There are many more things that are happening. We have started to jointly engage with customers. We have developed a comprehensive roadmap that is available, that has been validated, and that's running on TI's TDA4 processor family.
At CES, we'll be demonstrating bundled solutions together, both at the TI booth and as well at the LeddarTech booth and also in vehicle. And we think that we are well positioned to converge on customer design wins together over the coming months. With that, operator, we'll open up to questions.
Okay. The first question is from Josh Buchalter from TD Cowen.
Hey, Kevin. Hey, Frantz. Congratulations.
Hi, Josh.
Thank you. Thanks for hosting this. Can you maybe spend a couple of minutes? You guys have been engaged with TI for a while and maybe talk through what benchmarks were clear that enabled the more formalized agreement and how you expect this to sort of transform your go-to-market. And in particular, is this for surround view ADAS type of applications, front-facing, or is that still to be determined as you go to market here? Thank you.
Thank you for your question, Josh. So there are a number of things that happened. The first thing is having the software ported already on TI's TDA4. We announced earlier this year at CES the availability of the TI-based solution ported to their TDA4, the ADAS for front entry. But I think the main catalyst was in September, we started demonstrating our solutions in the vehicle to a bunch of customers across the globe. And the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. And I think this is what we expected. We always knew that our software was high performance, but I think this from the TI side was really the major catalyst in terms of accelerating our joint go-to-market together.
We have been working on this agreement for quite some time, but the prepayment royalty, the close to $10 million in prepayment royalties, is really a testament of how much value they attest to the currently available solution.
Got it. Thank you. And then I'm going to ask a couple of follow-ups after that, and then I'll hop back in the queue. How should we think about the sort of timeline for commercial engagements and when you think those could convert with either Tier 1 or OEM customers? Is that sort of a this really brings it in? Is it something that can happen in the next few months, or would you expect something more towards longer term towards the end of next year into 2026? And then with the $10 million of cash received for the prepayment, how much does this extend your balance sheet runway? Thank you. And congratulations again.
So I'll answer the questions on the go-to-market side, and then Chris will help on the balance sheet question. But the main thing is that we have a growing funnel of opportunities that we are working with TI. We have joint target customers, both OEMs and Tier 1s. And we expect that at any given point, one or more of these customers will converge. There's no doubt in our minds that this is the next logical next steps. And as a follow-up, we have opportunities for front basic as well as premium surround solutions. So we have a good roster, and we feel confident that we'll be able to close fairly soon.
Yeah. On the runway piece, so we're burning right now a little over $2.5 million a month in cash. And so this gives us conceivably about four months of additional runway. Yeah. So that's it. Now, the $10 million is coming in tranched in three tranches. It's $5 million essentially upfront to do within 30 days of signing, $3 million due when we complete the CES demo for the upcoming CES show in January in Las Vegas, where we'll be jointly demonstrating the solution with TI, and then $2 million when we sign a customer. So the timing on that last $2 million is a little bit in flux. Obviously, we're not going to put a date to that. So it's somewhere between three and four months of runway.
Got it. Thank you both, and congratulations again.
Thank you.
Thank you, Josh.
Great to have you on the call. Thanks.
Okay. Our next question is going to come from Suji Desilva from Roth Capital. Go ahead, Suji.
Hi, Frantz. Chris, congratulations on the progress here.
Hi, Suji.
Yeah. The automotive market, maybe Frantz, you can go up kind of 20,000 ft here. The appetite for L2 versus L2, L3, L4. Can you just talk about what the EV priority shift that happened in the marketplace, what you're seeing today, and particularly the non-China versus China market, if that dynamic's relevant for this year term?
Right. I mean, there are two things that are happening in the market. The first thing is safety is now becoming mandatory. So pretty much every car manufacturer and Tier 1s are working to meet the regulatory demands that have been enacted in the European Union as well as elsewhere and in the U.S. as well. And so we are seeing this major push for OEMs to do this at the most cost-efficient solution possible at low cost because this mandate to make basic safety collision avoidance as mandatory or as a base feature in every car out there has cost. And so OEMs are trying to achieve this without additional cost burden. And that's what the first platform that TI and LeddarTech developed is addressing. And then the second thing that is for sure is cars are becoming more complex.
Software is becoming basically necessary for car manufacturers to improve their performance and add more features, more functionality because consumers want more convenient functionalities like your parking features, your highway pilots, city pilots. These things affect driving behaviors. And consumers are prepared to actually buy vehicles with these features and pay a little bit of a premium for these types of performances. And so car manufacturers have to respond to that. And those two things, regardless whether it's an EV, hybrid, or combustion engine, they're true. And then what we bring to the party is an element of performance, cost, as well as scalability. If you're Ford, General Motors or you're Volkswagen, you sell millions of vehicles in different brands, different tierings, and different categories. And you need to have a software that can evolve to the different types of branding and tiering.
Today, the market is so fragmented in terms of solutions, existing approaches that are out there, they don't have that element of scalability. Every car, every design is a new design. What we are proposing is an architecture that is pre-ported, pre-validated, that can scale up or down. The software is fully compatible across the portfolio of products from TI. It's also fully capable of scaling from entry, your basic entry, your premium entry, to your mid, all the way to your full surround view applications. And that's what, in addition to parking. And that's what we will be demonstrating together at CES.
Yeah. I know, Frantz, that sounds very compelling, particularly with the part of TI. My other question's on sort of somehow kind of getting to the pricing conversation. I'm trying to understand to some level how many vehicles this $10 million prepaid would cover just to understand how far along that would take you and what the how does is this price as an incremental dollar to TI's TDA4 sell? Does that price progress as you go from L2 to L4? And what's the attachment? Is it going to be 100% of TDA4s going forward, or is that not how this is going to play out?
Well, I'll let Chris comment on the pricing strategy. But one thing to keep in mind, Suji, is that we cover basic low-cost vehicles, your $30,000 vehicle to your $200,000 vehicle to your commercial vehicle and trucking. So there's a wide spread of applications and use cases that we cover with this agreement. What's important to understand is that dependent on who's the first customer that is announced first, the pricing will vary based on is it a truck? Is it a car? Is it a commercial vehicle? Is it an SUV? So the application will determine. And the reason why I'm saying this, and I'm staying a little bit vague, is because we have a number of these types of opportunities that we are working on. And at any given time, one or two of those could converge, and that will dictate the pricing.
So in terms of how it'll be priced in the market, it'll be a single bundle price for the solution, right? So the customers won't necessarily see the split out of the chip and the software. So that's the way it'll be priced in the marketplace. With respect to the software content, what we've said in the past, we've quoted third-party research from McKinsey and others that suggests $120 or so of ADAS software-related content in a vehicle, and we think we get a big chunk of that. So we haven't really put a tight band around it, but you could kind of assume $50-$100 a vehicle in software content. Again, usually perception, depending on, as Frantz said, whether it's front-only or surround or what the level of functionality is. So those are just rough numbers to kind of guide you, call it.
It's small, the $10 million prepayment is expected to be a relatively small portion of the overall value of a design win with the design wins that we're targeting in mainstream vehicles.
Okay. Very helpful. Thanks, Frantz. Thanks, Chris.
Absolutely. Great to talk to you.
Okay. Thank you, everybody. I think that is our time we have for today. If you have additional follow-up questions, please feel free to contact the LeddarTech investor relations, and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you, everybody.
Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it.
Thank you, everyone.