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Earnings Call: Q4 2025

Mar 9, 2026

Speaker 8

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Welcome to the BETA Technologies fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand the call over to Devon Rothman, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Warren, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for BETA Technologies fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. Joining me today are Kyle Clark, our Founder and Chief Executive Officer, and Herman Cueto, our Chief Financial Officer. Following their prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A, where Kristen Costello, our Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs, will also join us. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results, as well as our outlook for 2026. We also published our investor presentation, which is available on the investor relations section of our website. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.

Please refer to our filings with the SEC for a discussion of these risks. We will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings materials. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kyle.

Speaker 7

Thanks, Devon. Good morning, everyone. The fourth quarter was a strong finish to a defining year for BETA. In 2025, we showed up in the air and with our customers and regulators and in the capital markets. We did so in a way that reflects the discipline and pragmatism that define this company. We achieved several milestones in 2025 that materially advanced certification, commercialization, and defense. We made meaningful progress across our certification programs with three notable achievements. We earned a Part 35 type certification for our propeller in partnership with Hartzell. We closed our G1 certification basis on the A250 vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. We began four credit testing on our Part 33 motor. We advanced our commercial efforts with successful customer deployments both domestically and internationally. We flew our aircraft across Europe. We opened the Paris Air Show.

For customer deployments both domestically and internationally. We flew our aircraft across Europe and we opened the Paris Air Show. We flew at Oshkosh. We set multiple world records and we won the Pulitzer Electric Aircraft Race. We flew the first all-electric passenger flight in and out of JFK Airport. We completed our phase I contract with General Dynamics and our defense programs continue to grow. We also launched our strategic partnership and joint technology development program with GE. In 2025 and continuing to 2026, we are seeing significant regulatory tailwinds. In December, Department of Transportation released the AAM National Strategy, which is very much aligned with BETA's strategy. Congress continues to invest in our future.

Recently, through the introduction of the bipartisan legislation titled the Aviation Innovation and Global Competitiveness Act, which will bring increased transparency to the FAA's policy and guidance development in certification programs, which is most important for AAM technologies. This outlines a partnership between the FAA and industry that improves the predictability of their deliverables, helping with our planning while preserving the agency's gold standard for safety and oversight. Looking ahead to 2026, we are awaiting the announcement of the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program or eIPP, which is being led by the FAA and U.S. Department of Transportation. Following an executive order issued in June of 2025, this program will likely allow for early commercial operations of electric aircraft. This has the potential to be a huge opportunity for BETA by advancing our entire business model by more than a year.

Already, the proposal process has highlighted excitement for electric aviation across the country with commercial operators, local governments, and in rural communities. We expect selection announcements very shortly. This program presents a different opportunity to each company. Uniquely for BETA, it's not only the airplane deployments, but also the charge network, which will significantly expand over the next 3 years. We have submitted applications touching 41 states for different types of use cases, including cargo, medical, and passenger in both our CTOL and VTOL aircraft. BETA is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this opportunity for a few reasons. First, the FAA will prioritize safety through system and aircraft maturity. We have more real-world operational experience flying electric aircraft with customers than the rest of the industry combined.

Our aircraft have flown nationwide supporting cargo, medical, and passenger missions in busy airspace and in all weather, backed by a complete ecosystem of pilot training, maintenance, safety, and the reliability required for commercial operations. Second, we own and operate the only UL-certified aircraft charging network. EIPP represents a major opportunity to accelerate the expansion of this network. Additionally, as the only existing charge network, we're partnering with other OEMs to identify priority charging sites required to support their proposed future EIPP missions as well. This advances our strategy to maintain ownership of the network that controls the flow of energy into electric aviation. Third, communities across the country have identified how our aircraft can meet their transportation needs today.

We are honored to have our aircraft named in more applications than any other company in the industry, and we look forward to continuing to deliver for our nation, our partners, and our investors. When we last spoke in December, I laid out five key performance indicators that we believe are the most effective and transparent way to track our progress. Starting with our backlog, 2025 was a commercial win for BETA for aircraft, but more uniquely in the sale of motors and other technologies to partners like Embraer Eve and General Dynamics. Over the course of the year, we added over $1 billion to our commercial aircraft backlog and separately an additional $1 billion to our backlog of enabling technologies. Our current aircraft backlog sits at 891 aircraft in firm and option orders backed by a financial commitment.

By the end of the year, we expect our commercial aircraft backlog to top $4 billion and to steadily increase our enabling technologies backlog. We topped 125,000 nautical miles flown, a significant increase since last time we spoke. These miles are a demonstration of the safety and reliability of our CTOL and our VTOL aircraft. We believe this simple metric of airplanes doing what they are designed to do, to fly, will continue to differentiate BETA within AAM. For 2026, our goal is to hit 250,000 nautical miles flown. For our charge network, we've activated 2 new sites since we last spoke and focused the permit applications for additional sites in preparation for our eIPP and customer-driven network growth. Our goal for 2026 is to reach 150 total charge sites.

Fourth, on production, we're focused on building conforming articles for the first half of this year before ramping to 4.5 aircraft per month by the end of the year. These conforming articles directly support certification, which takes us to our next KPI. We made meaningful progress across our three certification programs, particularly on our H500A electric engine. When we last spoke, we had completed the build and FAA conformity inspection of 2 electric engines. By the end of 2025, we completed the build and FAA conformity inspection on 11 propulsion systems, resulting in a complete set of test assets plus spares. Consistent with our certification strategy, we've started with the highest risk and longest duration test first and have completed one of the most demanding and long-duration tests, the durability test, which involved 1,000 hours of runtime through a variety of environments and intermediate inspections.

Endurance testing, which similarly places sustained stress on the engine, is well underway. We're continuing to make progress across the remaining certification test areas as well. Additionally, something less talked about but critical to achieving type certification is software testing. We are 85% complete requirements-based software testing with a projected completion date of these tests by the end of April. In our CTOL program, we are now substantially complete with our means of compliance in the requirements definition phase of the project. We have completed 98% of the regs covered in the DDS Collector. All but two issue papers are closed, and those remaining have been agreed to and are in the final stage of documenting the closed position.

We've also made strides in the compliance planning, having submitted 17 of 20 total certification plans with 9 already accepted, enabling the start of early test activities and solidifying the plan for the road to TIA and type certification. Planning for certification test activities has also started with the FAA accepting 6 structural test plans and 12 flight test plans. Preliminary safety assessments have been reviewed with the FAA as part of our preparation for Type Inspection Authorization, or TIA. Our VTOL program is benefiting from our CTOL program work on means of compliance and certification plans, all of which we plan to reuse at a significant level. This transferability is enabled by the commonality of our CTOL and VTOL aircraft. We don't mark our progress until our partners at the FAA have accepted and approved our work.

Our A250 engineering flight test program is continuing out of our Plattsburgh, New York facility. We are making steady progress and collecting an immense amount of data on the performance of our lift propulsion systems that support our certification efforts. Shifting to defense, the January 2026 executive order prioritizing the warfighter in defense contracting is an urgent directive to defense primes to identify and engage with advanced, agile American companies that have proven ability. We have been approached by three prime defense contractors and are evaluating these opportunities. We have completed phase one of our programs both with General Electric and with General Dynamics, and we hit our deliverables with Army DEVCOM. These programs were an excellent demonstration of BETA's capabilities. We are working towards the next phases, which present significantly higher revenue opportunities.

Additionally, in response to growing demand signals for low-cost, flexible, unmanned assets, we have accelerated our MV250 program by 6 months. Our partnership with GE and our ability to scale production rapidly puts us in the position to meet the nation's defense needs. The military is supporting this effort and has funded our development of autonomy and hybridization technology with a contract from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, known as DEVCOM. Each of our aircraft have been designed with acute self-awareness and a set of capabilities to unlock autonomous operations. The fly-by-wire system, which our BETA-developed flight controllers are the foundation of, can natively receive control inputs from a computer instead of a human. This is a key differentiator from other autonomous aircraft because nothing needs to be redesigned or fundamentally altered to be flown without anyone at the controls.

We delivered a full ship set plus spares of lift and pusher electric engines to Eve, allowing them to successfully fly their VTOL aircraft. We've been working closely with the amazing team at Eve and have mutually benefited from this relationship. This year will be defined by conforming aircraft, earning the first FAA type certification for our propulsion systems, more defense work, ramping production, and deploying aircraft and charge systems into commercial operations. We don't expect any of this to be easy, but the team here at BETA has the grit to do the hard work and a clear vision. Herman, you're up.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Kyle, and good morning, everyone. Before turning to our results, I want to begin with a broader industry perspective. We are operating in one of the most constructive policy and regulatory environments our sector has seen in decades. The current administration has placed significant emphasis on domestic manufacturing, Advanced Air Mobility, and next-generation defense technologies. That focus is accelerating regulatory engagement, unlocking public-private collaboration, and reinforcing the strategic importance of advanced technologies manufactured in the U.S. Within Advanced Air Mobility in particular, we are seeing meaningful federal alignment around certification, infrastructure development, and early deployment frameworks. eIPP is a tangible example of that momentum. Here at BETA, consistent execution remains our foundation, and we continue to deploy capital with discipline and focus.

Throughout 2025, the team demonstrated its ability to capitalize on opportunities with some of the most defining players in aerospace and defense, including GE, General Dynamics, and Embraer Eve. Each of these relationships carries significant long-term potential, and we are already realizing financial results. Eve is a great example of that. What began as the delivery of several motors to support their flight test campaign evolved into an order worth up to $1 billion. Some of the demand we saw for our defense propulsion technologies came in the form of our selection as a partner for next-generation undersea vehicle applications. Our consistent execution and performance have strengthened our credibility and positioned us for additional work with favorable margins and durable long-term revenue. I am pleased to report full-year revenue of $35.6 million for 2025, exceeding expectations and driven by stronger-than-expected component sales.

This represents more than double our 2024 revenue of $15.1 million. Operating expenses in 2025 totaled $398 million compared to $283 million in 2024. This included $260 million in research and development and $138 million in general and administrative expense. Adjusted EBITDA for 2025 was negative $304 million, ahead of expectations and reinforcing our track record of disciplined expense management while advancing critical certification and commercialization milestones. For reference, 2024 Adjusted EBITDA was negative $243 million. We ended the year with approximately $1.7 billion in cash, providing us with one of the strongest balance sheets in our industry and supporting our certification and commercialization roadmap. We invested $45.4 million in CapEx in 2025 versus $73.5 million in 2024. Investments were primarily in support of certification and production readiness, reflecting our continued progress in manufacturing maturity and vertical integration.

One consistent observation from analysts and investors visiting our manufacturing facility is the maturity of our production lines. We are producing both CTOL and VTOL aircraft on two common lines in a facility designed to build up to 300 aircraft per year. This reflects the substantial investment already completed and positions us to scale efficiently as certification milestones are achieved. Looking ahead to 2026, we remain focused on disciplined capital allocation. We expect revenues between $39 million and $43 million, driven by the continued ramp of long-term strategic partnerships established in 2025. We expect Adjusted EBITDA in the range of negative $305 million to negative $395 million as we advance certification, expand production capability, and support early commercial deployments.

Speaker 7

Given our strong balance sheet, we are accelerating elements of our vertical integration strategy into 2026. This primarily reflects a pull forward of planned investments to bring key manufacturing capabilities in-house earlier and improve long-term margin profile. With that acceleration, we expect total CapEx in 2026 to be in the range of $175 million-$225 million. To provide additional context for modeling, we expect first quarter revenue to be in the range of $7 million-$10 million, reflecting the early-stage ramp of several programs that we expect to accelerate as the year progresses. We have been procuring long lead materials. We expect the first quarter Adjusted EBITDA to be outsized and in the range of negative $95 million to negative $110 million.

This investment supports the build and the advancement of our MV250 hybrid VTOL aircraft, our VTOL, and conforming CTOL aircraft. With respect to the EIPP, award selections have not yet been announced, and the associated agreements will need to be negotiated. Since we do not have award visibility and negotiations are dependent on each award, we have not included any EIPP-related investments in our 2026 guidance. Should we be selected as an EIPP award recipient, we would update our guidance to reflect the associated capital deployment. Our balance sheet positions us to execute rapidly should those awards materialize. Until formal notification and contractual clarity are achieved, our outlook remains independent of EIPP. With that, operator, we are ready to open the call for questions.

Speaker 8

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to 1 question and 1 follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please pick up your handset when asking a question. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Your first question comes from Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Morning, everyone. You know, Kyle, visited with you last week in San Francisco. I was wondering, you know, with the IPO proceeds, you were able to raise more than double the capital you initially thought you would. Can you talk about how much the incremental capital changed your plan and your business model?

Speaker 7

Sure. I mean, fundamentally, it did not change our business model at all. It allowed us to advance a few things, though. We've increased our investment in vertical integration, specifically around things that we did not previously call core enabling technologies but have become clear that we need to be world-class at. In the past, fully vertically integrated on the motors, the propulsion systems, the batteries, the controls, the software, and we've extended that outward to have full vertical integration on the structures and other big bone elements of the aircraft. That's one big investment in vertical integration. The second thing is really pulling in our MV250 with You know, the proceeds were, I think, partially a product of these large engagements we've had with General Electric, and General Dynamics, and Embraer.

Those not only created the proceeds, but they also created clear and valuable partnerships. In the turbogenerator with GE, having clarity and confidence of the propulsion systems for the MV250, couple that with the structure and a large reuse of the A250 components, allowed us to pull that in. The financial investment in pulling in the MV250, you know, fundamentally advances that portion of our business model as compared to what we outlined in the IPO, which is a direct result of the proceeds. Herman, do you have anything on that? Yeah. Kristine, good morning. How are you? Just maybe two points I would want to emphasize.

When we were together in September of 2025 and we were going through the analyst model, we had CapEx in 2026 for about $70 million and in 2027, about $130 million. The $200 at the midpoint that we're talking about is really just a pull-in of the 2027. None of this is new spend. It's all contemplated spend. It's just pulling it in by about a year. As we had talked about, the strong balance sheet puts us in the perfect position to do this.

Speaker 6

Great. Well, thanks, Kyle and Herman. Following up, you know, Kyle, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned that the eIPP program pretty much brings forward, the, you know, the business model one year. Can you talk about what would be, you know, the most desired outcome out of eIPP? I mean, how many flights? Like what could this look like in the summer, and what could this look like in three years?

Speaker 7

Sure. I mean, just a couple points on that. The eIPP program isn't just about aircraft for us. You know, it starts with the revenue and the clarity that we're already getting on the charging system deployments and the engagement with our customers. Remember, BETA's model is to sell the airplane directly to customers. That really accelerated the engagement with those customers on things that are maybe a little less obvious, like service, maintenance, training, and, you know, all-weather operations and getting to cadence with the aircraft earlier than we expect. On the business model itself, which was really interesting, is that

Our baseline business model had completion of type certification, and then all of those materials would go to our operator partners that would then apply for a Part 135 certificate or similar, and that would take ConOps development and a whole lot of other systems, and then there would be a ramp into operation or entry into service. The eIPP system allows us to pull all of that forward and concurrently develop with our partners in the Part 135s all of the ConOps suspects while we ramp our production. Ramping the production, anybody who's been in production for a long time knows you don't go from 0 to 100 on 1 day. That is an engineering effort as well. It's a development effort, supply chain maturity, quality systems, supplier quality, all of those things have to mature.

What eIPP does, it allows us to take that ramp and again overlay it with the aircraft type certification program, the Part 135 development and the ramp into production. It really has a very nonlinear effect of taking things out of series, but also overlapping things and advancing the time. I think it's a conservative estimate to say it advances our business by 1 year. It could be more than that.

Speaker 6

Wonderful. Thank you very much.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Kristine.

Speaker 8

Your next question comes from Ronald Epstein with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Hey, good morning, guys. How should we think about the potential investment that would be required if things end up being very successful with eIPP? Just to give folks a sense of, you know, kind of maybe how to model that if indeed, you know, BETA is successful, which we all hope and expect.

Speaker 5

Yeah, Ron, I'm anxiously awaiting to see where the ultimate awards come in. You know, if we were very successful in the eIPP, you could see investment somewhere between, I'm gonna give a wide range, $75 million-$125 million, something like that.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Expanding on that, Herman said it earlier, that investment isn't a new investment. It's an advancing investment that we would've been making at a later point in time. Just like the ramping of production, the cost out curve of early rate, low rate initial production aircraft to full rate production aircraft will happen faster as well. A lot of that investment, again, would've happened anyway, and now we get to advance that and build those aircraft while we're working through type certification.

Speaker 9

Got it. Super clear. Kyle, you mentioned this on the call that engineering effort needed to ramp. Can you maybe peel back that in on that a little bit, just to give folks a feel for getting some of your work through to get production system where you need it to be for when you think it'll need to be there?

Speaker 7

Yeah, for sure. I think one of the insights that Sean Donovan, our chief of operations, brought to BETA from Tesla was that we needed to expose the issues in production early. Our strategy is to set up a production line, take, for example, our battery line or our wing line, run it at full rate for a period of time. If we had, you know, the battery line running for five days at full rate, then stopped for five weeks, we allow ourselves to expose the pinch points in the line, and then you apply the engineering resources, typically production or manufacturing engineering resources, sometimes design, but mostly production and manufacturing, where we find those pinch points in the line, whether it's data processing, actual assembly time, inspection, robotics, any of those things, and we address them, and that takes engineering.

If we have a laser welder that needs a cool down time, we expose that very early and then we apply automation in the right places. You know, just recently on our battery line, for example, a plasma surface preparation system was fully automated because it was found to be a pinch point unexpectedly. That required manufacturing production engineering to balance that line. That also reaches way back to kitting in supply chain and inventory management, where we use a highly visual manufacturing system where we design tools so that when screws, bolts, and nuts show up on the line, they are in a way that the assembly technician is going to use them. It helps with our quality, it helps with our speed.

The last thing that has been a big focus of engineering and production, Ron, has been the automated use of automated tools for inspection documentation. Utilizing Wi-Fi connected screwdrivers effectively to map the angle, the torque, and the position of every screw that we put in drastically minimizes the human checkboxes that have to happen. Those are the types of engineering investments we're making in manufacturing.

Speaker 9

Great. Thank you very much.

Speaker 8

Your next question comes from Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Good morning, guys, and thank you for the time. Maybe just on two questions. First, I'll start off with the backlog. You called out a backlog greater than $4 billion by the end of 2026. Can you talk about some of the drivers of this and line of sight to that, and how defense plays into it as well, please?

Speaker 7

Sure. I mean, look, we like real time during this meeting are getting extreme line of sight. There's a series of docs on my desk right now of deals that are ready to be executed, but we are in the fortunate position to make sure the terms of those deals are favorable and aligned with BETA's rollout strategy. I just saw as we were getting ready for this call this morning, that takes a good bite out of that backlog goal for this year for aircraft. We have very good line of sight. When we're preparing the materials, we had a little less, now it's even better.

That is with commercial operators that have found applications for the electric aircraft in places that we believe that are gonna have very successful entry into service. High cadence, low cost, relatively short range, starting with cargo, medical, and logistics, and that's the type of operators that we're partnering with.

Speaker 5

Yeah. Sheila, I just want to re-emphasize Kyle's last point. You know, we set a very high bar on what goes into our backlog. We're very selective with our customers. We want good launch partners, and we want partners who are going to come with large orders and deposits. It's a very high bar and, you know, as Kyle said, we were excited to see some documents get signed early this morning that again will take a big chunk towards that $4 billion backlog. We'll be announcing that shortly.

Speaker 11

Got it. Thank you. Can I ask on EBITDA, just the wide range from $305-$395, how do we think about that? You know, what changes post Q1? Is it DNA? Is it R&D? How do we think about the EBITDA range and the cadence?

Speaker 5

Yeah. What I would say is, in the first quarter, we're certainly gonna be investing more, just like we did in the fourth quarter, where we're buying long lead time materials. You'll see that continue into Q1, and then it'll settle out as we get into the second quarter and the back half of the year. The wide range is you know, it's a, it's a fast-moving business, and we really do not want to ever be in a position where we have to slow things down and, there are always investments that come up, and we just put that wide range in there just to make sure we have the flexibility to run the business the way we want.

Speaker 11

Perfect. Thank you.

Speaker 8

Your next question comes from Andre Madrid with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. Can you maybe do you have a sense of what the revenue contribution per eIPP bid could be? I mean, what could it look like if you won on the charger side or the aircraft side or both? Just any color as to how material it'll be.

Speaker 5

Andre, it's Herman. I'll start, maybe Kyle could jump in. I don't think we're in a position where we will talk about revenue numbers right now. The OTA certainly need to be negotiated, we'll get more clarity. The way to think about it is there could be potentially 3 revenue streams. 1 would be through charge, the 2nd would be through training and maintenance, the 3rd would be aircraft monetization. Whether the aircraft was rented or leased or ultimately bought, that's sort of how I would think about the revenue streams. And 1 important point is the operators who we partnered with for eIPP are actually our customers in the backlog. I think that's an important call-out. I don't know if you wanna add anything.

Speaker 7

Yeah. No, it's a great point. I mean, look, if a customer has a 25 or a 50-unit order and we're putting 3 or 5 aircraft into their eIPP program, if we get a lease payment over the course of the 36 months of the program, that's great. The real objective here is much more than short-term revenue. Just like, you know, in the General Dynamics, the Textron, the GE, the Embraer jobs, we're planting the seeds that will germinate into much larger orders in the future. Herman mentioned it a few minutes ago. You have to think about the eIPP the same way. We'll make good revenue on that. By the way, on a per unit basis, on a margin per unit basis, the propulsion systems that we've been selling, they're very profitable on a per unit basis.

That's not why we're doing it. We're doing it because they grow into something much bigger. Getting these aircraft out in the world, there's a lot more to operating aircraft than just the aircraft, of course. I think everybody knows that. Big ones are like the service, the training, the maintenance, the continuous high cadence operations, and the trust we have to build with the industry and the market that electric aircraft do indeed achieve the economic benefits that we outlined. Yeah, I think that we should look at the revenue because it's real money, but it is, it is not the exclusive focus here.

Speaker 1

Got it. Got it. That's really helpful. If I could pivot back to the backlog. From my understanding, that 4 build that you're targeting for the end of 2026 is mainly focused on the aircraft, but could you maybe just talk about what growth you have earmarked for the merchant supplier work and what that backlog looks like and what it could grow to by the end of the year?

Speaker 7

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Mostly, Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 7

No, no. Your read of how we define the backlog is correct. We are reporting the KPI and aircraft backlog. That's the prime mover of the business, and we expect that to grow with high certainty now to $4 billion and beyond. On the merchant supply itself, one of the cool things about the way this has materialized, as Herman said, we developed a couple prototypes. We delivered them to a customer. That resulted in a large order. That order is made up of a couple parts. Between now and type certification, we of course deliver a bunch more propulsion systems and the research development documentation and other engineering assets and artifacts to support those programs.

That grows, each of these things, you know, one of them that is classified, we can't talk much about the details of it, but from a revenue perspective. Each of the phases is about 10 times bigger than the prior phase. Like, we're not a job shop. We're not taking this work for the short-term revenue. We're taking it because it steps up in that order. You know, our revenue as a company has doubled year-over-year. The valuation of our company across the four rounds from 1 to 2 and all the way up to 8 effectively doubles at each round, and that's how we're thinking about the merchant supply as well. We're planting the seeds now.

We're delivering a handful of motors, 8, 10 motors, whatever the customer needs, and they select us for the subsequent phases on the merits of the technology, the reliability and the performance first and foremost, and of course, on BETA's ability to deliver.

Speaker 2

That's very helpful. Thank you so much.

Speaker 8

Your next question comes from Andres Sheppard with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hey, everyone. good morning, and congratulations on all the great achievements last year and so far this year. Thanks for taking our questions. You know, I think a lot of our questions have been asked by now, but maybe coming back to the eIPP, Kyle, I'm just curious if you could maybe share how do you see the program unfolding? You know, once the programs have been announced, once the participants have been announced, do you foresee all projects starting at the same time, maybe one at a time? Do you foresee multiple OEMs participating in each project simultaneously? Just curious how you're thinking about it as we get closer and closer to those projects being announced. Thank you.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Great, great question. I think it's really important to define the difference between a demonstration and an operation. When we entered into this, we focused on operations. We did not want to go out with 1 aircraft and go to 5 different states. We wanted to provide 5 aircraft to 1 state, and 3 aircraft to another state, and 2 aircraft to another state, and 5 aircraft to another state, so that those aircraft can get into high-cadence operations every single day in all weather. However, that doesn't happen on day 1. No. To answer your very specific questions, are all OEMs going at the same time? Of course not. BETA right now has had more real-world flying experience with customers than any other company in this industry.

I had to sign an attestation to the Department of Transportation that within 90 days of the negotiation of these OTA contracts, we could be in service. That's so that BETA can lead the deployment into these states and applications. This is because of the maturity of the aircraft, our charging network, and the fact that we're starting with cargo and medical first and then moving to passenger, and we're engaged with customers that have safe and reliable operations. That's different than other folks who have applied for this application. Like, you know, the states selected this.

The states selected the aircraft, and we start with Part 91, we go and we do route validation, then we move to Part 135, and if everything goes well, we will then start revenue-producing applications for cargo, medical, and logistics, then we'll move to the VTOL, and then we'll move to passenger thereafter. You know, BETA is fundamentally different than other folks because of the real-world opportunities that we've uncorked internationally and domestically, and we continue and we intend to continue to do that.

Speaker 2

Wonderful. Thanks, Kyle. That's super helpful. I really appreciate all that color. Maybe the last one for Hernan. Can you give us a sense perhaps on cash use for this year? How are you thinking about that? I realize you guided or are targeting a CapEx number for the year. Just wondering if you could maybe help us complete the picture. How should we think about cash use, particularly as you begin to ramp up production of your aircraft and get to 4.5 per month by year-end? Thank you.

Speaker 5

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Andre. I would say right now, with this guide, excluding eIPP, the cash use will be about $500 million. If you were to look at about $200 million for CapEx at the midpoint, and if you take the EBITDA range at the midpoint of $350, we'll have some interest income that'll kind of offset some of that. When you put those three pieces together, you probably get to about $500 million before an eIPP investment.

Speaker 2

Excellent. Thank you so much, everyone. Again, congrats on all the great stuff. We'll pass it on.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 8

Your next question comes from Chris Pierce with Needham. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hey, good morning, everyone. If I look at the deck and the VTOL certification slide, I just want to get a sense of what that should look like over this year. I know that you sort of hit on it in the remarks. I just want to confirm, we shouldn't expect movement here, but we should expect movement on the CTOL slide, and that in turn allows the VTOL side to move faster when it begins to move. Is that the right way to think about it?

Speaker 7

Yeah. I'd say it a little bit differently, but conceptually, that is exactly the right way to think about it. You know, let me, let me give you an example. On the CTOL, if we were tracking the progress of the propulsion system contained within those bars, then of course the bars move much quicker because we built. I believe we're the only company in the industry that's built conforming hardware that's gone into four-credit testing. We've done that pervasively across a large number of units in the, in the motor. In fact, just this morning, I got a report out from the team that we've completed the durability test with over 1,300 flight cycles for credit in a bunch of different environments. That is not that is exclusively shown on the H500A engine certification test bars.

It is not shown on the CTOL. By way of extension on the VTOL bars, there's a small delta, about 15% of requirements planning, and a little bit larger delta on the implementation when we move from CTOL to VTOL. Those bars are separated to give absolute transparency to all of you on the things that need to happen for each of these certification programs. The things that need to happen are contained to the deltas between the prior validation, verification, or certification activities and the subsequent ones. You should expect to see movement on the A250 certification program this year. We have done a ton of vertical flying, a lot of different experimentation. I believe we're the first company to actually get delegation for our lift props with a DER.

We've gotten additional delegations across the CX300. I think we achieved somewhere near 80 delegations in the last month. These are really important, I would say, non-directly measured elements of progress that result in measured elements of progress as well. Fundamentally to your question, you will see movement on all fronts, and the movement is representing the delta required between the propulsion to the airplane, the airplane to the aircraft.

Speaker 3

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Did I hear you correctly that on eIPP you might fly CTOL and VTOL aircraft or, you know, I guess my thinking was it would mostly be CTOL, but is there a possibility for VTOL flying in this program as well this year?

Speaker 7

In fact, every single one of the applications we put in have both CTOL and VTOL aircraft. I apologize if I focused on CTOL because that's what we're launching first with. We directly go into VTOL thereafter. It's how our entire business model is designed and the beauty of that is that our customers get exposure to training an electric aircraft, charging, managing batteries, flying with a fly-by-wire system, which is of course universal to all our aircraft, and then they step into VTOL. In fact, our training team, and I think I mentioned this to you or another analyst earlier, has developed the full training curriculum for the VTOL aircraft. It has five modules.

The first 3 of 5 modules are the CTOL aircraft where the systems, the fly-by-wire system, all of the things associated with flying the ALIA aircraft are learned in those 3 modules. Then there's 2 additional modules for vertical takeoff and landing variants. For our customers, that gives them a very easy pathway. Of course, the charging is the same and the maintenance is about the same. Yes, we do. We will be flying eVTOL aircraft should we be selected for the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program.

Speaker 10

Yeah, and just to put a finer point on that, I think that there's huge advantages with this program, especially for the VTOL market year, where, you know, it's going to be advantageous for us, for our customers to be able to do all the things that Kyle talked about there in one of the previous questions and pulling in those training timelines and whatnot ahead of full type certification to get these into service earlier. It has tremendous benefits to us, to the customers, and the industry as a whole.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you for the detail.

Speaker 8

Thank you for your questions. I will now turn the call over to Kyle Clark for closing remarks.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Thank you everybody. Appreciate you guys sticking around on this call. I think just as kind of closing remarks, what is awesome to us here at BETA is that the pieces are falling into place and our strategy of a stepwise approach into the market is being respected and mirrored with the ATC modernization efforts, the Department of Transportation, the FAA. I mean, we've got great leadership there with Duffy and Roshlo and Bedford and Edwards all stepping up, doing what they said they're gonna do and giving us a platform and a canvas to deploy advanced air mobility. I think we've positioned ourselves to win on the eIPP. You know, our manufacturing's in place, our training's there, our service and support is ready to go, and we have a track record of safe and reliable flight operations.

That's all, of course, positioned us for cert, but it's positioned us to deploy these aircraft early. I think the insight of our business model is becoming clear. There's an energy here at BETA that is like you can feel it. You can feel it when you walk into the facilities. We are focused on getting through this H500A certification, and it's not without challenges, but we are driving right through all of those challenges on a day-to-day basis. The seeds that we planted over the last several years with customers are maturing right now, and these second phase and third phase programs are in our line of sight. We're just excited about executing on them and seeing our revenue grow, seeing our products mature, and of course, getting through the certification.

I'm jazzed, and I really appreciate all y'all are doing on, for us and with us and in asking the questions and critiquing our business because I think y'all will come to the same realization as time goes by.

Speaker 8

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending.

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