Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the SEALSQ First Half 2025 Financial Results Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call contains forward-looking statements. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance, or achievements of SEALSQ to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. SEALSQ is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. These risks are also discussed in our filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please be advised that our First Half 2025 Earnings Release was issued on Tuesday, September 9, 2025.
Also, our Form 6-K for the six-month period ending June 30, 2025, which was filed with the SEC on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, can be found by visiting the Investors section of the SEALSQ website at investors.sealsq.com. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. You may be placed into question Q at any time by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to introduce Carlos Moreira, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of SEALSQ. Mr. Moreira, you may begin.
Thank you very much, Kevin. Good afternoon to those joining us from Europe, and good morning to those joining us from the United States. I will begin today the call by discussing our business milestones for the first half of 2025. I will provide our growth initiatives and outlook for the second half of 2025 and beyond, and hand over to John to provide our financial performances of the year for the half of the year. 2025 was a transformative year. It has been a pivotal year for SEALSQ as we accelerated our mission to deliver quantum-resistant semiconductor solutions and secure digital infrastructure for our rapidly evolving global market. The first half of the year confirmed the strength of our strategy, the resilience of our operations, and the scale of opportunities ahead.
As a fabless semiconductor innovator, SEALSQ designed and marketed secure microcontrollers, both off-the-shelf and custom designed, integrated within a vertical trust service ecosystem featuring a post-quantum root of trust managed by public infrastructure services and secure chip personalization. Our solutions protect industries such as IoT, energy, automobile, and smart homes, as well as sensitive applications in healthcare, government, and defense. While the global embedded security chip market is projected to reach nearly $10 billion by 2028, suppliers offering certified secure products remain scarce. This creates a significant opportunity for SEALSQ, uniquely positioned to deliver both regulatory compliance and resilience against emerging threats such as quantum computers. Our strength market recognition, bolstered by the urgent need for secure microcontrollers to defend against post-quantum threats, has attracted strong investors' confidence.
Since November 2024, we have raised over $140 million in additional capital to accelerate our product roadmap, execute strategic investments, and expand our growth pipeline. In terms of the product and technology milestones, in the first half of 2025, we achieved tangible progress on innovation and commercialization. The first one is with the Quasar program, engineering sample of the QS7001, which is a post-quantum microcontroller delivered to initial partners in Q2 2025 for testing. Production samples and development kits are scheduled for Q3 2025, with initial revenue expected in 2026. It is important to mention here that we are one of the first companies in the world with that type of aggressive roadmap, and this can be transformed into a very important business opportunity and revenue generation in 2026.
The QVOL TPM, which is a pilot customer sampling for QVOL TPM V183, is expected in Q4 2025, followed by V185 in Q1 2026. Initial revenues are projected for 2026. The Volt IC408 secure microcontroller, which is advanced to FIPS 143 Level 3 validation, has been confirmed by UL Independent Lab Test, with its NIST review ongoing now. The MS6003 secure element launched with FIDO2 passwordless authentication to meet demand in the fast-growing authentication market. Also, in SBox, which is deployed for factory IoT identification injection in a large-scale project, ensuring compliance with MATTER, which is the Homeland Certification for Home Appliances in the United States, and the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark. Also, the Quantum Root CA, a very important development achieved during the first year, introduced by the OISTE Foundation as the first PQC integrated PKI system to safeguard IoT, financial, and defense infrastructure against quantum encryption. Commercial achievements.
The commercial momentum mirrors our technology progress. Revenues on track to increase 59% to 82% in 2025 versus 2024, supported by strong demand for PKI services, secure hardware, and custom ASICs. Our TPM engagement more than doubled from 35 customers at the end of 2024 to 82 customers by mid 2025, validating the relevance of our roadmap. We also secure multi-year supply agreements with global leaders such as the Aegir Group, Dyson, MIWA, and Delta Door. Expanding collaboration with Landis+Gyr, which is one of the leading providers of smart meters in the world, including PKI deployment for 30 million utility users in Asia, and further development for the U.S. market. Smart meters is one of the potential hardware that can be in real trouble if they are not post-quantum ready, and this company is taking the right step to make resilient at the product level with our technology.
Advanced on-card reader business in Asia, with new customers committing to several hundred thousand annual units. Expanding our global footprint by opening a sales office in India and appointing distribution in Asia, Europe, and Turkey. Now talking about the strategic investment and partnership. 2025 has also marked a transformational phase in our growth strategy. The IC’ALPS acquisition, bringing 100 engineers to our staff force. In August 2025, we completed the acquisition 100% of IC’ALPS, a French company located in Grenoble, which are ASIC design specialists, bringing, as I mentioned, 100 skilled engineers into the SEALSQ force. This strengthens our common and custom post-quantum ASIC capability for medical, automobile, and IoT industry, as this company has been providing this technology to leading health companies and automobile companies in Europe, all of them requiring new specialized generation of chips.
Quantix Edge Security Facility, which executed a $40 million investment in Murcia, Spain, with $20 million from the Spanish government, which is sitting now in $18 billion of investment in semiconductor in Spain. We were one of the first projects authorized by them, with a $10 million investment from WISeKey and SEALSQ, and $10 million investment from partners localized in Spain, like Odin and Protech. This facility, aligned with the EU Chip Act, will focus on post-quantum RISC-V chip design and secure semiconductor personalization, with revenue expected already in 2026. The Quantum Investment Fund was initially launched at $20 million in late 2024, which has been expanded to $35 million in March 2025.
The first investment was Colibri TD, a French quantum as a service company with whom we are co-developing a quantum simulation approach to improve semiconductor wafer yields, potentially increase yields from 50% to 80%, and reduce per-chip cost by up to 50% in order to be more competitive in the market. This Quantum Investment Fund is now looking into other companies, as our vision is that post-quantum technologies will merge very soon with quantum capability and quantum computer companies, creating major leaders in this sector. Therefore, the requirement of this aggressive roadmap and investment fund that has been created within the company. We also invested, as has been discussed in the last call, in space technologies. In cooperation with WISAT, we have been deploying a constellation, which is now sitting on 22 satellites, and SEALSQ has invested $10 million to expand our secure quantum-ready satellite constellation.
From the next launch of the satellites in November this year, we will have the capability of securing post-quantum connections from space all the way down to objects on Earth in what is going to be one of the first ever secure post-quantum communications, connecting mobile phones with our satellites. With two launches completed already in 2025, SEALSQ now has one of the largest constellations in Europe, with 22 operational satellites, with plans to scale to 102 satellites by 2027. A strategic project with the Swiss Army has been signed, and we are in full deployment with their own requirements of the use of those satellites. A very strong year also in terms of research and development. In order to maintain the leading edge, we continue to invest heavily in research and development, allocating $4.7 million in the first half of 2025 as part of the $7.2 billion full-year budget.
This underscores our commitment to leadership in post-quantum innovation and the commercialization of next-generation chips. Also, on the financial strength, with a robust cash reserve of $121 million as of June 30, 2025, and actually $150 million as of September 9, 2025. The company is sitting now on $150 million that, combined with a strong balance sheet, positions SEALSQ to capitalize on growing demand for post-quantum resilient technology, potentially looking to acquisitions and strategic investment in the post-quantum roadmap. We are all pleased to drive commercialization through our new technologies while funding strategies and growth initiatives become available. In August 2025, SEALSQ unveiled Convergence, a forward-looking initiative integrating AI, quantum technology, and next-generation solutions. The market is converging. All technologies are getting exponential, and they are creating synergies between themselves, and there is a huge market opportunity to develop a business model around this convergence opportunity.
Convergence unified PQC, aligned with NIST standard tokenization, advanced encryption, WISAT 22 satellite constellation, decentralized physical infrastructure network, VPN, and machine-to-machine, end-to-end communication. Its goal is to build a robust digital trust architecture for the group, protecting over 1.6 billion devices that are already in the market across healthcare, IoT, financial services, smart cities, and space infrastructure. The outlook for 2025 is also promising. Revenues expected to be in the range of $17.5 million to $20 million, representing already a growth of 59% to 82% year-on. As you all know, the revenue on quantum computers is still small because the market is not yet ready, and people are now taking decisions in investing in quantum technology.
One of the things that is coming first, even in quantum, is the post-quantum, and you need to build their own resilience at the enterprise level, government level, hospital level, and airport level, so you are ready when those quantum computers arrive in three to five years to be able to defend their attacks. This includes contributions from IT Ops following the August acquisition, the Quantix Edge Security project, and renewed demand for traditional products. 2023, sorry, 2026, the growth will be fueled by a full year of IT Ops revenue, new personalization center project revenue, including Quantix Edge Security, and the launch, and this is the most important part for the year, visibility of our quantum-resistant TPM. Initial estimates reflect 50% to 100% revenue growth year-on-year, which is unseen in this sector for the moment. Pipeline.
We have a very strong pipeline, our business pipeline stands at $170 million in opportunities for 2026 to 2028, reflecting a surge in demand for quantum-resistant security solutions and server and semiconductor expertise. I will now turn the call to John O'Hara, our CFO, who will discuss in detail the financial results for the first half of 2025 and our guidance for the second half of the year as a complement of my information provided so far. Please, John, go ahead.
Thanks, Alison. Good morning, good afternoon, everybody. For the half one 2025 revenue, our revenue of $4.8 million, which was consistent with the first half of 2024, was entirely in line with our expectations.
It reflects the anticipated continued strategic transition period ahead of the launch of our new post-quantum technologies, and we expect the second half of the year to start to grow, as we'll come on to shortly. The gross profit was $1.6 million, and the gross profit margin increased by 15 percentage points from 19% last year to 34% this year. We do expect when the revenues return to a more steady, say, level, and we grow further, that that will settle somewhere around the 45% to 50% margin on our legacy, on our chip products, and with the margin from IT Ops expected to be somewhat higher due to the nature of their revenue and their services.
We had cash reserves of $121 million as at June 30, 2025, which was up from $19 million at the same point last year and up from $85 million at the end of 2024. Our current estimate is that this cash burn gives us sufficient cash for a long time now on our cash burn rate, and we therefore believe we've got a strong war chest to also take advantage of any investment opportunities, any M&A activity that might come our way. We invested $4.7 million in research and development in the first half of the year, and we continue to have over $7 million allocated as a budget for this area for 2025, which is up from $5 million in the prior year, and that's before we take into account the research and development activities of IC'ALPS, which will also be consolidated in our second half results.
As Carlos has already mentioned, for the full year 2025, we expect our revenue to be between $17.5 million and $12 million, representing between 59% and 82% growth year-on-year, which is therefore noting a return to growth in demand for our current semiconductor products, as well as consolidating the revenue of IC'ALPS since acquisition. We also look forward to a strong 2026, as Carlos has also highlighted with some very early guidance, which will be supported by a new business pipeline of $170 million of identified opportunities for 2026 to 2028 across PQC, ASIC, and sovereign semiconductor markets. With that, we're finalizing the prepared marks. I will pass back to Carlos so we can open up the call for Q&A. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, John. Just as end-of-the-call remarks before we move into Q&A, just to mention that 2026 is going to be a very important year for the quantum industry, and particularly post-quantum, as the regulatory and technology landscape is moving in our favor with frameworks such as the European Union Cyber Resilience Act, the U.S. Government Cyber Trust Mark, and the UK PSTI Act mandating secure identities, encryption, and lifecycle management. Governments and strategic institutions worldwide have published roadmaps requiring PQC adoption within the decade. As I mentioned before, this industry is an emerging industry. We are in quantum where we were on the web in the year 2000. Major players that have developed technologies and positions such as SEALSQ will become automatically high-demand companies as they bring a concrete solution for a concrete problem.
Insurance companies are already announcing that they will increase their insurance premium if you are not yet PQC compliant. Government regulations are putting regulations bringing companies and other government institutions to be PQC compliant, and that will be reflected obviously on valuations of companies as the entry level to become a PQC compliant and quantum company is still very high and requires hundreds of millions of dollars on investment. With the strong financial resources that we have, the proven innovation and strategic investment in place, SEALSQ enters the second half of 2025 with very strong momentum and confidence. Our vision is clear: to lead the world in quantum resilience, cybersecurity, and semiconductor innovation while we have a very proven quantum roadmap in place. We thank our shareholders, employees, partners, and customers for their continued trust and support as we scale SEALSQ into the next phase of growth.
With that, we are finalizing the remarks. I would like to open now the call for Q&A. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to be placed into question queue, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to move your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing star one. One moment, please. We'll be polled for questions. Our first question today is coming from Matthew Galinko from AXA. Your line is now live.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, just if we could clarify a little bit on the full-year R&D budget. I think you mentioned it was around $7 million, and I think, you know, for the first half reported $4.7 million, it seemed that you're tracking ahead of that. Was there anything unusual in the first half spending that would not repeat in the second half, just kind of ignoring the impact of the consolidation of the acquisition that we might expect?
Hi, Matt. I hope you're well. Within the first half of the year, there was a bit of an expense, a one-off expense for some stock-based compensation that falls under R&D. That was the main.
Got it. Okay. Could you venture a guess for what kind of the annual R&D run rate, taking that out, would be when you layer in the acquisition?
Please stay by. We appear to be having some technical difficulties. Speaker one, I do not hear your line.
Hi. Sorry, can you hear me now?
No, Matthew, I hear you, my friend. Carlos, would you mind saying a few words? I do not hear the speaker line. We do apologize for the inconvenience. Everyone, please stand by. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, we do apologize for the inconvenience. Please stand by. In the meantime, I'm going to play some music while we connect to the speaker line. Just do not disconnect, everyone. We will be connected shortly, and we'll continue the Q&A session. Okay? Please stand by. Now rejoining the speaker line. So. Carlos, you're back on. Matthew. Please go ahead.
Matthew, sorry, we were disconnected. Did you get the answer from John?
I'm not sure if you got my second question or not.
No, I didn't.
No, we didn't. Sorry.
Did you get the answer to the first one on the research and development, Matt? Did you get that answer?
I appreciate the follow-up. I guess the question is what the run rate, or if you could offer a run rate on the revenue on the R&D line, if you kind of back out that one-time stock-based comp piece under R&D in the first half and layer on the R&D consolidation in the second half, what would kind of the annual rate of R&D be?
On the underlying business down in Provence, we would probably put that round about $500,000, $550,000 per month.
Okay. I also wanted to ask about the pipeline. I think you shared $170 million. As far as the prospective customers and prospective numbers in that pipeline, how do you build the pipeline estimate? Can you provide a little bit more of the process for how you include stuff in the pipeline?
Yeah, sure. Essentially, my understanding is it's a relatively standard process where we go from, certainly in the industry, I believe, where we go from kind of identifying an opportunity and evaluating that to the best of our ability, but then applying a relatively low success % to that because obviously when we've just identified it, we haven't really got very far. We go through the phase of identified, then qualified when we've kind of ratified the opportunity and we've made at least first contact with the potential client.
Then comes into design-in, which is usually when we've signed up to provide them with a kind of a test kit and actually spec out and create a potential solution for said client, and then design win at the end, which is the point where we believe that we've been mandated to go ahead and produce the product and are in the final stage with that client. Obviously, by the time we get to design-win, we apply a much heavier % because at that point, we're the only people in the game. We generally expect at that point to get an order unless there is a technical limitation to the product or the client cancels their own internal project. We put all that together, apply the weightings, and then we tend to look three years into the future. That $170 million will include revenues over 2026, 2027, and 2028.
What it does not include is the revenues for the clients that we've already won. Once we actually have received our first major purchase order of a significant volume and therefore we've gone into production, we move that out the pipeline, and then we're kind of operating on a backlog where it's based on them sending it, giving us orders.
Yeah, just to add on that, the sales cycle is long on the hardware part. It's around six months. The reason, I mean, there's a lot of complexities to introduce those new generation chips into existing hardware that their electronics are now being designed to introduce the chip, and that requires engineering. That means that you have to first understand the problem, let's say a smart meter or let's say a connected car or a drone. You have to understand the electronics. You have to redesign some of those components. You insert the chip, then you have to check the connectivity of the chip with electronics in order to create the post-quantum capability. All that takes a long time, right?
Normally, companies, the way they act on that is, as I mentioned on my presentation, post-quantum technology is emerging technology in terms of many customers don't realize the need of moving PQC yet. You know, there's some of them, they're saying, "Oh, quantum computers will be in 30 years. Why should we bother now?" This has been slowly, gradually, the education in the market has been improved by even companies that they have this type of thinking before. That creates some kind of urgency in our clients that now they are saying, "Okay, let's just start with one generation of products." They don't immediately want to PQC enable all their products.
They start with one type of product, they test, and then they go to the next cycle of expansion internally in the company as you not only need to modify the security of the product, which is the hardware component, but also the software part. That needs to be integrated into their backend, right? That process, as we move forward, it will be more and more automated process. Actually, AI is helping a lot to create more efficiencies on that cycle so we can reduce the time and we can increase the numbers. This is the present situation.
That's why we believe that the revenue these types of companies make now is not that important because what we are addressing is a much bigger problem in the future, which is when regulation arrives and regulation says, "Company you need to have PQC enablement in your products, otherwise you cannot sell them anymore because your products will not be authorized to enter into a specific territory." There is the inflection point we believe the big opportunity is for us.
Great. Thanks, Carlos. I'll jump back in the queue.
Thank you. Thank you, Matthew. Excellent.
Thank you. As a reminder, that's star one to be placed into question queue. If you'd like to be placed into question queue at this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. One moment, please, while we pull up our questions. That's star one to be placed into question queue. We've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back to Carlos for any further or closing comments.
Just to recapitulate on what we said, a huge opportunity ahead of us. 2026 is going to be a critical year, especially once this post-quantum chip will be available in the market. I know that some investors have been disappointed by the latest price of the share. I always say that 2026 is the year where everybody needs to be betting on and not 2025. 2025 was a transitional year. Despite that, we managed to end the first quarter, the first semester of the year with a very strong position and a very strong cash position, which is essential in this industry. We are available for any further discussions. Website documentation is available, and investment relation contacts in New York are available to set up one-to-one meetings. John and I, we're going to be doing a non-deal roadshow starting the second week of October.
It will culminate in New York in an event, the Quantum AI event, where we are providing the keynotes and where we're going to be bringing more results. We will also be discussing, which we didn't discuss on this call, our U.S. strategy. As we have been informing in the past, SEALSQ is looking to personalize semiconductors in the U.S. territory, and this is something that is top priority. We were looking into different locations such as Arizona and others. We will be giving in a few weeks a full update on that, and I'm sure everybody will be very satisfied to see the progress also in that area. We'd like to thank our shareholders, employee partners, and customers, and all the participants on this call for their support as we scale SEALSQ into the next phase of growth. Thank you very much for your attention. Have a great day.
Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.