Aeva Technologies Inc (AEVA) 2021 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day. My name is Alex, and I will be your conference facilitator. I would like to welcome everyone to Aeva Technologies Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded and simultaneously webcast.

I would now like to turn the call over to Andrew Fung, Director of Investor Relations. Andrew, please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to Aeva's Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Joining on the call today are Soroush Salehian, Aeva's Co-Founder and CEO; and Saurabh Sinha, Aeva's CFO. Ahead of this call, we issued our second quarter press release and presentation, which we will refer to today and can be found on our Investor Relations website at investors.aeva.ai.

Please note that on this call, we will be making forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements reflect our views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representative of our views as of any subsequent date. These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. For a further discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our financial results, please refer to our filings with the SEC, including our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2021.

In addition, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are useful as supplemental measures of Aeva's performance. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from GAAP results. The webcast replay of this call will be available on our company website under the Investor Relations link.

With that, let me turn the call over to Soroush.

Thank you, Andrew, and good afternoon, everyone. Q2 was an important quarter at Aeva, where we already achieved a number of the goals we set out for 2021 and made significant strides towards our mission to bring perception to all devices. I would like to highlight a few of our accomplishments as summarized on Slide 5.

First, our strategic collaboration with Nikon is a transformative milestone for the perception industry and marks Aeva's first announced expansion beyond automotive. It's an incredible opportunity to work with a global leader in optics and precision technology like Nikon, where we can leverage their market expertise with Aeva's breakthrough technology to accelerate adoption of 4D LiDAR in a $10 billion industrial automation and metrology market.

Second, we're not standing still in automotive and continued to make significant progress in our automotive programs towards production, including expanding our collaboration with TuSimple and continuing to deliver on our milestones with the undisclosed customer that we announced last quarter.

Third, in product development, we continue to make good progress on the final design and remain on schedule to complete B sample development by year-end.

And fourth, we are seeing incredibly strong interest for key talent to join Aeva and help bring our industry-leading technology to market. Since the start of the year, we have grown our team by over 100%, which will enable us to continue to support our customers' development towards production as well as pursue additional growth opportunities. Within this, we have made a number of notable leadership hires from leading companies in the technology and automotive sectors who bring deep expertise in product design, development and validation.

Now let's dive deeper into key business updates for this quarter, starting on Slide 7. Earlier this week, we announced Aeva's first expansion beyond automotive, a strategic collaboration with Nikon to bring next-generation, high-precision solutions to the industrial automation and the metrology markets. We are thrilled to collaborate with Nikon, a leader in precision optics and industrial metrology technologies. Their products are used today for automated inspection of high-volume manufacturing by leading global automotive OEMs such as BMW and Stellantis, which is the parent company of FCA and PSA brands, as well as top aerospace manufacturers, among others.

As we have detailed before, Aeva's mission is to bring perceptions to all devices. We have always believed in a significant opportunity beyond autonomous driving that could be unlocked by leveraging our common core 4D LiDAR chip technology. By utilizing the same unique 4D LiDAR technology, we aim to offer an unprecedented level of accuracy to measure objects at the micron level at a distance and without contact, a level of performance we believe is achievable only with FMCW technology, which is core to Aeva. And Aeva is taking this to the next level with our LiDAR on silicon photonics, where we aim to significantly reduce the cost and size of these industrial automation solutions.

Through this collaboration, we'll have a direct opportunity to pursue a broad range of industrial programs and applications, leveraging Nikon's best-in-class quality and distribution channel to reach customers globally. This gives us a clear and broad path to bring 4D LiDAR to industrial applications by 2025.

Now for those new to industrial metrology and automation, the next slide summarizes what industrial metrology is and the many uses for it. Industrial metrology is a large established market today and is a process of precise measurements of parts manufactured in volume production to ensure manufacturing process control, improve product quality and increase throughput. It requires micron-level accuracy, which for context is 1,000x more than typical time-of-flight 3D LiDAR precision.

Industrial metrology is needed across a large and diverse number of applications, including automotive and aerospace manufacturing, and generally in volume manufacturing, where there's a need for precise measurement during the production process. However, achieving such superb accuracy in an affordable and compact package remains a key challenge for the industry. It has limited mass adoption of these solutions in the market with many in the industry continuing to rely on slower or less accurate legacy solutions that result in lower throughput and higher costs.

Turning to Slide 9. Aeva's breakthrough 4D LiDAR chip technology solves these challenges, delivering high precision in a compact form factor and at significantly lower costs. Aeva's FMCW technology uses a continuous beam to constantly transmit data, and we can use our same core LiDAR chip for automotive applications but adjust our proprietary signal processing algorithms to process that data for different performance metrics.

For example, micron-level accuracy versus 500-meter range. To our knowledge, Aeva's 4D LiDAR is the only solution that has the potential to achieve this incredible level of performance scalability utilizing the same foundational technology. And with all core components integrated onto a silicon chip platform, we can deliver a compact high-performing LiDAR system that is more reliable and truly scalable at an affordable cost for industrial automation applications.

We expect our solutions will be comprehensive, including hardware and software that provides precision measurement capabilities. The end result is next-generation solutions that we hope will establish a new standard in precision measurements to fundamentally improve manufacturing quality and productivity across industrial applications.

Turning to the next slide. I want to highlight the broad and large opportunities in the industrial automation and metrology markets. By incorporating our game-changing solution that delivers high precision at an unmatched cost, we believe Aeva's 4D LiDAR can meaningfully accelerate adoption across existing applications. We also believe this only scratches the surface of what's possible in industrial automation beyond metrology alone as the trifecta of high-precision, small form factor and low cost opens up a number of new applications where performance, size and cost have been limiting factors such as machine tooling, infrastructure and other volume manufacturing, collectively a $10 billion and growing market. We are excited to pursue these large opportunities where we believe Aeva can provide unique differentiation as we continue our work towards our mission of bringing perception to all devices.

Now switching gears to automotive. We continue to make good progress across our automotive program, including continuing to deliver on our milestones with the undisclosed customer that we announced last quarter.

In addition, I want to provide an update on our work with trucking partner, TuSimple, on Slide 11. We have expanded our collaboration with TuSimple over the past quarter and are now taking another step forward with the implementation of Aeva's 4D LiDAR as the only long-range LiDAR on TuSimple's current fleet operating on the road. As part of this, TuSimple is also incorporating Aeva's unique instantaneous velocity data into its perception stack, which helps classify hazardous objects instantly with greater confidence and at long ranges, enabling a critical factor of safety needed for autonomous trucks.

Turning on Slide 13. I would like to share our progress on the priorities we set for 2021, which are focused on investing and developing a world-class perception solution and supporting our customers on the development milestones to bring our 4D LiDAR to market. In the past quarter alone, we have already achieved a number of the goals we set out for this year. And based on our strong progress, we are well on track to hit the remainder of our goals.

On our B sample development, we are progressing well with our final design and remain on schedule to complete our B sample development by year-end. Importantly, this iteration will represent our final product architecture and puts us well on track towards production.

Second, with our goals for additional programs towards production, our strategic collaboration with Nikon represents one more of those programs. And given our progress with ongoing engagements, we feel confident in one additional program this year. As we continue to see strong commercial traction, Aeva's approach to partnerships has not changed. The aim is not to win the customer counts, but instead, our focus is on aligning with leading companies that have a shared determination and ability to deploy LiDAR at scale, working closely to build the world's best perception solution for mass adoption.

Third, on accelerating engagement in nonautomotive applications. As we discussed earlier, we expect the Nikon collaboration to accelerate Aeva's nonauto opportunity in the large and growing industrial automation and metrology markets. We also continue to see strong inbound interest across the board and, with our growing team, have the ability to support our customers' ongoing developments and pursue additional opportunities that align with our strategy.

And fourth, on strengthening our supply chain for production. Over the past quarter, we finalized the key supply chain for our silicon processing chip.

And with that, I will turn the call over to Saurabh to discuss the financials.

Thank you, Soroush. Turning to Slide 15, which highlights our results. Revenues in the second quarter was $2.6 million, which reflects significant advancements on our customer development milestones and strong ongoing progress towards production. Non-GAAP operating loss was $20.7 million, which is primarily comprised of R&D expenses related to product development and G&A expenses. Gross cash use, which we define as operating cash flow less capital expenditure, was $19.7 million.

Turning to our balance sheet. Our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at the end of second quarter was a strong $503 million. Finally, our weighted average shares outstanding in the second quarter was 211.6 million. For the remainder of 2021, we continue to be comfortable that our full year revenues will be consistent with what we discussed last quarter and that full year gross cash use will be approximately $85 million to $95 million.

In summary, we are furthering our partnerships in automotive and, consistent with our mission, are also expanding into significant nonautomotive opportunities. With our strong balance sheet, we are well positioned financially to continue our progress and execute on our plan to bring Aeva 4D LiDAR to market.

With that, I will turn it over to Soroush for closing remarks.

Thank you, Saurabh. I'd like to wrap up by thanking the Aeva team for their tremendous work and contributions that produced the strong results in our second quarter as a public company. And I also like to thank our shareholders and partners for their great ongoing support.

We are progressing in 2021 with strong momentum on multiple fronts, and I have never been more excited about what lies ahead for Aeva. As we continue on our automotive program and expand beyond automotive, we remain singularly focused on supporting our customers and pursuing only those additional opportunities that strategically align with our core mission.

In just the past quarter, we have already demonstrated our ability to meet multiple of our 2021 objectives and are well on our way to completing our 2021 goals as we work to realize our mission to bring perception to all devices.

Thanks, everyone, for your time today. Now let's open up the line for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Suji Desilva with ROTH Capital.

Congratulations on the progress here. So a bunch of questions, but I'll just stick to this one. The announcement of Nikon, very impressive, particularly in the sense that you can do micron-level precision along with 300-meter -- very, very impressive range here. Can you talk about the technology differentiation of Aeva that allows you to do that kind of range? And do all the LiDAR competitors have a similar capability? And does this bring more or different competitors into your market opportunity versus others? And just lastly, I'll add, does this industrial sort of success you have better validate your opportunity in consumer and health away from auto?

Sure. Thanks, Suji. Happy to answer that. So first of all, you're right. Absolutely. To our knowledge, one of the differentiations, I think, for Aeva that's very unique is our ability to actually have this incredible level of performance scalability, which is really utilizing the same foundational technology and using different algorithms to achieve very different performance levels, for example, achieving over 500 meters versus micrometer precision.

So with micrometer, obviously, that's about 1,000x more, as I mentioned on the call, than what a typical legacy 3D LiDAR or time-of-flight LiDAR can do. And that, I think, is an important example of our ability to kind of extend our performance for the applications that it opens up. I think the applications there is opened up in which -- where we see industrial automation, industrial metrology being really critical to have the ability to have this kind of micrometer-level function.

And overall, I would say that you're right. We look at this from a foundational standpoint, meaning what micrometer precision would allow us to do is just scratching the surface of what's possible in industrial applications. And I think with Nikon, our work starts in industrial metrology applications, where we look at automated inspection of high-volume manufacturing to make better part, better vehicles, high quality, increased throughput. But also from there, we're looking at actually expanding to other industrial applications where size -- the trifecta of size, cost and performance really becomes critical. And I think Aeva has a unique advantage there unlike others in the space.

I don't know if I can get a quick follow-up in here. But the employee base is growing very strongly, Soroush. What are the areas in your business that you're most aggressively putting headcount -- incremental headcount towards?

So overall, of course, our focus on the headcount is across the company, but there is primary expansion also in the R&D efforts. So obviously, as we see strong interest and traction in the market in automotive but also with expansion into other applications, not automotive, we need to continue to grow and be able to support our customers. And we feel very confident now with our ability to double our headcount since the beginning of the year. And so we'll continue to build that foundation to reach critical mass with that focus of primarily R&D to make sure that we continue to support our customers' development milestones as we expand.

Our next question comes from Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer.

Guys, on the trucking opportunity with TuSimple, and you may not be able to comment in too much detail, but as they move towards finalizing their designs for production to ramp up in 2024, can you speak about your relative position, obviously, being on all the existing trucks that they've retrofitted as a meaningful accomplishment but as you work through the development timeframes with those guys and the cost structure they need to reach for those production volumes? Just love to get a better sense of how that's tracking for you.

Sure. Happy to answer, Colin. So first, as I mentioned on the call, so at this point, Aeva actually is implemented as the only long-range LiDAR on TuSimple's current fleet of trucks on the road that are operating. So we're getting a lot of validation data from that, and that's encouraging. And we're also expanding our collaboration and development efforts together with TuSimple. So that's one.

And two, I think TuSimple is actually integrating our velocity data into their perception stack, which is obviously unique to Aeva. And I think it's also a strong indication of the value that we believe TuSimple sees in our technology.

So in summary, we're continuing to expand our efforts there, both in the hand, on the current fleet as we deploy on the road, get that validation with the implementation of our unique differentiation but also continue to expand our development efforts together as we work together towards supporting their efforts to expand their autonomous freight network globally.

That's actually very helpful. And then with the metrology opportunity, clearly, you've defined a timeframe here. But curious about how you're planning to go to market with Nikon to get integrated into some of the machine designs and integrated into the software so that, that really gets used effectively. But curious how you're going to get that process started and kind of individual end markets that you're targeting to start with.

Sure. Yes. So we're starting in collaboration with Nikon to jointly bring to market, as you mentioned, products in the industrial metrology and automation, which we expect will drive design wins on automotive and aerospace applications initially. We currently plan to start with these applications. We're able to provide our 4D LiDAR chip and software into Nikon's products. But also, we're going to be looking together as we progress on this collaboration into how we can expand our product into a number of different product lines across Nikon but also further beyond that into the industrial automation market at large.

And as I mentioned on the call, we see those applications as quite interesting. Wherever you need the ability to measure at the high precision micrometer level, which we think doing so at a distance, from a distance, noncontact way, it's only possible via FMCW technology, which is core to Aeva, we're going to be tackling those opportunities head on, and we see a really unique opportunities for Aeva to go into that. As I mentioned on the call, this includes opportunities such as machine tooling, infrastructure applications, and that's where we're going to be aligning our focus on as we expand broadly into those applications.

Our next question comes from Pierre Ferragu with New Street Research.

I have a quick follow-up on the previous question on Nikon. So if I understand correctly, step 1 of the collaboration is really integrating Aeva's technologies into Nikon's metrology systems. But then can you describe, give us a sense of how you want to tackle beyond that the broader industrial opportunity?

I imagine Nikon -- like just getting into Nikon's products is a very narrow window into the industrial opportunities. So beyond that, are you going to go directly after that opportunity if you want to expand the partnership with Nikon beyond their existing product lines and codevelop like additional products with them? Or are you going to develop your own industrial products by yourself in the long run? And if you can give us kind of a timeframe for this things, like getting into Nikon and on the market and beyond the existing reach that the product portfolio of Nikon gives you today.

Sure, Pierre. Happy to answer that. So first of all, you're right, our first applications there with Nikon that we're looking at as we start the collaboration really is around industrial metrology, in automotive and aerospace manufacturing. But even -- as I mentioned, we're going to be looking at closely where we can actually apply this fundamental capability across other product lines within Nikon Corporation as well.

But generally, just to give you context here, as I said, we're looking at actually developing a fundamental capability here, right? So with the ability to measure at the micrometer precision level, with the ability to integrate everything onto the silicon photonics chip and bring the size down and have the ability to significantly reduce the costs, we actually see that Aeva can bring unique differentiation into the industrial automation markets at large in general.

And so of course, I'm not going to comment on the specifics of how we go from each of these steps in the next number of years, but -- a bit early to do that. But I think the foundational capability that we're building here is going to allow us, from what we believe, to expand in those applications fairly quickly after that. And as I mentioned, I think, on the call, our timeline is to launch first products in '25, and we're going to continue growing into those other applications that I mentioned shortly after that.

And then maybe a quick follow-up on the automotive front. So you've made progress there on your like industrialization program, like plan, and you mentioned also progress with your existing partner that you cannot name. And I'm kind of wondering whether you see like your existing partners and your existing commercial developments in the automotive industry that you have today is really the basis on which you're going to make progress in the next couple of years. Or should we expect actually Aeva to announce additional partners in the near term, let's say, in the next year or 2?

And then, of course, a question I have beyond that is can you give us some color about where are your conversations in the auto industry today? I think there is a big -- there must be a big like questioning in the industry that time-of-flight versus FMCW and the fact that time of -- a lot of time-of-flight solutions have been around for longer, and there is probably a need to educate the industry and to get it accustomed to the idea that maybe in the long run, FMCW is the solution.

So how are these conversations progressing? And how do you see them turning into like additional commercial momentum in that space in auto? I'm more talking like the passenger car business, like the larger-volume opportunity for you guys.

Sure. Yes. So I think a few questions in there. So let me take a cut at this. So first of all, on the undisclosed customer, as I mentioned, we continue to progress well on delivering our milestones. We have hit a number of them throughout the past quarter with this customer, and we're working and continuing to work very closely together towards production. So we're feeling very confident there.

I think overall, your question about just the expansion and the interest that you see in the market, I think we are seeing strong traction in the market in automotive specifically and are encouraged by the increased number of engagements that we see in auto in addition to, of course, nonauto, some of the announcements we made.

I think in our conversations, we already see the industry within automotive recognize some of the crucial advantages of FMCW for future platforms, especially as we move from the phase of, I think, initial pilot launches, as you mentioned, that, yes, we do fully expect to become a flight-based. But as they're looking to kind of future-proof their AV technology and really looking at larger-volume scale, I think we are seeing OEMs being keen on really leveraging the next generation of technology that is like FMCW that can enable their autonomous driving stack at higher-volume scale.

And I think the capabilities that we provide with our technology and combination of long range and integration at the chip level and ability to not have interference, all of that, which also then lead to providing over time cost-effective solutions, we think, provide a good opportunity for us to scale and expand into those larger-volume opportunities after this initial pilot launches.

Our next question comes from Joe Moore with Morgan Stanley.

I wanted to ask about the $10 billion characterization of the industrial automation market. Like what are you referring to there? Where is the $10 billion coming from? And I guess how much of that do you think that Aeva can address over time?

Sure. So first, I think the $10 million market, if you noticed on the slides, looking at Slide 10. So we talked about some of the applications that covers that. So generally, it's in industrial metrology and automation, combining automotive manufacturing, aerospace manufacturing, machine tooling and infrastructure, where we see an opportunity for applications for our technology to be able to provide different levels of precision measurements and combined with small form factor, high performance, where we can actually tackle those.

And I think overall, as I mentioned, our focus, of course, initially is going to be, first, expanding into industrial metrology applications starting with the Nikon collaboration, but from there, looking to expand beyond that into some of the applications that I just mentioned.

Our final question is from Tristan Gerra with Baird.

Looking at the Nikon announcement, does that change the end market exposure and mix a few years out relative to prior expectations where you were primarily emphasizing automotive and consumer? Or is it exactly in line with your expectation in terms of where your technology is going to end up once you deploy in volume?

Yes. No, I think, Tristan, that is actually completely in line with our expectations that we had said from the beginning. I think this is -- just this announcement should give us that confidence in our ability to continue executing on our nonautomotive opportunities.

And I think as we have said, of course, automotive is first in terms of launch, but we have always believed in expansion beyond autonomous driving to be enabled by the fact that we have this unique technology with really incredible performance scalability at the chip level. So leveraging the same technology we've developed, now we're going to be looking at applying that to those other applications in industrial. But overall, it is consistent with our expectations.

Okay. Great. And then a quick follow-up, given some automotive OEM or at least one of them embracing LiDAR as a standard feature for some next-generation cars. Are you seeing automotive OEMs trying to accelerate the ramp of LiDAR-based systems? And how does that match with the time when you expect to be ready in volume production? Do you think that you're still in the sweet spot of that volume ramp opportunity?

Yes. I think -- so first of all, we are seeing in certain applications in automotive that the inflection point in LiDAR adoption is starting to really take shape. I think -- I'm really encouraged by that, of course. And I think with all the milestones that we have done so far this year, we have made a lot of progress. We have been ahead of schedule in some of those areas, including the chip development. We have significantly expanded our team over 100%.

And so we're gaining a lot of confidence in our ability to continue to hopefully accelerate our overall efforts in development. And as we're able to do that, we're going to be looking at those -- where it makes sense to align those with our customers, where we are actually encouraged by the opportunities that are starting to come up more and more in the space.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.