MDB Capital Holdings LLC (MDBH) 2025 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Welcome, everyone, to the MDB Capital Holdings fourth quarter and full year 2025 update conference call. Thanks very much for joining us today.

歡迎各位參加 MDB Capital Holdings 2025 年第四季暨全年營運更新電話會議。非常感謝各位今天撥冗參與。

(Operator Instructions) Before we begin the formal presentation, I'd like to remind everyone of several important things. Today's conference call is being recorded. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation.

(接線員指示) 在我們開始正式簡報之前，我想提醒各位幾項重要事項。今天的電話會議將會錄音。正式簡報結束後將進行問答環節。

(Operator Instructions) Remember, questions can only be seen by the moderator. Please remember that statements made on this call and webcast may contain provisions, estimates or other information that might be considered forward-looking. While these forward-looking statements represent our current judgment on what the future holds, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.

(接線員指示) 請記得，提問內容僅主持人可見。也請注意，本次電話會議與網路直播中的陳述可能包含預測、估計或其他可能被視為前瞻性陳述的資訊。雖然這些前瞻性陳述代表我們目前對未來的判斷，但仍存在風險與不確定性，可能導致實際結果與預期出現重大差異。

You're cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect our opinions only as of the date of this presentation. Also, please be aware that we are not obligating ourselves to revise or publicly release results or any revision to these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events.

敬請勿過度依賴這些前瞻性陳述；其僅反映截至本簡報日期的我們之觀點。此外，請注意，對於因新資訊或未來事件而需要修訂這些前瞻性陳述，或公開發布任何結果或修訂內容，我們並無義務。

Throughout today's discussion, we'll attempt to present some important factors relating to our business that may affect our predictions. You should also review our most current Form 10-K for a complete discussion of these factors and other risks, particularly those under the heading of Risk Factors.

在今天的討論中，我們將嘗試說明一些與我們業務相關、可能影響我們預測的重要因素。您也應查閱我們最新的 Form 10-K，以完整了解這些因素及其他風險，特別是「風險因素」(Risk Factors) 標題下所列內容。

A press release detailing these results, which crossed the wire this afternoon is available in the Investor Relations section of our website, mdb.com. A replay of this call will also be provided later on mdb.com. Your host today is Chris Marlett, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of MDB Capital Holdings. He'll be joined later by George Brandon, MDB Capital President and Head of Community Development. Chris will lead an update on the fourth quarter ending December 31, 2025.

本日下午已發布一則新聞稿說明本次業績，並可於我們網站 mdb.com 的投資人關係（Investor Relations）專區取得。本次電話會議的重播也將於稍後在 mdb.com 提供。今天的主持人是 MDB Capital Holdings 執行長暨共同創辦人 Chris Marlett。稍後他也將與 MDB Capital 總裁兼社群發展主管 George Brandon 一同出席。

At this time, I'll turn the call over to Chris Marlett.

現在，我把電話交給 Chris Marlett。

Chris?

Chris？

Thanks, Tony. Well, thanks, everyone, for joining today. I'm excited to be here and talk to you about what's been happening. It's been a while since our last call, and the year has gotten off to a really interesting start. And so I thought I'd first kind of just talk about our agenda, which I know most of you are very, very interested in where our assets are, what we think about our current investments and what we see for the future.

謝謝你，Tony。也謝謝各位今天加入。我很高興能在這裡，跟各位談談最近發生的事情。距離我們上一次電話會議已經有一段時間了，而今年一開始就有非常有意思的進展。因此我想先大致談一下我們的議程；我知道各位多半非常、非常關心我們的資產配置在哪裡、我們如何看待目前的投資，以及我們對未來的展望。

But I wanted to take some time to give you sort of a view from the way we're looking at building this business and why we're so optimistic for the future of MDB. We just published, which you should all have as shareholders, a year-end shareholder letter, which will talk to a lot of what we're going to talk to today, but in a bit more detail. If you can get through it, it's about 9 or 10 pages.

不過我也想花點時間，從我們打造這門業務的角度，讓各位了解我們如何看待這件事，以及為什麼我們對 MDB 的未來如此樂觀。我們剛發布了年終股東信（各位身為股東應該都已收到），其中會談到今天要討論的許多內容，但細節會更多一些。如果您願意讀完，它大約有 9 到 10 頁。

But I think it does a pretty good job of giving you a real good view of where we see the business, where we're headed and why we're excited about the future. So with that, I'll start off with just reminding everybody our story, really, we've taken this proven model of launching companies about one every 18 months where we helped to conceive of a big idea, bring it and position it for being public and having value in the public markets and then taking them public.

但我認為它相當清楚地呈現了我們如何看待業務、我們要往哪裡走，以及我們為何對未來感到振奮。因此，接下來我先提醒大家我們的故事：我們採用一個已被驗證的模式，大約每 18 個月推出一家新公司；我們協助構思一個宏大的想法，將其整合並定位，使其具備上市條件並能在公開市場中創造價值，接著推動其上市。

And we did that before we were public, and it was a very nice business. And of course, the reason we decided to go public was that we believe we could scale that to three to five launches a year, maybe not overnight, but we really believe that we could do that, have a lot more impact and build a real organization to build public venture really kind of into an asset class where we could actually build portfolios for our investors as opposed to just most of our investors historically had one or two of our companies in their portfolio. So we did that for 29 years. We just did our 18th IPO. Never a failure means we never failed to get an IPO done.

在我們成為上市公司之前，我們就一直這麼做，而那是一門非常不錯的生意。當然，我們之所以決定上市，是因為我們相信可以把這個模式擴大到每年三到五次的「推出」（launch），也許不會一蹴可幾，但我們確實相信能做到；如此一來，我們能產生更大的影響力，並建立一個真正的組織，把「公開市場創投」（public venture）某種程度上打造為一種資產類別，讓我們能為投資人建立投資組合，而不只是像過去那樣，多數投資人投資組合裡只有我們的一到兩家公司。我們做這件事已經 29 年。我們剛完成第 18 次 IPO。「從未失敗」的意思是，我們從未有任何一次 IPO 沒有完成。

And every one of them, except for the last one, which is very new. It's only a couple of months old, have traded at a very significant premium to the IPO price. And that really, I think, speaks to what we've done from an asymmetric value positioning perspective, bring companies public at a reasonable valuation and the promise of them caused them to trade at values much higher than what we took them public at. All those companies had the opportunity to raise additional follow-on capital, and we create a lot of equity value, not just fees. And so the scaling is really what we're talking about.

而且除了最後一個案子（非常新，才上市幾個月）之外，其他每一家在交易上都相對 IPO 價格出現了非常顯著的溢價。我認為這確實反映了我們在「非對稱價值定位」上的做法：以合理估值把公司帶到公開市場，而其成長承諾使其交易價格遠高於我們帶它上市時的估值。所有這些公司都有機會再進行後續募資（follow-on capital），而我們創造了大量股權價值，不只是手續費收入。因此，我們現在談的核心就是「規模化」。

So talking about where we came from, and I've been in the business now for 40 years. And my mission has always been before we even started MDB was how do we get to the truth quickly? How do we understand the companies that we're getting behind or the opportunities we're getting behind and creating -- or in many times, creating these companies in conjunction with inventors or universities or entrepreneurs. And so in the old days, we would look at 10-Ks and 10-Qs. We literally have to call Washington and get these filings.

談到我們的起點，我在這個產業已經 40 年了。在我們甚至還沒成立 MDB 之前，我的使命一直是：如何快速接近真相？如何理解我們要支持的公司或機會——而且很多時候，我們是與發明人、學術機構或創業者共同創造這些公司。在早期，我們會看 10-K 和 10-Q。我們甚至得打電話到華盛頓去索取這些申報文件。

And it was a very haphazard approach to trying to learn about companies. These were all public companies. If we had a private company, we were going to take public. The information challenge was really crazy. As a result of the Internet, we launched PatentVest in 2003, which enabled us to really understand deep tech very much in a clear way because we could get our minds around what somebody owned and how it was differentiated from somebody else out there in the technology landscape.

那是一種非常零散、缺乏系統的方法，來嘗試了解公司。那些都是上市公司。如果是我們要帶上市的私人公司，資訊取得的挑戰就更是棘手到不可思議。隨著網際網路的發展，我們在 2003 年推出了 PatentVest，讓我們能以非常清晰的方式真正理解深科技（deep tech），因為我們可以掌握某個主體擁有哪些權利，以及它在技術版圖中相對於其他人的差異化所在。

And that gave us, in our mind, a real ability to really understand the critical elements to building leadership. And this leadership we saw was the critical element for these companies being able to trade at $1 billion valuations or have the potential to trade at $1 billion valuations. And as we refined it, we -- in our screening criteria and our processes and trained our analysts, we could start to filter companies where instead of going from a handful in the old days or maybe 100 a year after PatentVest.

在我們看來，這讓我們真正具備了理解建立「領導地位」之關鍵要素的能力。而我們所看到的這種領導地位，是這些公司能以 10 億美元估值交易、或具備以 10 億美元估值交易潛力的關鍵因素。隨著我們不斷精進——在篩選標準、流程以及分析師訓練方面——我們開始能夠過濾公司；相較於早期只能看少數幾家，或在推出 PatentVest 後一年大概能看 100 家左右。

We got into the point where we could review thousands per year really because we could get through an idea in an hour or two by understanding did they have the ability to be a leader in a technology vertical pretty quickly with the development of PatentVest.

我們進一步達到每年可以審視數千個案子的程度，因為透過 PatentVest 的發展，我們能在一到兩小時內就把一個想法看透：它是否具備在某個技術垂直領域成為領導者的能力。

But we still had really a bottleneck, and we've really experienced that bottleneck over the last couple of years since going public at MDB, which is we can find a big idea, we can pull it together. But really, that process of getting a position to create real value in the public marketplace is a very, very labor and time-intensive process.

但我們仍然有一個很大的瓶頸；而在過去幾年 MDB 上市之後，我們也確實感受到這個瓶頸：我們可以找到一個宏大的想法，也可以把它整合起來。但要把它推進到能在公開市場創造真正價值的位置，這個過程非常、非常耗費人力與時間。

So the deep diligence and all the market insertion risks and competitive mapping and the business IP strategy and then getting the -- really getting the company positioned to be able to communicate its value add is very tough. And it's still tough. It's always tough with a big idea. And that would consume hundreds, if not thousands of hours. And it would take many months to get these companies ready to go public.

因此，深度盡職調查、所有市場導入風險（market insertion risks）、競爭版圖描繪（competitive mapping）、商業智慧財產（business IP）策略，然後再把公司——真正把公司定位到能夠傳達其價值增益（value add）——都非常困難。而且現在仍然很困難。對於一個宏大的想法而言，這一直都很困難。這會消耗數百、甚至數千小時。而且往往需要好幾個月，才能讓這些公司準備好上市。

And so this has really been our reality and quite frankly, our biggest challenge in scaling that we've had. But I have to say, and I referenced in my letter that AI really is a game changer for us, and we are committed as an organization to using it at every level.

因此，這確實一直是我們的現實，坦白說，也是我們在擴張規模時所面臨的最大挑戰。但我必須說，而且我在信中也提到，AI 對我們而言確實是改變遊戲規則的關鍵，我們作為一個組織承諾在每一個層級都會使用它。

I would tell you that even the last 90 days has just been kind of earth-shattering for us in the ability for us and our teams to really solve that information challenge that almost every company faces, and we certainly face in getting these companies ready for being public. And so when you think about the Internet, it really did a great job of catalyzing and organizing that information, but it really created sort of overload in inertia. You had almost too much information.

我可以告訴各位，即便只是過去 90 天，對我們以及我們的團隊而言，在真正解決幾乎每家公司都會面臨、而我們在協助這些公司為上市做準備時也確實面臨的資訊挑戰方面，簡直是顛覆性的。因此，當你想到網際網路時，它確實在催化並組織資訊方面做得很好，但也在某種程度上造成了資訊過載與惰性。你幾乎擁有太多資訊。

Even when we were looking at patent data, when we first started, you would look at -- you would do a screen and you would look at thousands of patents. Well, getting to those thousands of patents was virtually impossible. It would take really unbelievable amount of man hours to make that happen and really understand how a company could differentiate itself from the other companies in that field. And so what AI has really done and really done in a very, very tangible way, literally in the last 90 to 120 days is it eliminates that inertia. It really connects the dots at an unprecedented speed.

即使在我們查看專利資料時，剛開始的時候，你會去看——你會做一次篩選，然後看到成千上萬件專利。但要真正深入到那成千上萬件專利裡，幾乎是不可能的。要做到那一步並真正理解一家公司如何在該領域與其他公司做出差異化，需要投入難以置信的人力工時。而 AI 真正做到的、而且是在非常、非常具體可感的方式上—— буквально 就在過去 90 到 120 天內——就是消除了那種惰性。它以前所未有的速度把線索串連起來。

And when you couple that with our expert analysts that have created the SOPs, if you will, to actually screen through these companies like we did very manually before, those SOPs applied through agentic models in AI has really become almost unbelievable. And what we're seeing, whether it's with patents or whether it's with new business opportunities, we're able to get to the truth super-fast.

當你再把這點與我們的專家分析師結合起來——他們建立了 SOP（標準作業流程），用來像我們以前那樣非常手動地篩選這些公司——這些 SOP 透過 AI 的代理式（agentic）模型來套用後，效果幾乎令人難以置信。我們看到，不論是專利，或是新的商業機會，我們都能以超快速度逼近真相。

We're able to connect dots we could never connect before. And this is going to have an unbelievably profound impact on our business. And I know AI is sort of the catchword of today and every AI company that comes in to look for funding, I'm always very skeptical of.

我們能夠串起以前根本不可能串起來的線索。這將對我們的業務產生極其深遠的影響。我知道 AI 算是當下的流行語，而每一家來尋求資金的 AI 公司，我一向都非常懷疑。

But I can tell you that as far as using really off-the-shelf AI, things like Claude day-to-day within our operation and now building SOPs and agents to effectively execute what we can do doesn't mean we're going to actually lay off anyone or fire anybody like has been put in the press. What it enables us to do now is really scale in an unbelievable way.

但我可以告訴各位，就我們在營運中日常使用現成的 AI（off-the-shelf AI），例如 Claude，並且開始建立 SOP 與代理（agents）來有效執行我們能做的事情而言，這並不代表我們會像媒體所說的那樣裁員或解雇任何人。它讓我們現在能以難以置信的方式擴大規模。

So the transformative impact in a real tangible setting is becoming real. And we really believe that our ability to effectively boil the ocean of opportunities is achievable. And we're in the process of continuing to develop these agents where we can literally look not only for new companies through our patent data, but from grant databases, from conferences, anywhere we go where we see opportunities where we can feed it in with our specific criteria, these agents can now do the work of hundreds of analysts and then start to boil the ocean and get these things narrowed down to where now our analyst team who are experts in understanding whether or not these are real genuine opportunities can be boiled down very, very fast to a very small stack of companies.

因此，在真實且可具體感受的情境中，這種轉型性的影響正在成真。我們也真的相信，我們有效「把海洋煮沸」般掃描龐大機會集合的能力是可以達成的。我們正在持續開發這些代理，使我們不僅能透過專利資料尋找新公司，也能從補助金資料庫、研討會、以及任何我們看到機會的地方著手；只要把符合我們特定標準的資料餵進去，這些代理現在就能完成相當於數百名分析師的工作，開始「把海洋煮沸」，把範圍收斂到最後讓我們的分析師團隊——那些擅長判斷這些是否為真實且具體機會的專家——能夠非常、非常快速地把候選公司縮小到一小疊。

But even if, let's say, 5% of the opportunities made it through our screen, whether it was companies that were brought to us by friends or colleagues, the real hard work was the deep due diligence. And that deep due diligence was very -- that took -- that's what took the hundreds, if not thousands of hours to do. And in fact, every one of these companies were facing the same thing. They're trying to get to the answers quickly. The Boards are trying to figure out what strategy to employ.

但即便如此，假設只有 5% 的機會能通過我們的篩選，不論是朋友或同事帶來的公司，真正艱難的工作其實是深入盡職調查（deep due diligence）。而那種深入盡職調查非常——那需要——那才是需要數百、甚至數千小時的部分。事實上，每一家這樣的公司都面臨同樣的問題。他們都在試圖快速找到答案。董事會也在試圖弄清楚要採取什麼策略。

And the information divide is just really, really difficult, especially when you're talking about deep tech or disruptive technology. And so we really estimate that we can compress that time by two-third. It's really astounding. And you're going to see it, obviously, as investors, right? So you can put in every one of our deals.

而資訊落差真的非常、非常難以跨越，尤其當你談的是深科技（deep tech）或顛覆性技術時。因此我們估計，我們可以把那段時間壓縮三分之二。這真的令人震撼。而你們作為投資人，顯然也會看到這一點，對吧？所以你可以把它用在我們每一筆交易上。

You can put the prospectus in, you can query it. And you guys are getting the questions quicker. And we're seeing it already in the last 90 days the questions we're getting from investors and the insights we're getting from investors is really astonishing. I mean it's really -- it's fun for us because our mission is to get to the truth as fast as possible. And so we're experiencing this real time.

你可以把招股說明書（prospectus）放進去，然後去查詢它。你們提出問題的速度更快了。而我們也已經在過去 90 天看到，投資人提出的問題以及我們從投資人那裡得到的洞見，真的令人驚訝。我的意思是，這對我們來說很有趣，因為我們的使命就是盡可能快地逼近真相。所以我們正在即時體驗這一切。

It's like something I've never seen before. But then when you actually want to prepare that company and take it public, it would take from 6- to 18-months. And I think we're going to be able to get this done in weeks. Like we -- to give you an example, we just started on the S-1 for Paulex to take it public. Our team could actually put together a pretty good draft for the S-1 pretty darn quickly.

這就像我以前從未見過的事情。但接著，當你真的要準備那家公司並推動它上市時，過去通常需要 6 到 18 個月。而我認為我們將能在幾週內完成。例如，我們剛開始為 Paulex 著手準備 S-1 以推動其上市。我們的團隊其實可以非常快地把 S-1 的相當不錯的初稿整理出來。

And I think -- and again, we're still in the early stages of really implementing all these processes within our organization. But whether it's the financial models, the business strategy, the IP positioning, we see this being done in weeks, not months, which has -- when you talk about the scale issue that we're -- that we faced, we're seeing this as a total game changer for our ability to scale.

而我認為——再次強調，我們仍處於在組織內真正全面導入這些流程的早期階段。但不論是財務模型、商業策略、IP（智慧財產）定位，我們都看到這些可以在幾週內完成，而不是幾個月；這——當你談到我們曾面臨的規模化問題時——我們把它視為我們擴張能力的徹底遊戲規則改變者。

And so -- but throughout our business, whether it's through PatentVest, through all of our investor diligence, I mean this whole thing is going to change. It's going to change how our community reacts to deals. It's going to change how deals get distributed. It's going to change it at every level, and we're seeing it real time right now.

因此——而且在我們整個業務中，不論是透過 PatentVest、透過我們所有的投資人盡職調查，我的意思是，整件事都將改變。它會改變我們社群對交易案的反應方式。它會改變交易案的分發方式。它會在每一個層級改變，而我們現在正即時看到這一切。

So over the -- since we've gone public, one of the things that I don't think has been very apparent to everybody that has really just been focused on figuring out what one of our deals is worth or whether they should buy it or what eXoZymes might be worth is that we've been investing in MDB Direct in our clearing operations and patent vest to really build those as separate discrete assets.

所以在——自從我們上市以來，我認為有一件事對所有人並不那麼明顯：大家一直把焦點放在評估我們某一筆交易值多少、或是否該買、或 eXoZymes 可能值多少，但其實我們一直在我們的清算作業與 PatentVest 上投資 MDB Direct，目的是把它們打造為各自獨立、可分拆的資產。

Yes, they're very obviously critical and important in our daily operating business, but they really are distinct assets in their own right. And we've been investing about $4 million annually since the IPO on these assets. And that is super apparent because we've been able to take and stand up these 2 enterprises to where they now, in our mind, have significant independent value and in effect, big ideas that are going to be launched off into their own entities very soon.

是的，它們顯然在我們日常營運業務中非常關鍵且重要，但它們本身也確實是獨立資產。自 IPO 以來，我們每年大約在這些資產上投資 400 萬美元。而這一點非常明顯，因為我們已經能把這兩個事業體建立起來，使它們在我們看來如今具有顯著的獨立價值；實際上，它們是一些很大的構想，將在不久後以各自獨立的實體形式推出。

So in MDB Direct, what we did was super unique. And we knew that scaling IPOs, especially public venture IPOs was going to -- was not a thing that is done with traditional institutional investors. Traditional institutional investors are looking for ideas that are much more highly developed.

所以在 MDB Direct，我們做的事情非常獨特。而我們知道，要擴大 IPO 的規模，尤其是公眾創投（public venture）IPO，將會——這不是傳統機構投資人會做的事。傳統機構投資人尋找的是成熟度更高的構想。

And so a lot of these companies that are sort of in the development phase or going public, a lot of them were starting to get funded by crowd funding and other platforms like this, Reg A plus, things like that. And now we're seeing things -- companies like Robinhood now being key distributors for these kind of offerings for big companies like the big major underwriters.

因此，許多處於開發階段或準備上市的公司，其中不少開始透過群眾募資以及其他類似平台獲得資金，例如 Reg A+ 之類的方式。而現在我們也看到一些變化——像 Robinhood 這樣的公司，如今成為這類發行的重要分銷通路，服務於大型公司，例如大型主承銷商。

And distribution is changing in a very, very dynamic way. But the key differentiator is clearing. So folks like Robinhood had to become -- had to go self-clearing. They used to clear it through other people. Most of the broker-dealers that operate in the microcap marketplace, none of them are -- or virtually none of them are self-clearing.

而且分銷正在以非常、非常動態的方式改變。但關鍵的差異化因素是清算。因此像 Robinhood 這樣的業者不得不成為——必須轉為自營清算。他們過去是透過其他人來清算。在微型股市場運作的大多數券商交易商，沒有一家——或幾乎沒有一家——是自營清算。

But they're recognizing to be able to operate and access these investors, clearing could be a clear differentiator. And clearing is also the ability to be profitable. In many cases, stock loan margin lending, et cetera, these things are key cash generators for any company in our space that has any kind of assets that are built on their platform. And so we know that what we've built here is a very, very valuable asset. And so it took 5 years of work with our vendors and our software developers and what have you to get this up and running.

但他們也意識到，若要能夠運作並觸及這些投資人，清算可能會成為明確的差異化因素。而清算同時也是獲利能力的關鍵。在許多情況下，股票借貸、融資融券等，這些都是我們這個領域中任何在其平台上建立了任何形式資產的公司之關鍵現金產生來源。因此我們知道，我們在這裡打造的是一項非常、非常有價值的資產。而為了讓它上線運作，我們與供應商、軟體開發人員等投入了 5 年的工作。

And it's a super valuable asset. And I think that we're looking forward to being able to scale that asset and at the same time, create value and monetize the asset. So really, the big opportunity for MDB Direct is a strategic partnership to monetize the asset and also help solve our distribution challenges at scale.

而這是一項極具價值的資產。我認為我們期待能夠擴大這項資產的規模，同時創造價值並將其變現。因此，對 MDB Direct 而言，真正的大機會在於透過策略合作夥伴關係來將這項資產變現，並且也在規模化的層面協助解決我們的分銷挑戰。

I talked about in the letter a bit, but when you go from one company every 18 months with a very small community and effectively a few relationship managers that work within our organization to go to 3- to 5-companies a year and really start to scale this, we have to basically solve the distribution challenge.

我在信中稍微談到過，但當你從每 18 個月做一家公司的模式——只有非常小的社群，實際上也只有少數在我們組織內工作的關係經理——轉變為一年做 3 到 5 家公司，並真正開始把規模做起來時，我們基本上就必須解決分銷的挑戰。

And so again, I spoke about public venture as sort of being a very much of an individual investor-oriented asset class, where you can look back to the IPOs of even companies like Amazon and Tesla that went public through larger underwriters, but the institutional investors were not major players that drove valuation in those companies.

因此再次強調，我談到「公開創投」作為一種類資產，基本上是非常以個人投資人為導向；你可以回頭看甚至像 Amazon 和 Tesla 這些公司，它們透過較大型的承銷商上市，但機構投資人並不是推動這些公司估值的主要力量。

And even today, SpaceX is talking about going public and raising a lot of money. Elon Musk is smart enough to know that he needs to have retail distribution, and he's figuring out ways to do that in the offering because he knows they're going to end up being the people that really want to own the stock. And the institutional investors many times came a lot later.

即使在今天，SpaceX 也在談論上市並募集大量資金。Elon Musk 很聰明，他知道自己需要零售端的分銷能力，並且正在在發行中想辦法做到這一點，因為他知道最後真正想持有這檔股票的人會是他們。而機構投資人很多時候是晚很多才進場。

And so we see an opportunity with these firms that don't have self-clearing that are recognizing that distribution is going to change that this is a real opportunity to partner with other -- either other firms to spin this off as its own entity, to sell it outright and then clear through those -- clear through whoever we sell it to. But we see this as a very valuable asset.

因此我們看到一個機會：與這些沒有自營清算、但已意識到分銷將會改變的公司合作——這是一個真正的機會，可以與其他公司合作把它拆分成獨立實體、直接整體出售，然後透過那些——透過我們賣給的對象來進行清算。但我們認為這是一項非常有價值的資產。

To our knowledge, there's no other clearing firms for sale or partnering capability right now. When we were looking to do this, we were looking at -- there was only one clearing firm that was set up for sale or for partnership. And that firm, even with a lot of challenges and really not a huge platform, sold for tens of millions of dollars. And so we see this as really exciting. It's now operational.

據我們所知，目前沒有其他可供出售或可合作的清算公司。當我們在評估要做這件事時，我們看到——當時只有一家清算公司被設定為可出售或可合作。而那家公司即便面臨許多挑戰、平台也不算大，仍以數千萬美元的價格售出。因此我們覺得這真的令人振奮。它現在已經開始營運。

It's working, and we're now just starting active discussions with various folks, and we're seeing this as really a force multiplier, not only generate some value for the shareholders, but also partner on distribution, which I think could be a really great thing for what we're doing as we have the ability to curate more big ideas.

它正在運作，而我們現在才剛開始與各方展開積極討論；我們把它視為真正的「乘數效應」來源，不僅能為股東創造一些價值，也能在分銷上建立合作，我認為這對我們正在做的事情會非常有利，因為我們有能力策劃更多重大的構想。

And PatentVest, just the other big idea, just as big as clearing was, was to become a law firm. So we had built a patent research company before and sold it before we had gone public. And that company was very limited by the fact that we weren't a law firm because we really -- we could do research, but we couldn't really render opinions. We had to be careful with attorney client privilege.

而 PatentVest——另一個重大構想——就像清算一樣重要，就是成為一家律師事務所。因此我們在上市之前曾建立一家專利研究公司並將其出售。而那家公司受到很大限制，原因在於我們不是律師事務所，因為我們確實——可以做研究，但無法真正出具法律意見。我們必須小心處理律師—當事人保密特權。

A lot of our analysts were in Latin America, which made a lot of people nervous. But with that, we were able to sell to a UK-based law firm because in the UK, they were able to go public. And then as we went forward and the ABS program became a possibility, we became one of the first ABS IP law firms, and it's been really phenomenal.

我們很多分析師在拉丁美洲，這讓不少人感到不安。但即便如此，我們仍能把公司賣給一家英國的律師事務所，因為在英國他們可以上市。接著隨著我們往前推進、ABS 計畫成為可能，我們成為最早的一批 ABS 智慧財產權律師事務所之一，成果非常出色。

And Javier Chamorro, who runs the operation has done a great job of getting this up and going to where we have all the core operations of a law firm from patent prosecution to foreign prosecution management to docketing to maintenance fees, all the various things you need to do to do that in addition to all the front-end research that enables us to start to provide a lot more value and create higher quality patents and higher -- a better experience for small companies and large companies that are looking to be more efficient and create higher quality.

而負責營運的 Javier Chamorro 做得非常好，把這件事建立並推進到：我們具備一家律師事務所的所有核心作業，從專利申請代理（patent prosecution）、到海外申請代理管理、到案件期限管理（docketing）、到年費維護（maintenance fees），以及你需要做的各種事項；此外還包含所有前端研究，讓我們能開始提供更多價值、產出更高品質的專利，並為希望更有效率、追求更高品質的小型公司與大型公司帶來更好的體驗。

So what we see is by being the first potential ABS law firm to go public, which makes a lot of sense and take this from being a real legal process to a business process, we can now partner with these big law firms like we used to before we sold the patent research business.

因此我們看到的是：作為第一家可能上市的 ABS 律師事務所——這非常合理——並把它從真正的法律流程轉變為商業流程，我們現在就能與這些大型律師事務所合作，就像我們在出售專利研究業務之前所做的那樣。

And we think that big law is facing an existential crisis with regard to what's happening in patent prosecution. A lot of the big law firms see that prosecution is a process business and that their high-level legal talent really can be best focused on strategy and litigation. And we're having some great discussions with these law firms, and we're looking forward to seeing this develop. It turns out it's a huge business. So if you look at patent prosecution in the US, I think $10 billion to $15 billion is a conservative figure for how big that business is in the US.

而我們認為，大型律所正面臨一場關於專利申請代理領域正在發生之事的生存危機。許多大型律所看到，申請代理是一門流程型業務，而他們的高階法律人才最適合把精力放在策略與訴訟上。我們正與這些律所進行一些很好的討論，也期待看到這件事的發展。事實證明，這是一門龐大的生意。因此如果你看美國的專利申請代理市場，我認為 100 億到 150 億美元是對其規模相當保守的估計。

And we really think that we can garner a really meaningful share of that business by partnering with big law firms. And we're really excited about this. And I think that the AI legal tech market is boomed. Obviously, there's been tons of money going into that market. We don't want to call ourselves an AI legal tech company because really what we are as a law firm that is going to embrace AI.

而我們真的認為，透過與大型律所合作，我們可以取得這門業務中相當有意義的市占。我們對此非常興奮。我認為 AI 法律科技市場已經蓬勃發展。顯然，有大量資金湧入那個市場。我們不想把自己稱為 AI 法律科技公司，因為我們本質上是一家將會擁抱 AI 的律師事務所。

And I think that a lot of these platforms that have been funded, there's probably -- I wouldn't be surprised if there's 100 AI legal tech law firms out there currently. And I think we're in this really great position to be able to participate in this area, create a lot of value, and we're looking to spin this out as an independent entity and finance it before year-end, as we touched on last year.

而我認為，這些獲得資金支持的平台，可能——如果目前外面有 100 家 AI 法律科技律所，我也不會感到意外。我認為我們處在一個非常好的位置，能夠參與這個領域、創造大量價值；並且如同我們去年提到的，我們希望在年底前把它拆分為獨立實體並完成融資。

And so our portfolio assets, we have two portfolio assets outside of MDB Direct and PatentVest that I think can create a lot of value. And obviously, eXoZymes which is, is public in Paulex, which we recently funded and are planning to take public later this year are, again, $1 billion market cap potential just like everything else we've done historically. And so talking about eXoZymes, eXoZymes is at a really critical point in its development.

因此就我們的投資組合資產而言，除了 MDB Direct 和 PatentVest 之外，我認為我們還有兩項投資組合資產可以創造大量價值。而顯然，eXoZymes——它在 Paulex 已經是公開的——以及我們最近投資、並計畫在今年稍晚推動上市的公司，同樣都具備 10 億美元市值的潛力，就像我們過去歷來做的每一件事一樣。因此談到 eXoZymes，eXoZymes 正處於其發展中一個非常關鍵的節點。

And I think that what had happened with eXoZymes is that initially, the strategy was let's go out and partner with pharmaceutical companies to go help them make stuff they can't make. We recognized at eXoZymes as I'm on the board there that, in fact, we could make things that nobody else could make.

而我認為 eXoZymes 發生的情況是：一開始的策略是走出去與製藥公司合作，協助他們製造他們無法製造的東西。我們在 eXoZymes——我在那裡的董事會——意識到，事實上我們可以製造出其他任何人都做不出來的東西。

And if we could do that, why wouldn't we just make them and sell those products. And so that's where it's going. And I think that the promise of synbio is about ready is upon us because companies like Ginkgo Bioworks, everybody thought that they had cracked the code for being able to scale manufacturing in synbio when, in fact, they hadn't.

而如果我們能做到那一點，為什麼不乾脆自己做出來並銷售那些產品。所以事情就是往那個方向走。而我認為，合成生物（synbio）的承諾已經近在眼前，因為像 Ginkgo Bioworks 這樣的公司，大家原本以為他們已經破解了合成生物製造規模化的密碼，但事實上他們並沒有。

And they created a lot of partnerships and they had a lot of sort of irons in the fire. What we realized is focusing in on a couple of really big ones was really super critical and making sure that we could scale manufacturing. And so as you've seen -- hopefully, you've seen is that some of the press releases is that, that technology is now being turned over to contract manufacturers and being demonstrated that it scales.

他們建立了很多合作夥伴關係，也同時推進了很多項目。我們意識到，把焦點集中在少數幾個真正重大的項目上至關重要，並確保我們能夠把製造規模化。因此如你所見——希望你已經看到——一些新聞稿顯示，這項技術現在正移交給委託製造商（contract manufacturers），並且已經示範其可擴大規模。

Which is something that's never really been done in our experience in synbio. So it's -- again, this is a company that -- I don't know that anyone is going to want to value synbio at $20 billion again, but I think that the headroom on this, when you look at the current market value of the company is pretty immense, and we're pretty excited that we're at this critical point now.

以我們在合成生物領域的經驗來看，這幾乎是前所未有的。所以——再次強調，這是一家公司——我不確定是否還會有人願意再把合成生物估值到 200 億美元，但我認為，當你看公司目前的市值時，這裡的上行空間相當巨大，而我們也很興奮，因為我們現在正處在這個關鍵節點。

And Paulex, I won't spend a lot of time on. We're going to have an update for those of you that participated in Paulex. But quite frankly, we're hoping to initiate the clinical trial in September at the same time the IPO goes.

至於 Paulex，我不會花太多時間談。我們會為參與 Paulex 的各位提供更新。但坦白說，我們希望在 IPO 上市的同時，也就是 9 月啟動臨床試驗。

Again, another game-changing potential drug that would touch both type 1 and type 2 diabetes by producing insulin, by helping the body to produce insulin again or produce more of it. We started the company with some of the same folks that we started prevention with that know diabetes and that we've had a lot of success with.

同樣地，這是另一款可能改變遊戲規則的潛在藥物，透過產生胰島素、幫助身體再次產生胰島素或產生更多胰島素，從而同時影響第一型與第二型糖尿病。我們與當初共同創立 Prevention 的一些同樣夥伴一起創立了這家公司；他們了解糖尿病，而且我們與他們合作曾取得很大成功。

So we're very excited. And I think that I look forward to this IPO later this year. And we're super excited that the clinical trial results could start to emerge at the end of this year or early next year that could be really groundbreaking. So when you look at our 4 principal assets as it stands right now, eXoZymes as a current sort of market valuation. At year-end, it was about $45 million.

所以我們非常興奮。而我也期待今年稍晚的這次 IPO。我們也非常期待，臨床試驗結果可能在今年底或明年初開始出爐，這可能會非常具突破性。因此，當你看我們目前的四項主要資產時，eXoZymes 以目前的某種市場估值來看，在年末時大約是 4,500 萬美元。

The stock has come down a little bit. It's about $30 million in market value currently of what we own. Paulex, we own 7.1 million shares of that, and it's yet to be seen what we'll price the IPO at, but it could be a very substantial asset.

股價已經下來了一些。以我們持有的部分來看，目前市值大約是 3,000 萬美元。Paulex 我們持有 710 萬股，IPO 的定價仍有待觀察，但它可能是一項非常可觀的資產。

And MDB Direct, again, not making promises on the value, but clearing firms of this type have sold for tens of millions of dollars or -- and I think we're in an environment where the value of this could be much greater with where the world is going from a distribution perspective of new offerings. And of course, PatentVest, we've been investing in for a long time, has, in our mind, a lot of value.

至於 MDB Direct，再次強調，我不對其價值做出承諾，但這類清算公司（clearing firms）過去曾以數千萬美元的價格出售；而且我認為，在從新產品發行的分銷角度來看，隨著世界的走向，這項資產的價值可能更高。當然，PatentVest 我們投資已久，在我們看來也具有很高的價值。

We've invested many millions of dollars in the development of PatentVest since 2003 and even more so since we've been public to get it ready as a law firm and ready for launch. And then a combination of our cash, current assets through marketable securities, less all the current liabilities at year-end was about $22.3 million.

自 2003 年以來，我們已在 PatentVest 的開發上投入了數百萬美元；而自我們成為上市公司後，投入更多資金，讓它能以律師事務所的形式就緒並準備推出。此外，把我們的現金、透過有價證券持有的流動資產，加總後再扣除年末所有流動負債，約為 2,230 萬美元。

And one of the sort of footnotes was we thought we were going to get Buda Juice done before year-end, but it ended up trickling into January. So it will give us some benefit in the first quarter. So when you look at the financial overview, I'm trying to simplify it as much as possible.

其中一個算是附註的是，我們原本以為能在年末前完成 Buda Juice，但最後延到 1 月才逐步完成。因此它會在第一季帶來一些效益。所以當你看財務概覽時，我盡量把它簡化到最容易理解。

Obviously, you can read the 10-K for yourself, but we have about $10 million in fixed operating expenses, and we burned about $5.7 million if you look at the cash flow statement for the year. And -- but if you look at the investment we've made in the clearing ops and PatentVest, it was about $4 million, which was $4 million as part of the $10 million. So if you effectively took the $4 million off of the $5.7 million, we would have -- in effect, burned $1.7 million.

當然，你可以自行閱讀 10-K，但我們大約有 1,000 萬美元的固定營運費用；如果你看年度現金流量表，我們大約消耗了 570 萬美元。但是——如果你看我們在清算業務（clearing ops）與 PatentVest 上的投資，大約是 400 萬美元，而這 400 萬美元包含在那 1,000 萬美元之中。所以如果你把這 400 萬美元從 570 萬美元中扣掉，實際上我們消耗的現金大約是 170 萬美元。

So I think that a lot of people, when they're looking at our operating statements, I don't know that, that's super clear to everybody. So if post the spinout of our clearing platform and PatentVest, our OpEx will go down to about $6 million a year, which when you now look at the number of companies we can launch and how much equity we earn in those companies, we have huge financial leverage.

所以我認為，很多人在看我們的營運報表時，未必能很清楚地看出這一點。因此，在我們把清算平台與 PatentVest 分拆出去之後，我們的營運費用（OpEx）將降至每年約 600 萬美元；當你再看我們能夠推出的公司數量，以及我們在那些公司中能取得多少股權時，我們就具備很大的財務槓桿。

Even if you look at the equity position that we earned from co-founding Paulex this year, that equity is certainly worth -- in our minds, a lot -- worth a lot more than what we burned from a cash perspective this year. And so we think we generated significant equity value that's really not apparent in fiscal year 2025.

即使只看我們今年共同創立 Paulex 所取得的股權部位，那些股權的價值——至少在我們看來——肯定遠高於我們今年在現金層面所消耗的金額。因此我們認為，我們創造了相當可觀的股權價值，但在 2025 財年並不明顯。

But going forward, we've seen this leverage as being really unbelievable. And so I think that all of our things have $1 billion capabilities. And if we can launch 3- or 5-year on a $6 million in OpEx base, I think we're going to have really, really -- we could drive a lot of really important shareholder value.

但展望未來，我們看到這種槓桿效應將會非常驚人。因此我認為，我們所有的項目都具備達到 10 億美元規模的能力。如果我們能在每年 600 萬美元的 OpEx 基礎上，在 3 到 5 年內推出這些公司，我認為我們將能——我們可以創造大量非常重要的股東價值。

So what can go wrong? Well, we are -- this is not public, sure thing. It's public venture, right? And so what I would say is that there's a lot of interesting things going on that we face since we've started. There's obviously a lot of macro and global risk.

那麼，可能出什麼問題？嗯，我們——這不是那種「上市就穩賺」的事情。這是上市的創投（public venture），對吧？所以我要說的是，自我們開始以來，我們面臨很多有趣的情況。顯然也存在許多總體與全球性的風險。

I have no idea how it's going to turn out nor do I want to venture a guess. The microcap market conditions have been very difficult. A lot of these companies because of the venture markets and small public markets were having such a difficult time. So many of these companies face such horrible dilution. There were lots of institutional investors investing in the space, but the dilution of these small companies was just horrific.

我不知道結果會如何，我也不想冒然猜測。微型股（microcap）市場環境一直非常艱難。許多這類公司因為創投市場與小型公開市場的狀況而面臨極大困難。因此很多公司遭遇非常嚴重的稀釋。雖然有許多機構投資人投資這個領域，但這些小公司的稀釋程度實在非常可怕。

And so we're hoping to see that change hopefully soon. Obviously, execution risk, not only our execution risk, but obviously, our portfolio companies have to execute. And this distribution gap that we're looking to solve is probably the biggest worry I have. And I'm not too worried about AI execution risk. We're already seeing those tools work for us.

所以我們希望能看到這種情況在不久後有所改變。顯然也有執行風險，不僅是我們的執行風險，我們的投資組合公司也必須執行到位。而我們試圖解決的這個分銷缺口，可能是我最大的擔憂。至於 AI 的執行風險，我倒不是太擔心。我們已經看到那些工具正在為我們發揮作用。

And with regard to clinical and regulatory risk, those are always something to be faced with all the life science companies we're involved with. So the path forward is pretty straightforward. We're now positioned to launch three to five high-quality companies a year. Again, that's going to depend a lot on our distribution and how we can build that. We've got a lot of -- we've talked about it in the past.

至於臨床與監管風險，這些始終是我們所參與的所有生命科學公司都必須面對的問題。因此，接下來的路徑相當清晰。我們現在已具備每年推出三到五家高品質公司的條件。再次強調，這在很大程度上取決於我們的分銷能力，以及我們能如何建立它。我們有很多——我們過去也談過。

We're doing a lot of things in partnering with other distribution partners. And so we're hoping to make that happen in addition to what we're doing with spinning out the clearing platform. And we're obviously going to spin out PatentVest as well and monetize that. And this cost scale efficiency improvement, I think, is only getting better as we get better at what we're doing. And as always, shareholders retain preferred access to MDB deals.

我們在與其他通路合作夥伴結盟方面做了很多事情。因此，除了我們正在推動將清算平台分拆出去之外，我們也希望能促成這件事。而且我們顯然也會把 PatentVest 分拆出去並將其變現。我認為，這種成本規模效率的改善，只會在我們越來越擅長我們所做的事情時變得更好。一如既往，股東仍保有對 MDB 交易的優先參與權。

And so I want to thank you all for having faith in what we're doing here at MDB. And it's been a really tough couple of years for us, watching our stock go down for the last couple of years since we took this company public. And so I'm going to use that for a second here to editorialize for 1 second. I know I've ran a bit over on this presentation. We're up to 37 minutes, but I'm going to try and make this as quick as possible.

因此，我想感謝各位對我們在 MDB 所做事情的信心。而且對我們來說，過去幾年真的很艱難，自從我們把公司上市以來，看著股價在過去幾年一路下跌。所以我想借這個機會，用一秒鐘來發表一下個人評論。我知道這份簡報我講得有點超時了。我們已經到 37 分鐘了，但我會盡量講得越快越好。

So we've had a lot of people that have stuck in there, but a lot of people have sold our stock or the stock wouldn't have gone down. And I think a lot of people have been disheartened. And I think part of what I will take credit for is this was a lot harder than we originally thought to get up and going.

所以有很多人一直撐著，但也有很多人賣出了我們的股票，不然股價不會下跌。我想很多人都感到灰心。而我願意承擔部分責任的是：要把這件事真正做起來，比我們一開始想像的困難得多。

I could use the market backdrop as an excuse, but the reality was is that we thought we had it in the bag. And when you looked at the -- let's call it, the batch of companies we did right before we -- let's call it, the grouping of companies we launched right before we went public, all of them went to $1 billion valuations.

我可以把市場環境當作藉口，但事實是我們原本以為勝券在握。而當你回頭看——我們就稱之為——在我們上市前不久所做的那一批公司、那一組我們在上市前推出的公司，它們全部都達到了 10 億美元估值。

And if that had happened after we were public with our current batch, we would not be having this conversation right now. And I think that a lot of our investors were like, well, yes, you got lucky with prevention, one of the drugs worked and it's sold and -- but -- or how much are you really involved?

如果那件事發生在我們上市之後、以我們目前這一批公司來說，我們現在就不會有這段對話了。我想很多投資人會覺得：嗯，是啊，你們在 prevention 上運氣好，其中一個藥物成功了、也賣掉了——但是——你們到底參與了多少？

Well, the reality was we started that company, those assets wouldn't have been licensed. There wouldn't have been, in my mind, that opportunity and certainly not in a public realm, hadn't we been able to help make that happen. If you look at POS Biosciences, investors have had -- it still trades, I think, for $1.5 billion valuation or so, maybe close to $2 billion.

但現實是，那家公司是我們創立的；那些資產本來不會被授權出去。在我看來，如果沒有我們協助促成，根本不會有那個機會，當然更不可能在公開市場的層面上發生。如果你看 POS Biosciences，投資人——它現在的交易估值我想大約是 15 億美元左右，可能接近 20 億美元。

I don't know where it's at right now. But investors have had multiple opportunities to make many multiples of their investment for where we took that public. And even when you look at the most challenging one, which was Cue Biopharma, this company achieved $1 billion valuation on the promise. The technology worked, but it also highlights the difficult parts of what we do, which is the company has got to execute. And that technology, we haven't given up on it.

我不知道它現在確切是多少。但投資人已經有多次機會，從我們帶它上市的價格起算，獲得好幾倍的投資回報。即便你看最具挑戰的那個，也就是 Cue Biopharma，這家公司也曾在「承諾」之下達到 10 億美元估值。技術是有效的，但它也凸顯了我們所做事情中困難的一面：公司必須要能執行到位。而那項技術，我們並沒有放棄。

We still think the technology is brilliant, and it should be broadly available to patients, but it's had some challenges. But when I look at the current batch of companies that we have here today, when you look at all four of the principal assets we have, I really believe all those have $1 billion capability. And obviously, if all of them hit $1 billion, it would be a crazy return to shareholders. I'm not saying that's going to happen, and I don't expect it to happen. But it would not surprise me if any one of them hit $1 billion valuation.

我們仍然認為那項技術非常出色，也應該廣泛提供給病患，但它確實遇到了一些挑戰。不過當我看我們今天手上這一批公司，當你看我們擁有的四個主要資產時，我真的相信它們每一個都有達到 10 億美元的潛力。而且顯然，如果它們全部都達到 10 億美元，對股東而言將是非常驚人的回報。我不是說那一定會發生，我也不期待它會發生。但如果其中任何一個達到 10 億美元估值，我也不會感到意外。

And I think that when you couple that with the pipeline of things that we see that we have coming, it seems inconceivable to me that we're not going to find one of these companies to hit $1 billion valuation again and reward shareholders. So again, it's not a promise. It's with all the caveats, but that's the way we're seeing things and why we're excited.

我認為，當你再把我們所看到、即將到來的各項管線機會結合起來看，我很難想像我們不會再次找到其中一家公司達到 10 億美元估值並回饋股東。所以再次強調，這不是承諾。在所有但書之下，這就是我們看待事情的方式，也是我們感到興奮的原因。

So with that, I'm going to open it up to questions. I think, George, why don't you come back.

那麼接下來，我就開放提問。我想，George，你要不要回來一下。

Let's just jump into it. (Operator Instructions) I'm going to start right off. Chris, I know you hit the positions we have the biggest stake in, but I just got a question on, can you talk a little bit about Cue, ClearSign and Beam and then also a question on Buda. That was unusual for us to do Buda. So can you just give a little bit of a view on those positions that many of our shareholders still hold?

我們直接開始吧。(接線員指示) 我先從第一個問題開始。Chris，我知道你剛剛談到我們持股比重最大的部位，但我有個問題：你能不能稍微談談 Cue、ClearSign 和 Beam，另外也想問一下 Buda。我們做 Buda 這筆投資對我們來說很不尋常。所以你能不能就這些許多股東仍持有的部位，給大家一些看法？

Yeah. So ClearSign has certainly been on that long commercialization journey. And that's a company that Anthony knows much better than me. But from the -- and it's a very small position within our firm. But it -- they have been on this commercialization journey and their unique burner technology is more relevant than ever.

可以。ClearSign 的確走在一條漫長的商業化旅程上。而那家公司 Anthony 比我更了解。不過從——而且它在我們公司裡是一個非常小的部位。但——他們一直在推進商業化，而他們獨特的燃燒器技術比以往任何時候都更具相關性。

We're going to be burning a lot more natural gas. And so I think that, that company is scaling. And I still think the prospects for that company are quite good. With regard to HeartBeam, HeartBeam did something that most people thought was impossible to get an FDA approval for a pocket 12-liter ECG, what's not told in that story is that, that ECG is even better than a 12-liter in many ways.

我們將會燃燒更多的天然氣。所以我認為那家公司正在擴張規模。我仍然覺得那家公司的前景相當不錯。至於 HeartBeam，HeartBeam 做到了一件多數人認為不可能的事：讓一台口袋型 12 導程 ECG 取得 FDA 核准；而這個故事沒說的是，那台 ECG 在很多方面甚至比傳統 12 導程還更好。

And as they've signaled, could be the first device to be able to detect a heart attack, which is a game changer would save millions of lives. The commercialization journey is not easy for any of these small companies.

而且如他們所暗示的，它可能成為第一個能夠偵測心肌梗塞的裝置，這將改變遊戲規則、能拯救數百萬人的生命。對任何這些小公司而言，商業化之路都不容易。

And so -- but HeartBeam, we're still super -- we think everybody in the ECG space or health monitoring space, AI space should want to partner with HeartBeam because they have the most sensitive ambulatory ECG in the planet. Period. End of story. So we're very hopeful that the team is going to execute on making sure one of those partnerships happen, which will bring scale to a really unbelievable technology that could save millions of lives.

所以——但對 HeartBeam，我們仍然非常——我們認為 ECG 領域、健康監測領域、AI 領域的每個人都應該想和 HeartBeam 合作，因為他們擁有全球最靈敏的可攜式（ambulatory）ECG。就是這樣。沒有其他說法。因此我們非常希望團隊能夠確實執行，確保促成其中一個合作夥伴關係，讓一項真正不可思議、能拯救數百萬人生命的技術得以規模化。

Buda, I addressed it in the shareholder letter. You can look at it, but Buda, everyone said, well, geez, why are you going away from deep tech or what have you? Well, it was a bit serendipitous because a friend of mine really was the CEO of the company, and he was visiting me in Nicaragua, we were sitting around and he said, well, here's what I'm doing.

Buda 的部分，我在股東信裡已經說過了。你可以去看；但談到 Buda，大家都說：天啊，你們為什麼要偏離深科技（deep tech）或諸如此類？其實這有點機緣巧合，因為我一位朋友剛好是那家公司的 CEO，他來尼加拉瓜拜訪我，我們坐著聊天，他說：我現在在做這個。

And I said, my God, you're building a whole new category in a category that's going to be everything. So when you look at Buda, they have the opportunity to be not only the fresh juice leader, which is not widely known that is you can't really buy fresh juice at scale in most markets like Walmart and Kroger across the country.

我說：天啊，你正在打造一個全新的品類，而這個品類將會無所不在。所以當你看 Buda，他們不僅有機會成為鮮榨果汁的領導者——而且很多人不知道的是，在多數市場，你其實很難在像 Walmart、Kroger 這種全國性通路以規模買到鮮榨果汁。

And -- but this fresh movement is going big. And now ever since we started the thing, man, every one of these markets need a fresh element because all the shelf-stable processed foods are all going to get shipped by Amazon. And quite frankly, everything is going against processed foods.

而且——但這股「新鮮」的趨勢正在做大。而且自從我們開始做這件事以來，老天，每一個市場都需要一個新鮮元素，因為所有可常溫保存的加工食品都會被 Amazon 配送。坦白說，一切趨勢都在反加工食品。

So it was the opportunity to basically participate in what could be one of the biggest global shifts we've seen. Anybody that's shopped at markets in Europe knows that you're not -- people go shopping a couple of times a week because they want fresh.

因此，這基本上是一個參與我們所見過可能是全球最大轉變之一的機會。任何在歐洲市場買過菜的人都知道，你不會——人們一週會去買幾次，因為他們想要新鮮。

They don't want they don't -- they're not eating preservative foods for the most part in Europe. So this is a massive, huge opportunity, and we saw an opportunity to bring that to our community. It's a unique company that could be the leader in the space, and it happens to be profitable. And so we're super excited about it. And what else did I miss?

他們不想——他們不——在歐洲大多數情況下，他們並不是在吃含防腐劑的食品。所以這是一個非常龐大、巨大的機會，而我們也看到了把這件事帶到我們社區的機會。這是一家獨特的公司，有可能成為該領域的領導者，而且剛好是有獲利的。所以我們對此非常興奮。那我還漏了什麼？

And Cue Bio.

還有 Cue Bio。

And Cue Bio. So Cue is struggling. I think they've struggled putting together a cohesive management and Board and getting that technology to commercialization. But that being said, they partnered with Boehringer Ingelheim and also partnered with ImmunoScape on 101. And now they're about ready to put 401 in the clinic.

還有 Cue Bio。所以 Cue 目前很掙扎。我認為他們在整合一個有凝聚力的管理團隊與董事會、以及把那項技術推向商業化方面一直不太順利。不過話說回來，他們與勃林格殷格翰（Boehringer Ingelheim）合作，也在 101 項目上與 ImmunoScape 合作。而現在他們也差不多準備把 401 推進臨床了。

All of these are massive game-changer type opportunities. The stock doesn't reflect it. You'd never guess by looking at the stock that it has any value. But in fact, we believe that all 3 of those opportunities, those shots on goal are super valuable. And we're really -- we're still just as bullish about the technology as possible as we've ever been, but they've had their challenges in getting the execution side of it done.

這些全都是那種足以改變遊戲規則的巨大機會。股價並沒有反映出來。你光看股價，絕對猜不到它有任何價值。但事實上，我們相信這三個機會、這三次「射門機會」都非常有價值。而且我們對這項技術的看多程度——我們仍然盡可能地看多，跟以往任何時候一樣——只是他們在執行面確實遇到了一些挑戰。

So a question on -- moving on to eXoZymes in that conference call. We're going to jump right off this call and go right into Exosymes's year-end call here that starts in 15 minutes. So we'll wrap up before that. But what are you looking at for, obviously, they're going to have to raise money. What's the dilution going to look like in your mind?

那接著問一個——在那通電話會議裡談到 eXoZymes。我們會在這通電話結束後立刻跳到 Exosymes 的年終電話會議，15 分鐘後就開始。所以我們會在那之前收尾。但你在看的是什麼？顯然，他們將不得不募資。你心目中稀釋會長什麼樣子？

I'm getting a question on what do you -- how do you think the dilution works? And how does that work when you're looking at an asymmetrical opportunity?

我收到一個問題：你——你認為稀釋會怎麼發生？而當你在看一個不對稱機會時，這又是怎麼運作的？

Yeah. So the great thing about Eosymes is that, again, much like if you think about [MDBV] at a $10 million OpEx level to create big opportunities, eXoZymes is the same way. Exosymes has about $10 million in OpEx to create huge opportunities. Now they've created now two gargantuan opportunities in NCT and cannabinoids. And they're going to talk all about that, so I won't go into it too deeply.

是的。所以 eXoZymes 很棒的一點是，再次地，就像你想想看 [MDBV] 以每年 1,000 萬美元的營運費用（OpEx）去創造巨大機會一樣，eXoZymes 也是同樣的模式。Exosymes 的營運費用大約是 1,000 萬美元，卻能創造非常巨大的機會。而現在他們已經在 NCT 和大麻素（cannabinoids）上創造了兩個極其龐大的機會。他們會把這些都講得很清楚，所以我就不深入展開了。

But the combination of government grants and now that those opportunities being on the doorstep of commercialization. These aren't science projects anymore. These are -- so dilution is in our mind, is going to be relatively minimal because this is not like putting drugs in clinical trials. This is not -- they can outsource manufacturing. So it is super capital efficient.

但政府補助金的組合，再加上這些機會如今已站在商業化的門口。這些不再是科學專案了。所以在我們看來，稀釋會相對有限，因為這不像把藥物送進臨床試驗那樣。這也不是——他們可以外包製造。因此資本效率非常高。

And we've worked really hard and they've worked really hard to create a high-impact organization to focus on big, huge platforms, where they can be -- where they can generate -- we're talking about TAMs in the hundreds of billions with the two platforms they're in.

而我們非常努力、他們也非常努力，打造一個高影響力的組織，專注在大型、巨大的平台上；在這些平台裡他們可以——他們可以產生——我們談的是他們所處的兩個平台，其總可服務市場（TAM）是數千億美元等級。

And they have the ability to be a major player in those platforms with a relatively small operating budget, which really speaks to how impactful their technology is. The reality is nobody believed they could do it. Nobody believed it would scale. I would just tell you, throw all your best scientists at it, go visit the company, go see where they're at, and you're going to see that this could be the biomanufacturing.

而他們有能力以相對小的營運預算，成為這些平台中的重要玩家，這也真正說明了他們技術的影響力有多大。現實是，沒有人相信他們做得到。沒有人相信它能擴大規模。我只想告訴你，把你最好的科學家都投入其中，去拜訪公司，去看看他們做到哪一步，你就會看到這可能會是生物製造。

This could really be the start of a huge biomanufacturing revolution. And in fact, the US government, we can't continue to outsource manufacturing, especially pharma and nutritional supplement manufacturing overseas. And so -- this is a huge initiative. I think you're going to see continued government grants coming to them.

這真的可能是一次巨大生物製造革命的開端。事實上，美國政府也不能再持續把製造外包出去，尤其是製藥與營養補充品的製造外包到海外。所以——這是一項巨大的倡議。我認為你會看到政府持續提供補助金給他們。

And so I just think that it's in the right place at the right time. And now we just got to go out and tell the story.

所以我只是覺得它在對的時間出現在對的位置。而現在我們只需要走出去把故事講好。

A question on PatentVest. How systematically or structurally, how do you see that spin out? If I'm a shareholder of MDB, how is that going to impact me? Do you have an idea of what that path is on valuation and spin out? I know you said, hey, you weren't really sure about what the valuation is going to be. But how -- if I own a share of stock, what am I going to see as a shareholder?

一個關於 PatentVest 的問題。從系統性或結構性來看，你怎麼看那個分拆（spin out）？如果我是 MDB 的股東，這會如何影響我？你對估值與分拆路徑有概念嗎？我知道你說過，嘿，你其實不太確定估值會是多少。但如果我持有一股股票，作為股東我會看到什麼？

Well, the good news about both the clearing -- MDB Direct, the clearing ops and PatentVest is we own 100% of both of them. So we're starting with a much larger share of those than we do with the other companies we have ownership in.

嗯，關於清算——MDB Direct 的清算業務（clearing ops）以及 PatentVest 的好消息是，我們兩者都持有 100%。所以相較於我們持有股權的其他公司，我們一開始在這兩個資產上的持股比例要大得多。

And -- and so our objective is to do a round of financing to bring in partners. So we want to bring in folks, I can't mention names, whether it be law firms, big corporate strategics or other strategics, and we're talking to various strategics right now. Our goal is to get that funded and out of MDB as a company.

而——所以我們的目標是做一輪融資，把合作夥伴引進來。所以我們想引入一些人，我不能提名字，可能是律師事務所、大型企業策略投資者（corporate strategics）或其他策略方；我們目前正在與多個策略方洽談。我們的目標是讓它獲得資金支持，並把它作為一家公司從 MDB 中分拆出去。

Then we look -- we're going to look forward to taking it public in 2027 and the method in which we do that and how we do it, it's not really completely formulated yet. But that's going to be largely dictated by what we do on the partnering front here in the short run and funding it as its own independent division here shortly.

接著我們會——我們期待在 2027 年把它推向公開市場，而我們採用什麼方式、以及如何操作，目前還沒有完全定案。但這在很大程度上將取決於我們短期內在合作夥伴方面的進展，以及很快把它作為一個獨立事業部完成資金到位。

Can you talk a little bit about what your deal pipeline looks going forward in the next 12- to 24-months?

你能談談接下來 12 到 24 個月，你們的交易案源（deal pipeline）看起來如何嗎？

It's really interesting because the deal pipeline is great, and it's -- I can only see it getting better. So the biggest point is really our ability to get them sold, right? We have to get them packaged and sold. And so right now, with where we're at, the biggest constraint isn't the number of companies we're seeing. It's really going to be to work out the distribution side of the equation and get those and get that done.

這很有意思，因為交易案源很強，而且——我只會看到它變得更好。所以最大的重點其實是我們把它們賣出去的能力，對吧？我們必須把它們包裝好並賣出去。所以就目前我們所在的位置而言，最大的限制不是我們看到的公司數量。真正會是把分銷端（distribution side）的問題解出來，並把那件事做成。

So I think once we do that, who knows how many we can do a year. So like I said, we -- the biggest issue is solving the distribution thing. Obviously, our stocks, some have done okay, some haven't done as good as we hoped. And obviously, if a couple of them work out pretty good, then that puts wind in the sails of everybody. But we really need to add incremental distribution.

所以我想一旦我們做到那點，誰知道我們一年能做多少案。所以就像我說的——最大的問題是解決分銷這件事。顯然，我們的股票，有些表現還可以，有些沒有像我們希望的那麼好。而且很明顯，如果其中有幾個進展得相當不錯，那就會讓大家士氣大振。但我們真的需要增加增量分銷（incremental distribution）。

Our community is still relatively small. We have -- while we have a couple of thousand shareholders, we only have 675 active accounts. So it's still very small. And we're trying to broaden distribution so that we don't have a couple of really large investors in our deals. We're trying to broaden that a bit.

我們的社群規模仍然相對小。我們——雖然我們有幾千名股東，但只有 675 個活躍帳戶。所以規模仍然很小。而我們正試著擴大分銷，這樣我們的交易就不會只有幾個非常大的投資人參與。我們想把它拓寬一些。

And so as we do that, then our ability to get more of them done is going to increase. So I'm not worried about the number of companies that we can launch. I'm worried about just making sure that we can find investors for them all.

因此，當我們這麼做時，我們完成更多項目的能力就會提升。所以我不擔心我們能推出多少家公司。我擔心的是要確保我們能為它們全部找到投資人。

Okay. So I got a question here that -- it's a good question, but I'm just going to read it. I normally paraphrase, but would or have you considered a SaaS model for PatentVest that in turn for its analysis? This would serve not only to generate revenue but attract IP contribution to increase IP content to evaluate the combination of IP to uncover unexplored opportunities.

好的。我這裡有個問題——這是個好問題，但我就直接念出來。我通常會改寫，但你是否會或曾考慮為 PatentVest 採用一種 SaaS 模式，來提供其分析？這不僅能創造營收，還能吸引 IP 的貢獻，以增加可評估的 IP 內容，並透過組合 IP 來發掘尚未被探索的機會。

Yeah. So I think to be 100% blunt, I think SaaS is going to be crushed by AI.

是的。所以我想百分之百坦白地說，我認為 SaaS 會被 AI 碾壓。

Go into that a little bit. How, why, and why do you think that?

再多談一點。怎麼說、為什麼，以及你為什麼這麼認為？

Yeah. So just to give you an idea. We -- just to give you one segment that's a really, really big core thing of what we do. So -- let's take patentability, which is what is largely called prior art search, right? So any new vendor that comes up with a new idea wants to do a patentability or should do a patentability analysis.

好的。我先給你一個概念。我們——就舉一個我們工作中非常非常核心、很大的環節。我們以可專利性（patentability）為例，這通常被稱為先前技術檢索（prior art search），對吧？任何提出新點子的供應商，都想做可專利性分析，或是都應該做可專利性分析。

So heretofore, you would -- maybe if you were -- you would subscribe to a patent database, you would go out, you would do your own patentability analysis and search, you would maybe pay [PatSnap] $10,000 or $12,000 a year or $15,000 a year to go do that. And it would kind of get you part of the way there, maybe, right? And you kind of -- you get a lot of data and you'd say, well, maybe this works.

以往，你可能——如果你是——你會訂閱一個專利資料庫，自己出去做可專利性分析與檢索，你可能會付給 [PatSnap] 每年 10,000 或 12,000 美元，或 15,000 美元來做這件事。而它大概只能讓你走到一半，也許吧，對嗎？你會拿到很多資料，然後說，嗯，也許這樣可行。

An expert user would use PatSnap in maybe 5 or 6 other databases and then get to a really, really good patentability, but very few people did it because it was too expensive and too time consuming. We've now -- just to give you an idea, what we were doing is we had expert trained analysts in Latin America with PhDs and master's degrees in science.

專家使用者可能會把 PatSnap 搭配另外 5 或 6 個資料庫一起用，才能做到非常非常好的可專利性分析，但很少人這麼做，因為太貴也太耗時。我們現在——給你個概念，我們過去做法是聘用在拉丁美洲受過訓練的專家分析師，他們有科學領域的博士和碩士學位。

They would do a patentability analysis in 45 hours. Now even though the cost was lower by doing it in Latin America, 45 hours is still a huge amount of inertia to actually go through and actually do that work. We took the same SOPs for doing a patentability analysis, now run by that same expert analyst that we have in Latin America, with AI, where we basically programmed the agent.

他們會在 45 小時內完成一份可專利性分析。即使在拉丁美洲做成本較低，45 小時仍然是非常大的阻力，讓人很難真的去走完並完成那份工作。我們把同樣用於可專利性分析的 SOP，現在由我們在拉丁美洲的同一位專家分析師搭配 AI 來執行，基本上是我們把代理（agent）程式化了。

We programmed the agent ourselves with a popular AI vendor where the software needed to run that analysis was completely done in-house without a software developer, mind you, okay? We can now do that patentability analysis with our expert, patent searcher in 1.5 hours, and it's better.

我們用一家主流 AI 供應商，自己把代理做了程式化；請注意，執行該分析所需的軟體完全是內部完成的，而且沒有軟體開發人員參與，好嗎？現在我們的專家、專利檢索員可以在 1.5 小時內完成那份可專利性分析，而且品質更好。

And that's today. We're doing that right now. I'm telling you it's going to completely change the SaaS business. So these folks that are out there building AI solutions, curated AI solutions, I think they're going to -- I'm very skeptical of the value of them because we're building them with off-the-shelf AI solutions today with our own people. They're not even software developers.

而這是今天就能做到的。我們現在正在做。我告訴你，這將徹底改變 SaaS 生意。所以那些在外面打造 AI 解決方案、打造「精選式」AI 解決方案的人，我認為他們——我非常懷疑它們的價值，因為我們今天就用現成的 AI 解決方案，靠我們自己的人在做這些。他們甚至不是軟體開發人員。

And so the curated data that we have that we've invested in for all these years is super valuable now because it's got to be done behind a wall, right? And we don't think that people should be putting their investments or their inventions into ChatGPT and doing this.

因此，我們多年來投入建立的精選資料現在非常有價值，因為它必須在一道牆後面完成，對吧？而且我們不認為人們應該把他們的投資或發明丟進 ChatGPT 來做這件事。

So that gives you a reason why I think SaaS is going to be -- I think human in-the-loop IP development is the future. and we have a shot to be a leader in it because we're an ABS firm, because we have attorney client privilege, because we have the ability to basically turn this into a unified business process, I don't see it as a SaaS business going forward.

所以這就是我為什麼認為 SaaS 會——我認為「人類在迴圈中」（human in-the-loop）的 IP 開發才是未來。而我們有機會成為領導者，因為我們是 ABS 事務所，因為我們有律師—當事人保密特權，因為我們有能力把這基本上變成一個統一的業務流程；我不把它視為未來會走向 SaaS 的生意。

Okay. Well, we're at the end here, and I'm going to go ahead and turn it back to you and let you go ahead and close it out.

好的。那我們到尾聲了，我把時間交回給你，讓你來做結語。

All I can say is thanks. It's been a very tough road the last couple of years since we've been public. But I hope that by listening to where we see things going that you have a bit more enthusiasm and you have the ability to kind of keep the faith and hang in there. We're super excited about the future for the firm. We're getting better and better every day.

我只能說謝謝。自從我們上市以來，過去幾年走得非常艱難。但我希望你們聽完我們對未來走向的看法後，能多一點熱情，也能夠某種程度上保持信心、撐下去。我們對事務所的未來感到非常興奮。我們每天都在變得更好。

We're not -- the entire team here is working their -- off to make things happen. It's been a rough thing. We haven't given people raises. We've taken back RSUs. We've really backtracked a lot and a lot of the expectations that we had for ourselves were not met.

我們不是——這裡整個團隊都在拼命讓事情發生。這段時間很艱難。我們沒有給大家加薪。我們收回了 RSU。我們確實大幅回撤，很多我們對自己的期待也沒有達成。

But you just don't give up. You never say die, you just keep going. And we -- I appreciate everybody at the firm that's done it. It's not been easy. It's been a lot of really difficult discussions. But that being said, when I look at what's bubbling up from what we have, I'm super excited. So I'll leave it at that.

但你就是不能放棄。你永遠不說死，你就繼續往前走。而我們——我感謝事務所裡每一位做到這點的人。這並不容易。我們進行了很多非常艱難的討論。但話說回來，當我看到我們手上正在醞釀、冒出來的東西時，我非常興奮。所以我就說到這裡。

George?

George？

You want me made the ending? Well thank you, everybody, for coming. Tony, that was your job. You're supposed to jump on there, close it out, start it, close it out.

你要我來做結尾嗎？好，謝謝各位今天來參加。Tony，那本來是你的工作。你應該要跳出來，開場、收尾都要你來。

That's all right. I'm ready to do it. So we'll say thank you very much for attending today's presentation. This will conclude our conference call.

沒關係。我準備好了。那我們就說非常感謝各位出席今天的簡報。我們的電話會議到此結束。

All right. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

好。謝謝各位。感謝。

Bye.

再見。