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Date

May 13, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. ET

Call participants

  • Chief Executive Officer — Glen DeVos
  • Interim Chief Financial Officer — Stephen Hrynewich

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Takeaways

  • Revenue -- $0.9 million, a 50% increase driven primarily by sales across automotive, industrial, and security and defense segments.
  • Segment revenue composition -- 75% of sales originated from sensors acquired via the Luminar asset acquisition, leveraging ready inventory and accelerating commercial execution.
  • Gross margin -- 39% for the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2026, an increase from 7% in the prior year’s comparative period.
  • Cash flow used (operations plus CapEx) -- $16.6 million, up $2.4 million due to integration and nonrecurring acquisition-related expenses including legal, accounting, and audit costs.
  • Liquidity -- $46.1 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investment securities at quarter-end, with $42 million available under the current ATM facility.
  • Full year revenue guidance -- Maintained at $10 million–$15 million, with most expected in the second half.
  • Gross margin guidance -- Raised to a range of 35%–40% for the full year, supported by ongoing supply agreement negotiations and product mix optimization.
  • Cash burn guidance -- Improved to approximately $60 million for 2026 from previous guidance of $65 million–$70 million, reflecting realized synergy cost reductions from post-acquisition integration.
  • Commercial and operational integration -- Integration of Luminar and Scantinel assets, teams, and operations substantially completed; manufacturing for all product lines now consolidated in Orlando.
  • Product portfolio and platform expansion -- MOVIA, IRIS, and HALO product lines cover short-, long-, and ultra-long-range lidar applications, with unified software (MOSAIK and SENTINEL) enabling full perception stack offerings.
  • End-market updates -- Commercial shipments and repeat orders restarted in mining, logistics, warehouse automation, security, defense drone-based ISR, and ongoing expansion in automotive with Tri-Lidar system demos.
  • Leadership additions -- New executives with industry backgrounds now lead AI strategy, product engineering, program management, and operations/manufacturing functions.
  • Non-exclusive drone payload partnership -- New collaboration with Avular offers an integrated lightweight lidar payload for drones; solution targets weight below 300 grams, aiming for sub-200 grams.
  • FMCW lidar technology -- Scantinel’s FMCW platform is suitable for both ultra-long-range and high-accuracy short-range industrial applications, with forthcoming chip-scale 1D edge emission variant and 2D future applicability.
  • Customer pipeline -- Over 100 customers and prospects now in commercial pipeline across three addressed verticals, attributed to expanded reach post-Luminar acquisition.
  • NRE revenue opportunity -- Potential for non-recurring engineering revenue, particularly in security and defense, contingent on alignment with product plans and commercial outcomes.

Summary

MicroVision (MVIS 21.12%) initiated commercial shipments and realized fiscal first quarter revenue growth following the integration of Luminar and Scantinel assets, establishing a unified operational foundation. Management reaffirmed 2026 revenue guidance and improved both gross margin and cash burn outlook due to realized post-acquisition synergies. Manufacturing is now consolidated in Orlando, supporting projected production needs through year end and enabling centralized operational control. The new product portfolio spans short- to ultra-long-range lidar and leverages a unified software stack to address industrial, security, defense, and automotive customer requirements.

  • The collaboration with Avular enables MicroVision to deliver a lightweight, real-time mapping lidar payload for drones, opening immediate access to commercial and ISR drone markets.
  • Commercial momentum is supported by over 100 active customers and prospects, reflecting an enlarged commercial pipeline from acquired customer relationships.
  • The FMCW platform extends addressable markets to both ultra-long-range security/defense applications and high-accuracy industrial positioning solutions.
  • Management identified milestone events, demonstration showcases, and customer contract disclosures as the critical indicators for transitioning from development engagements to recurring commercial revenue streams over the next 12–18 months.

Industry glossary

  • FMCW: Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave — a lidar technology offering precise distance and velocity measurement, supporting both ultra-long-range and high-accuracy, short-range sensing for industrial and defense applications.
  • NRE: Non-Recurring Engineering — one-time revenue or funding related to development work for customer-specific solutions, especially relevant in defense sector engagements.
  • Tri-Lidar architecture: A system configuration integrating multiple types of lidar (short, mid, and long-range sensors) into a unified 360-degree perception platform for automotive and autonomous vehicle applications.
  • ISR: Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance — missions leveraging drone-mounted or other sensor technologies for real-time environmental mapping and analytics in defense and security operations.
  • ATM facility: At-the-Market facility — a financing mechanism allowing the company to raise capital by selling shares into the open market as needed.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Glen DeVos; and our Interim Chief Financial Officer, Steve Hrynewich. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions. Please note that some of the information you will hear today will include forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, strategic plans, acquisition benefits and integration synergies, expectations regarding customer engagement and product deliveries, go-to-market strategies, product performance and pricing, market landscape and opportunities, cash flow forecast, liquidity and the impacts of recent financing activities, availability of funds and access to capital, expected revenue, operating expenses and cash balances as well as statements containing words like believe, expect, plan and other similar expressions. These statements are not guarantees of future performance.

Actual results could differ materially from the future results implied or expressed in the forward-looking statements. We encourage you to review our SEC filings, including our most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. These filings describe risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those implied or expressed in our forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this call, and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update this information. In addition, we will present certain financial measures on this call that will be considered non-GAAP under the SEC's Regulation G.

For reconciliations of each non-GAAP financial measure to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure as well as for all financial data presented on this call, please refer to the information included in our press release and in our Form 8-K dated and submitted to the SEC today, both of which can be found on our corporate website at ir.microvision.com under the SEC Filings tab. This conference call will be available for audio replay on the Investor Relations section of our website. Now I would like to turn the call over to Glen DeVos, our CEO. Glen?

Glen DeVos: Thanks, Drew. Last quarter, we introduced our vision for what we call Lidar 2.0, and we outlined how the new MicroVision was being built to lead this next era of the lidar industry. Today, I want to provide you with an update. In short, our strategy is working. Over the first quarter, we made significant progress integrating these technologies, teams, operations and customer relationships acquired through Luminar and Scantinel. What we have today is one MicroVision organization. At the same time, we have successfully restarted key Luminar commercial programs.

We resumed shipments across multiple customer engagements, continue receiving repeat orders from existing customers and expanded work with prospective customers across industrial, security and defense and automotive applications, our 3 key end markets. Importantly, this progress gives us increased confidence in both the operational direction of the company and the commercial opportunities that lie ahead of us through the balance of 2026. First quarter revenue represents the start of commercial traction. We believe that our operational foundation work completed during Q1 now positions MicroVision for accelerating momentum as we move through the year. That is the message I want you to take away from today's call.

The new MicroVision is operationally integrated, accelerating our commercial traction and executing against the Lidar 2.0 strategy we laid out last quarter. Before I go deeper into our progress, I want to briefly touch on why we continue to believe this transition to Lidar 2.0 is so important. As I shared in our last earnings call, Lidar 1.0 was primarily defined by a technology-first mindset. Companies competed to build the most impressive stand-alone sensor often without fully considering the economics, scalability or operational realities key to broad deployment. But increasingly, customers are telling us something very different.

Whether we're speaking with mining equipment manufacturers, industrial automation companies, defense integrators or automotive OEMs, the conversation is not centered on sensor performance alone. But on the criteria that will drive value for their businesses, first, lower cost is central to enabling scaling deployments. Second, they're looking for mature proven solutions they can depend on for reliability and secure production launches. And three, solutions must be easily integrated into their system architectures. Customers want the right performance for the right application. They want solutions that can easily integrate into complete perception and control systems. They want flexibility to open software architectures, and they want products that are designed with cost and scalability in mind from day 1.

And that's what Lidar 2.0 is all about. And we believe the industry is now evolving to the areas where MicroVision is strongest. Portfolio breadth. We now have the broadest technology portfolio in our industry. Designed to cost engineering, it's not complicated, cost drives mass adoption. Open software framework, giving our customers flexibility and control of their software and systems; and finally, disciplined execution across all aspects of the business. Today, as I stated earlier, the new MicroVision has the most comprehensive product portfolio in our industry, and this enables us to win in our 3 key market segments. Our MOVIA family of products provide compact solid-state short-range sensing for industrial security and defense and automotive applications.

IRIS and HALO expand our capability into long-range detection based on real-world production for automotive and industrial programs. And Scantinel's FMCW platform gives us ultra-long-range sensing capabilities for automotive and security and defense. With our MOSAIK and SENTINEL software platforms, we now offer a complete perception stack and development environment from silicon to point cloud to perception software, all built around MicroVision's open software framework that enables our customers to seamlessly integrate and build differentiated capabilities on top of our platform. Now just as important as integrating our product portfolio, we now have one unified engineering and product organization, bringing these technologies together.

Over the last quarter, we have completed much of the work of integrating the Luminar and Scantinel assets and teams into the new MicroVision. This includes aligning engineering organizations, integrating product road maps, consolidating operation functions and continuing the transition of engineering ops and manufacturing into our Orlando facility. Today, there is one MicroVision team executing on one unified strategy. The benefits of that integration are now showing up in the business. From a commercial standpoint, one of our highest priorities following the Luminar acquisition was stabilizing existing customer programs and reestablishing commercial continuity. I'm pleased to share that we have made significant progress on that front. Let me touch on key developments for each of our 3 end markets.

For industrial, we've restarted shipments and active programs with customers in mining, offroad logistics and warehouse automation. As I have talked about previously, the industrial market has started a significant transformation from high-cost electromechanical systems to compact and cost-effective solid-state sensors. Our MOVIA sensor product line is leading this transformation. Customer feedback of our MOVIA S has been incredibly positive, and we are on schedule for a planned production launch later this year. In Security and Defense, we now have active engagements focused on drone-based LiDAR perception, aviation, traffic management and unmanned ground vehicles or UGVs.

In March, we shared how our MOVIA air products can extend the perception of surface vehicles with our ability to compute real-time mapping and supporting train analytics for navigability. This real-time processing on the edge or in the drone is an industry first and is only possible with our lightweight compact and low-powered MOVIA air sensors, and it's a major advancement for drone-based ISR capabilities. Additionally, we have just announced our collaboration with Avular on a fully integrated payload to further expand our capability and access to markets for drones. We cannot be more excited about the opportunities in this space and working with the Avular team.

And finally, for Automotive, we continue to actively engage with the passenger car OEMs as they define their next-gen Level 3 and 4 system architectures. While this is a key market for us, we recognize that this market will take time to develop. And until sensor costs are significantly reduced, we will only see limited deployments and adoption. As such, we remain focused on our Tri-Lidar Architecture as a key enabler of expanding lidar perception performance while significantly reducing total system cost. We recently demonstrated the first integration of HALO with MOVIA S and a full 360-degree perception system at the ACT Convention in Las Vegas.

There was strong interest in our Tri-Lidar architecture with planned follow-up with key CV for commercial vehicle and autonomous trucking companies. I couldn't be more excited about what came out of that. Additionally, MOVIA S with its wide field of view is a perfect sensor for robotaxi and urban autonomy applications where near-field detection of obstacles and vulnerable road users is so critical. As a compact solid-state sensor, it offers that right performance but at a much lower cost than today's electromechanical lidar. This is why our portfolio expansion was so important for MicroVision. We have the ability to bring the right solution at the right cost to each of these end markets.

These opportunities also benefit from MicroVision's ability to be a one-stop shop for our customers' full lidar perception needs. And it's exciting to see how these conversations are shifting from technology evaluation to operational deployment. Another important development during the quarter was the continued strengthening of our leadership team. Executives like Julia Imlauer, driving AI strategy; Phil Bellomo, leading product engineering; Helmin Ramovic, leading our program management office; and Fabio Laura leading our operations and manufacturing center in Orlando continue to bring deep operational and execution expertise to our organization. This operational discipline matters because the next chapter of lidar isn't simply about having a great technology. It's about delivering solutions reliably, economically and at scale.

And that's what we're building the new MicroVision to do. Before I turn things over to Steve, I want to briefly touch on our outlook for the balance of 2026. Q1 represents the start of our commercial traction as we focus on integration and operational consolidation, stabilizing those customer programs and transitioning of POs and restarting commercial execution. As we move through the remainder of the year, we expect the operational progress achieved in Q1 to increasingly translate into commercial and financial momentum. And based on this progress that we've made this quarter, we have increased confidence in our outlook for the balance of '26. I'll now turn the call over to Steve to review our first quarter financial performance.

Steve?

Stephen Hrynewich: Thank you, Glen. Before I dive into the financials for the quarter, I want to highlight some key activities that took place during the quarter. First, we closed on the acquisition of Scantinel Photonics in January that, in addition to time-of-flight technology within our current products, added FMCW technology to our product portfolio. Second, we closed on our acquisition of the lidar assets of Luminar Technologies in February that complemented our product portfolio with a long-range lidar solution, bringing immediate revenue, commercial opportunities and talent that is developing the next-generation long-range lidar. As Glen mentioned, our integration of the acquired businesses is progressing well and very efficiently.

Third, we closed on a $43 million financing deal in February with a portion of the funds raised used to repay the $19.5 million of outstanding principal balance and interest on a previous note and the remainder to be used for operating activities. The company has the flexibility to pay the new notes in cash or common stock. These 3 accomplishments are key enablers for us to execute our Lidar 2.0 strategy, enhance our commercial engagements and deliver our growth expectations. Now turning to our financial results. For the first quarter, revenue was $0.9 million, which is a $0.3 million or 50% increase as compared to the same period in 2025.

Our first quarter revenue was driven by sales in all 3 of our focus sectors, automotive, industrial and security and defense, and 75% of the revenue was attributed to the sale of sensors that we acquired from Luminar, underscoring the value of the acquisition with the ready inventory of automotive qualified long-range sensors and an acceleration of our commercial strategy. Gross margin for the first quarter was 39%, a significant increase as compared to the 7% gross margin in the same quarter last year. Turning now to cash burn. Our cash flow from operations plus CapEx for the first quarter was $16.6 million, a $2.4 million increase as compared with the first quarter of last year.

The primary driver of this increase includes the operating costs associated with our recent acquisitions of Scantinel and Luminar with a contributing portion of the increase stemming from nonrecurring expenses related to the acquisitions, including legal, accounting and audit fees. In terms of liquidity, our balance sheet reflected $46.1 million in cash, cash equivalents and investment securities at the end of the first quarter. In addition, we have $42 million available under the current ATM facility. Now let's talk about our full year 2026 guidance. In terms of revenue, we are maintaining our projection of $10 million to $15 million.

And as mentioned on our last call, we expect most of our revenue to come in the second half of the year. We are making great strides in reestablishing trust with our customers post the Luminar acquisition and are seeing commercial traction as a result of those relationships. Regarding cash burn from operations plus CapEx, we are improving our guidance to approximately $60 million for the year from our previous guidance of $65 million to $70 million as we are seeing the benefits of our integration activities and synergy cost reduction actions.

And finally, we are elevating our gross margin guidance from positive to 35% to 40% as we continue to aggressively negotiate our supply agreements and optimize the mix of our sensor sales. As we execute our Lidar 2.0 strategy, enrich our commercial relationships to propel revenue growth, continued financial discipline in spending cash and judiciously engage in capital raise activities, we are well positioned for success in the automotive, industrial and security and defense verticals. Please check out our investor presentation on our website to gain further insights regarding our way forward. Let me now pass it back to Glen for closing remarks.

Glen DeVos: Thank you, Steve. I want to conclude the prepared remarks by reiterating my conviction. Our strategy is working. The new MicroVision has the most comprehensive product portfolio in our industry, which is enabling commercial traction in all 3 of the markets that we serve. Combined with our execution discipline, this will unlock value for our customers and as well will drive significant shareholder value creation. Thank you. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from the line of Casey Ryan from AmerX.

Casey Ryan: A lot of good news to unpack here in the quarter. This was a great update. Can we start with Steve, just hitting on the gross margins? So it sounds like if I heard this correctly, you're expecting 35% to 40% sort of moving forward, I won't say in perpetuity, but certainly for the rest of this year. Did I hear that correctly? And is that accurate that like we should expect that range kind of moving forward?

Stephen Hrynewich: Yes. We finished the first quarter at 39%, as I mentioned, and we're looking at 35% to 40% for the remainder of the year, yes.

Casey Ryan: Sort of long term, sort of the long-term model, 10 years from now when we're a large-scale company. What's the structure of the gross margins? I mean, should this look like a semiconductor business, sort of 50s, 50% to 60%? Or is sort of 40% to 50% kind of a ceiling for this type of business? Or how do you see it long term? I just want to get a delta from all the progress that you suddenly jump to here post acquisitions to maybe where the ultimate ceiling might be in terms of margins?

Stephen Hrynewich: Yes. I think as we progress into the future, we kind of know what our future is all about is kind of focusing on our 3 key sectors, automotive, as we see being way out into the end of this decade as well as early into the next decade. And we expect our revenue to continue to grow. We had good margins this quarter. We're expecting, as I mentioned, 35% to 40% for the year. And I would expect our margins to grow as we progress into the future. Obviously, we need to continue to manage our overall cost base. That's one of our key pieces of our DNA, so to speak.

And then we want to make sure that we continue to capitalize on those revenue opportunities that we are expecting as we go throughout these 3 sectors in the future.

Casey Ryan: Okay. So then I just want to ask a question and maybe there's a lot of moving parts here, but where is the manufacturing happening now for all the different products? Has there been movement or maybe were things -- are things being built where they were being built 12 months ago generally in terms of the different sort of the like Luminar pieces and the Scantinel pieces and the core MicroVision products?

Glen DeVos: Yes, I can speak to this. So Casey, first, great to talk to you again. And as of right now, that's all been consolidated into Orlando. So building MOVIA S there now, IRIS, and then we're building up the ability to build HALO there as well. So that's all happening. IRIS and MOVIA S are in place. HALO is coming as we continue that development. And then that will suffice -- that will serve our needs for the near term. Higher volume plans still remain to be working with an outside contractor. Final determination hasn't been made exactly where, but that will happen over the course of this year.

Casey Ryan: Okay. But like it sounds like -- to support the $10 million to $15 million, certainly, it sounds like Orlando is big enough from a capacity standpoint.

Glen DeVos: Yes. Yes. That's correct.

Casey Ryan: Yes, terrific. So Glen, you were talking about in this announcement with the drone partner is actually quite interesting because, I guess, we've been hearing from industry sources that the weight of lidar units just sort of traditionally has been a little heavy for drones. So clearly, you've made a lot of progress. So I'm just fascinated to learn more about how you sort of maybe tackle the sort of weight issue and if you'd offer up sort of a range of how much your unit might weigh if it's not too competitive in terms of grams, if you give us sort of something in terms of progress.

Glen DeVos: I'm happy to talk about it. Yes, drones are really interesting because from -- if you think about it, what we're talking about is using drones for doing everything from commercial activities to ISR type missions. And the key was -- the key is going to the solid-state technology. So it's a solid-state technology, so you eliminate all the scanning and the moving parts and the motors and all of this to really lightweight that drone. And then the second phase of that is to -- the second piece of that is to have it integrated with the drone architecture itself, not simply like you see today many times, the whole thing is bolted on to the drone.

It's a complete bolt-on type of system. This is looking at optimizing the drone to take advantage of what's already -- or optimizing the payload to take advantage of what's on the drone. So we can lightweight that lidar sensor. And typically, where we want to be is well -- is below 300 grams, moving as quickly as possible to below 200 grams. And that's still having the ability to do processing and most importantly, to do the map generation, the real-time map generation on the drone and then communicating that over secure networks to the ground station.

So whether you're looking at wind turbine blade inspection or inspection of power lines or facilities or looking at terrains and doing ISR missions, getting that weight down, having that solid-state construction is critical and then having the processing capability and software that can create lightweight maps real time on the drone, that's what really opens up that potential for us.

Casey Ryan: And so I've got to say, I think this is something that the market needs. Are you able to sell that solution now to other drone partners or potential customers? Or are you kind of committed to this first partner to sort of bring it to the market for all potential solutions?

Glen DeVos: No, it's not an exclusive arrangement. So that's a structure that is nonexclusive. But obviously, Avular has been a great partner to work with. And so we're -- our first step is always looking at how can we work with them on those solutions. And then for us, we can help bring them into the U.S. market as well. So it's a great relationship, but it's not exclusive. So they can look for other solutions as well. But I think with the work we're doing together, it will be very successful.

Casey Ryan: Yes, this feels like a big leap forward and it feels like you have a real leadership position here with a real pain point in terms of the weight for drones. So that's fantastic. The last question I have, and I appreciate sort of allowing multiple questions. On the FMCW side, I think this is Scantinel primarily. I guess, we're learning more about the ability of that technology to be used in not too much long range, but actually super, super short-range stuff. So semi-cap equipment and sort of like manufacturing things. I know you have many end markets to be going after, but is that an area of potential application or maybe there is some commercial activity around that.

But I'm not sure I appreciate that like FMCW had the sort of good applicability in what we'll call sort of super short-range applications.

Glen DeVos: Yes. It's -- fundamentally it's an interesting technology because with the approach Scantinel has taken, it's very compelling on long -- 1 kilometer and long range or what we call ultra-long-range applications. But the technology is fundamentally applicable to very short-range and high accuracy applications like for robotic end effectors and positioning of relative motion for robotics. And so while we've -- and the technology we're developing at Scantinel really can be used for both. So it has the ability to look at both.

The chip scale package we have that we're developing now that we'll have our A samples out beginning of next year will be more of a -- think of it as a 1D edge emission configuration, so more suitable for long-range scanning. But ultimately, the technology in the 2D version applies very nicely to, like you said, ultra short range. And so we'll be looking at that as well. Initial focus is on ultra-long range where we're seeing some real demand in not just the commercial vehicle, but also the security market, in particular, around drone detection, aerial detection, aerial survey and for security systems and defense systems.

Casey Ryan: Okay. Great. I mean it sounds like sort of the opportunities for this FMCW sort of tech are -- seem to be getting more expansive all the time, which is really correct. Those are my questions for now, but this is a really very positive update.

Operator: I'll now turn this call back over to Steve to read questions submitted by the shareholders.

Stephen Hrynewich: Thank you, operator. Okay. Our first question, in the Lidar 2.0 strategy, how does your product portfolio set you up to win in the automotive, industrial and security and defense sectors that you are targeting?

Glen DeVos: Yes. The -- so I'll start and Steve, I mean, obviously, you can chime in as well. The key -- the really critical aspect of our strategy is having that technology portfolio that allows us to then bring the right -- and you heard me say it over and over, the right solution, the right performance to the end customer for what their needs are. So we're not trying to force fit a one-size-fits-all solution on to all of these different applications. We can bring exactly what they need. If the customer needs a 180x135 sensor for robotaxi application, we can give them exactly that. We're not going to try to sell them a 360-degree spinning sensor.

We're not going to try to sell them a different -- a long-range sensor for a near-field application and adapt it to that. We're going to deliver to them the right performance for that use case. And in doing so, cost optimize that. So we can come and give them exactly what's needed at the right cost. And you'll hear me say this over and over again, it's all about cost delivers adoption and delivers volume. So being able to provide the right solution for that application at the right cost is a critical aspect to it.

The other thing, and this is more from a business standpoint, is the ability to serve those 3 end markets that we always talk about, industrial, security and defense and automotive. What that means is we don't have an overdependency on one particular market or one revenue stream that automotive goes through its cycles. I lived through those in my career with Aptiv and Delphi. You have these ups and these downs. And you want countercyclical revenue streams because security and defense does not cycle the same way that automotive does. Industrial, same thing. They're on different -- they're basically in different cycles. That gives you revenue resilience.

And so you're not overly dependent on one revenue stream, which means that revenue is very fragile depending on what happens in that end market. And then the third piece really is all about the discipline. It's all about financial discipline, discipline and execution and really being able to deliver on your commitments to those customers in those end markets. And when I think about how MicroVision is positioned for Lidar 2.0, it's exactly those 3 dimensions.

Stephen Hrynewich: Okay. Thank you, Glen. I was going to touch on the cost piece, but you beat me to it.

Glen DeVos: No, I beat you to it.

Stephen Hrynewich: Why do you think software is a key enabler in the 2.0 strategy?

Glen DeVos: Software will play 2 really important roles for Lidar 2.0. The first is on the product cost. And what I mean by that is software isn't just an important part of the product. It's how you use the software in the product to drive the cost of the hardware down. So wherever possible, we solve the technical challenge in software, not in hardware. And what that does -- and this is the same thing we did with radar. It's the same thing we've done with cameras. You're continually driving the advancements in performance and the sensing capabilities into the software where you develop it once and you get the benefit essentially for free across all of those products.

It may require more processing. But at the end of the day, processing costs are always coming down. And so software is critical from the standpoint of as a strategy, using software to reduce the cost and the complexity of the hardware. And what we see in the market today, quite frankly, are a lot of lidar companies talking about how great their hardware is. And look at the hardware and look at what the hardware can do. What we want to talk about is look what the product can do and the product can do it because it's software enabled.

The second reason software is so critical, and this is more on the customer-facing part and the open software framework that we talk about is because when you're integrating a sensor, sensors don't operate in a stand-alone manner. They operate as part of a system that has to be integrated with controls, with other sensors, with other software. It's very complex. One of the frustrations and limitations of doing those types of systems integrations is not having the ability to work closely or even collaboratively with the software in those modules, in the sensor. And that's what's different about how MicroVision approaches this. We want to make it easy, seamless for our customers to integrate our products into their architectures.

So it isn't just a black box sitting as part of the architecture that whenever they want to make a change, they've got a -- it's a big pain point for them. It's part of their software. It's literally inherent and integral to their software architecture. So they can optimize their system with our product. They can integrate it. They can control the releases. They can update the systems. It gives them that flexibility, the control. And ultimately, and this is the key, it lowers development and system costs. And so having done large-scale software integration for decades, I know the pain, and I know this is exactly how you address that for our customers.

Stephen Hrynewich: All right, Glen. Next question. In comparison to your competition, how do you see yourselves as differentiated?

Glen DeVos: I think there's a couple of really key things. One is the portfolio. I'll just start with that. We're not single threaded on our technology or our portfolio. I think that's super critical is that we have, like we talked, the broadest technology portfolio, 1550, 905 or 940-nanometer, time of flight, FMCW, solid-state mechanical or electromechanical scanning, MEMS or mirror, polygon mirrors or we have that broad technology portfolio that we can basically, like I said, bring the right solution to the customer, the right combination of technical elements to solve their problems and not being single threaded or trying to make a one-size-fits-all kind of solution. So that gives us a tremendous capability there.

The second is with regard to the open software framework that we just talked about. You don't hear other people talking about that. And I think that's a critical part of how we can be competitive. Like I said, it helps the customer do their job better. It addresses their pain points, but it makes us a sticky partner and really a close partner for them, which is exactly what you want.

The other piece of it is in our -- just our focus on cost and being able to scale the product and to be able to scale it at the right cost level for our customers, ultimately enabling them to create value when they offer their solution that is using our product. And that's a critical part. We provide a sensor into a system. We're not successful if that our customers' sales of that system isn't successful.

And so for us, it's critical that's why that cost discipline is so important because you don't get to mass adoption until you get to a cost level that enables our customers to be successful for the end consumer, whether that's an industrial customer or a person buying a car or a security and defense customer until they see the value in acquiring that system or that product from our customers. And so I think that's a critical element of it. And then for security and defense, we're a U.S. and German company.

And so when you look at our footprint, how we design, how we build, how we develop our software, that's in the U.S. and Germany, which is really, really critical for security and defense applications. We're the only true solid-state flash lidar non-Chinese supplier. And so that gives us certain advantages that at the end of the day, for those markets, it's an important characteristic.

Stephen Hrynewich: Okay. Thanks, Glen. Can you provide more insight into your commercial activities within the 3 sectors you are focused on? And what are your plans to showcase your products to demonstrate your technology specific to these 3 sectors?

Glen DeVos: Yes. I'll start with industrial, and I'll group industrial into kind of broadly 2 categories, and it's because the go-to-market there is very different for those -- the commercial sales motion is very different. And those are -- the industrial customers, which for us is off-road construction, off-road autonomy, those kind of -- those mining, those kind of vehicles and as well as industrial automation, so the warehouse environment and all of that. So when you talk about industrial, kind of the off-road piece of construction equipment, off-road hauling, that kind of thing, our approach there is working directly with those customers.

And that's where Luminar had done a really nice job with a number of those customers that we're using them for mining, using them for off-road, off-road hauling. 1550 Time-of-Flight is a great technology operating within dust for longer range. And so really it was reestablishing those relationships, rebuilding those and then resuming shipments to them while they do their development with launch timing in later next year. The -- in that market, you're doing -- you're just -- you're working directly with the OEMs typically. When you talk about industrial automation, warehouse automation, this is AGVs, AMRs, automated forklifts and all robots, that's a very different market.

And that served either for a few of those OEMs, you work directly with them because they have the capability to do that complete system definition, that system integration, that whole -- the engineering associated with that. Not every company in that market has the ability to do that. And then you typically are working through resellers or distributors. And we definitely want to and are engaging with resellers to discuss with them how they can sell MOVIA S or how they can sell MOVIA L or those products because it's primarily a short-range game, how they can sell those in addition to providing value-added services.

So we're going to leverage those distributors and those value-add resellers for that broader adoption. Now in terms of what are we doing in those markets, well, what you're seeing is -- as we continue to develop our lidar collision avoidance systems, we're showcasing that in trade shows. We're doing that in -- on the website and LinkedIn, you name it. And we're getting a lot of interest there because we can offer a low-cost, basically collision avoidance system for everything from forklifts, human-operated forklifts to scissor lifters to you name it. And so a lot of interest there, which is why our launch of MOVIA S with LCAS inside is so critical for the later this year.

But you're going to see us continue to make progress in that market throughout the course of the year. And that will be mostly through what we showcase. For security and defense, it's -- that's a little bit of -- that's a very different market in that you're really talking about defense industry, so working with primes and then also talking about working with companies that are involved with security around installations or traffic kind of municipality security or traffic management, these types of things. And in that case, it's working more directly with those companies. But what we'll showcase we'll either announce -- and that's -- I mentioned we're engaged with traffic management.

That's using IRIS to do vehicle and speed detection for vehicles on highways, looking at stop sign detection as well. And so a host of traffic management-related applications where we're working directly with those OEMs and they integrate our solution into theirs. And that you'll hear about as we announce more and more of those deals. With regard to defense, though, what we're doing there is like we did with the AUVSI webinar, we're showcasing here's how our perception on a drone can extend the perception of an autonomous ground-based vehicle. It's very targeted towards drone and UAV-related activities for the defense sector.

That, in turn, gets us connected with companies that are interested in those technologies, either drone companies or complete application companies, primes or people that just want to payload. And so like the Avular announcement, as those engagements continue or expand, we'll be talking about them. Defense, obviously, a little bit differently than we would talk about commercial applications. But it's really -- in that market, it's about demonstrating the capability, showing what the capability can do and then working towards deployment. And that's why that Avular deal and what we're doing, I mentioned some other aspects why those are so important because that's that step towards mass deployment.

And then finally, for automotive, as I mentioned, the OEMs, passenger car OEMs, I would just characterize the whole first generation, the Level 3 as really being a learning phase, let me put it that way. This is learning about the technology for the OEMs and the supply base, was learning what does the consumer want. And the big takeaway was Level 3 offerings by the OEMs at the price point they were coming at USD 8,000, USD 9,000, it just wasn't compelling enough. You can get a complete ADAS solution with a bunch of really valuable features like adaptive cruise control, backup cameras, blind spot detection, you can automatic lane changing for several thousand dollars.

You're not going to pay $8,000, $9,000 for incremental benefit, that's not that significant. And so I think it was an important phase in the last 3, 4 years of learning for the OEMs as they're kind of reformulating their strategies around Level 3 and what do they really want to be able to offer that consumer, we're showing them what we can do. And that's where Tri-Lidar, I think, is important because it's a way of increasing lidar perception but at a lower system cost. You simplify the individual sensors to where you can bring their cost down and lower the total system cost.

And I think we've talked about $200 for short-range sensor, less than $300 for long range. It has to go for mass adoption, it has to go well below that as well. So it's -- there's a lot of work to be done there. We're working with the OEMs on that. In the meantime, robotaxi and commercial vehicle, ADAS, those are real opportunities. And you're seeing that scale. MOVIA S is a great product for those, HALO is a good product for those applications. So we're focusing on that. And that's why the ACT in Las Vegas was so good. It showed us integrating HALO, long-range 1550 Time-of-Flight sensor with -- I think it was 4 MOVIA Ss.

So you had Tri-Lidar, there were more sensors than 3. But it showed a full 360 perception system and point cloud around that. So 940 flash lidar with 1550 Time-of-Flight, long-range scanning lidar, all integrated into a unified perception system for that vehicle, which is a very powerful demonstration, giving them very good coverage. And so those types of demonstrations can continue to show, hey, MicroVision's value prop for those markets. Same with robotaxis, where that's moving forward. It's not at the same scale as pass cars would normally be, but it's still meaningful volume that we want to be a part of. And MOVIA S and HALO are great products for that. There you go. Long answer, Steve, sorry.

Stephen Hrynewich: I just want to add to that. Just one thing with regard to those commercial activities, with our recent acquisition of Luminar, we've dramatically increased our customer base. As of right now, our pipeline is up across these 3 verticals. We have more than 100-plus customers and prospects that we are working with. This is clearly a sign for us that's going to help us grow our revenue this year and obviously grow our revenue as we progress into the future.

Glen DeVos: Yes. One of the things that -- just not to drag this out, but one of the great parts about those commercial activities is we're now able to bring -- it wasn't just about normalizing, hey, here's IRIS, here's HALO. The Luminar products, it was also our ability to bring the MicroVision portfolio to our systems, our short-range sensors, the software that we already had as well as Scantinel. So you now -- I mean -- so it was exposing our complete portfolio to those customers, which has been really interesting because that's broadened the discussion meaningfully than just those accounts as they were prior to the acquisition.

Stephen Hrynewich: Okay. Next question. What specific milestones should investors watch for over the next 12 to 18 months that would signal transition from development stage engagements to recurring commercial revenue?

Glen DeVos: I think there's 3 things to look at. I mean -- and the first is obviously us announcing those things. And this is always an interesting one because not all customers, and this is a long tradition within certainly auto and other developed markets is not all customers want suppliers to announce that customer. But we'll be talking about those wins in general terms to show that. So as those wins come in or are solidified and those contracts get in, we'll talk about that. The second is the milestones that we want to showcase. And I would say the ACT Tri-Lidar demonstration, the AUVSI webinar on MOVIA Air, a drone-based MOVIA Air real-time mapping.

We'll have another webinar coming up later that talks about -- that will talk about why lidar is part of that perception system. So there will be these milestones that we'll promote and that we'll talk about. We'll have a multi-drone milestone, I think, coming up in this summer where we'll show multiple drones working with the ground vehicle and a handheld basically tablet doing real-time mapping. So these are these events and milestones. We'll be at the Hannover conference in September. So that will show what we're doing with commercial vehicles. And so you'll see those types of milestones and those announcements throughout the balance of the year as we make progress with our development.

And then the third, and ultimately, this is what translates to is the guidance we give and the confidence we express in that guidance and discussions like today. So those are the 3 things that over the course of the year, we'll be engaged with and promoting.

Stephen Hrynewich: Good. Okay. Are there opportunities for NRE revenue this year?

Glen DeVos: Yes, there are. I would say -- and that's always an interesting one because we want to make sure that with NRE, you're not just in a science project, you're spending your engineering resources and to move towards commercial success. So in that regard, I would say the bigger opportunities are really in security and defense, where they're looking at -- I mean, just there's a massive amount of capital moving into that space now in particular, around drones and autonomous ground vehicles and autonomous naval vessels.

So you have -- there's just -- and so to the extent that our technology can be adapted or can be applied in that area, which it can, there's many, many very good applications. There's funding in NRE available to help us develop that. And so we'll take advantage of that when it lines up with our product plans and when there's commercial success as the outcome. So there's definitely NRE opportunities there. And then as you get into automotive, whether it's CV and the automotive, that typically you see that in predevelopment contracts, which can be interesting, but we've seen a lot of predevelopment contracts in automotive turn into science projects and really not translate into high-volume applications.

And so again, we'll be very careful and thoughtful about where we spend our engineering in those areas because we want to make sure that, again, as we put our -- as we invest our time and energy into a customer and on to a customer development activity that we're confident at the end of that development activity, there's volume and that there's real revenue. It's not -- NRE is not just -- we're not an engineering services company. We want to develop products and sell products and manufacture those products. Industrial, not as much.

I would say, industrial, generally speaking, tends to be lower for warehouse and industrial warehouse automation and all of that, that tends to not be an NRE-rich environment. Industrial off-road in that area, there's definitely NRE development dollars there. So as we look across those 3 end markets, there's meaningful NRE opportunities there, but those opportunities consume resources. So it's just so critical for us that we agree to do something and get paid to do it, there's a commercial outcome at the end of it that we want.

Stephen Hrynewich: Okay. And finally, how is the integration of the recent acquired companies going? And have you seen the synergies that you were expecting?

Glen DeVos: Yes. The -- first of all, the integration is going exactly on plan with what we expected. And there's a lot to that. There's all of the kind of the plumbing and wiring, the infrastructure piece of it. How do you get everybody onto the same systems? How do you get people working that have different IT structures and different tool chains and everything else. How do you get that all aligned? And that's gone very well in terms of in general, just ensuring that there's no disruptions to our workday. Now it takes a little longer. It tends to be the engineering tools and the technology portfolio.

And in this case, we're not talking -- from a hardware standpoint, you're not trying to combine a VCSEL SPAD 905-nanometer technology with a 1550 Time-of-Flight scanning architecture. So those are complementary. So there's not -- you're not trying to integrate those. You are on the software side, though. We're trying to have a common software architecture that underpins all of these products. So the sensor models, the point cloud and the perception models. All of these things, it's a common architecture so that as we develop different hardware variants, you're not rearchitecting the software completely. That's -- there's a ton of money spent there if you have to maintain all different software architectures.

And so that's the piece that we're working through now. The good news is, for me, was the software architectures from Luminar and MicroVision were actually very similar. SENTINEL from Luminar, MOSAIK from MicroVision, perception stats had a lot of commonality. And so we're not having to fight through a bunch of issues associated with very dissimilar architectures. It's actually quite the opposite. So now it's a matter of, okay, what works best for what we're trying to do. And the teams have been -- Greg and the whole team has been very -- has been really good with that. In terms of organization, that's all done. How the organization is structured, the team structures, that's behind us.

And so now it's just about getting to work. But when you do these integrations, you can always find really hard pain points in terms of the integrations. We've been fortunate that, that has not been the case. And so that allows us to focus on customers and focus on kind of the commercial side of it as opposed to having to sort out internal issues, which has been great.

Stephen Hrynewich: Yes. The only thing to add to that is just with regards to the synergies, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we originally guided on $65 million to $70 million with regards to cash used in operations plus CapEx. With all the synergies that we're finding just through the integration process that we're doing, we improved that, I should say, going down to $60 million, approximately $60 million for the year. So we are seeing those synergies impact us on a full year basis.

Glen DeVos: Yes. That's exactly right.

Stephen Hrynewich: Okay. So this concludes our Q&A session. I just want to thank everybody for participating today and your continued support of MicroVision. Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. All parties may disconnect, and have a great day.