Ocean Power Technologies, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Ocean Power Technologies Fiscal Year 2025 Q1 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may be placed into question queue at any time by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Chief Financial Officer Bob Powers. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and good morning. After the market closed yesterday, we issued our earnings press release and filed our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ending July 31, 2024. Our public filings are available on the SEC website and within the Investor Relations section of the OPT website. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements that are within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may include financial projections or other statements of the company's plans, objectives, expectations, or intentions. These statements are based on the assumptions made by management regarding future circumstances over which the company may have little or no control and involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Additional information about these risks and uncertainties can be found in the company's Form 10-K and subsequent filings with the SEC. The company disclaims any obligation or intention to update the forward-looking statements made on this call. we posted an updated investor presentation on our IR website. Please take a moment to review it as it provides a nice full review of our company and strategy. Now, I am pleased to introduce Dr. Philip Strappett.

Thank you, Bob. Good morning. We appreciate you joining us. The first quarter of fiscal 2025 saw us continue to make significant progress towards positive cash flow in calendar year 2025 for our company. This quarter saw us advance several strategic partnerships with established and highly reputable companies, materially reduce our operating expenses, progress our technical advancements to support further commercial growth, and build upon the significant increase in pipeline we achieved during fiscal 2024. Today, I will focus on the significant developments occurring recently and the resulting confidence they provide toward achieving our goals for fiscal 2025. First, we recently announced that we completed more than four months of offshore testing of our next generation power buoy in the Atlantic Ocean of New Jersey. This solar and wind power equipped next generation power buoy was equipped with our proprietary artificial intelligence capable Mero suite of solutions. The system maintained 100% data uptime and the state of charge of the batteries remained over 90% throughout the deployment. During the deployment, Several intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance demonstrations for potential customers were completed. Additionally, in May 2024, we announced we were approaching 15 MWh of renewable energy production from our family of power buoys. The just-mentioned deployment of our next-generation power buoy off the coast of New Jersey materially accelerated average energy production by combining solar, wind, and wave energy production capabilities. Our energy production numbers show that non-grid connected marine energy production is not just for the R&D community, but is a commercially available solution. Finally, we recently announced our patent application for our docking and recharging buoy technology, specifically designed for the WAM-V. This advanced system has already been successfully demonstrated, showcasing its potential to revolutionize the operational efficiency of autonomous marine vessels. This development aligns with our broader strategy to enhance the functionality and versatility of our MEROS platform, bringing artificial intelligence capable solutions to the ocean, thereby expanding our market reach and supporting a variety of customer needs. Each of these innovations stands as a testament to OPT's dedication and leadership role in supporting the security and protection of global waterways and positions us to capitalize on the expected growth in these areas while solidifying the company's unique position as a groundbreaking systems provider. In addition, we advanced strategic alliances with a number of complementary industry leaders. In August 2024, we announced the signing of the latest of four new reseller agreements targeted supporting global critical services. These agreements include opportunities for partnering with allied nations in areas like the South China Sea, previously announced efforts in Latin America, and the Middle East, and servicing global commercial markets. We also announced additional developments in our integration of AT&T's 5G systems for our power boots, most notably for the deployment of the Naval Postgraduate School and the integration of Teledyne Marine's industry-leading suite of underwater sensors. These partnerships provide the amplification for us to proactively serve the demand for our autonomous maritime technologies. We believe these partnerships will further accelerate our growth and drive additional revenue streams. We look forward to further strategic partnerships in the near future that specifically focus on supporting our expanding efforts in Latin America and the Middle East. Finally, as Bob will detail momentarily, during Q1, we realized the initial benefits of the significant cost reduction activities we implemented at the end of fiscal 2024. including significant reductions in cash burn and operating expenses. In closing, our business is performing well. As a result of the foundation and opportunities I've just described, we remain on track to achieve our previously stated goal of attaining profitability during the fourth quarter of calendar 2025. Now I will hand it over to Bob to discuss our financial performance in more detail.