Gorilla Technology Group Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Guerrilla Technology Group, Inc. earnings call for the first quarter of 2025. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. Before we begin, we will read the forward looking statement. Today's call includes forward looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements reflect management's current expectations and projections about future events and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Forward looking statements often include terms such as expects, believes, plans, anticipates, may, should, and similar expressions. For a discussion of important factors that could affect GORILLA's results, please refer to our filings with the SEC, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F. Except as required by law, GORILLA undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements made on this call, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jay Chandon. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Bruce Bauer, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Bruce Bauer Thank you very much, Nick.

Well, for everyone who's here today, first of all, welcome to our conference call. I'm delighted you all could join. This has been one of the most operationally significant quarters in Gorillaz history. We are expanding across the United States, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, converting the real pipeline into delivery and deepening partnerships with some of the world's most respected institutions. Guerrilla is scaling fast and executing harder. The quarter reflects exactly what we have been building towards, strong financial performance, global expansion, and material progress across smart infrastructure, AI security, and national digital systems. What you all are seeing right now is not an early-stage growth. It's a strategic expansion. We're securing projects in ports, airports, data centers, hospitals, education, law enforcement, and all of this is now moving from negotiation to execution. Over the last two years, we have made deliberate decisions to focus inward, fixing the fundamentals, which is very key for our business, restructuring globally, scaling our delivery capabilities, hiring the right people, and proving above all that we can execute. Now, we are not just a hybrid company. While others were chasing headlines and inflated projections, we were securing national infrastructure contracts, deploying mission-critical systems in the public sector, and more importantly, getting our financial house in order. That meant tightening our operations, rebuilding teams, pushing through complexity in multiple markets, quietly, consistently, and without the need for a drumroll. Now, with our revenue up more than 100% year-on-year, And with a positive net income, and more importantly, with a 5 million plus pipeline and real deals being delivered across Southeast Asia, Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, and beyond, the results are loud enough, or I believe the results are loud enough on their own. We're seeing immense acceleration from Q2, Q3, Q4, going into 2026. And I couldn't be more excited to join you all on this call and let you know that, you know, we are positioned for a very strong 25th as well. Bruce, do you want to take them through the numbers on a very high level?

Yes. So I would like to mention a few of the highlights that I'm sure you've seen from the release. So the first is, of course, the revenue of $18.3 million, 109% year-on-year growth. But not only that, we're quite happy with the adjusted EBITDA of $5.16 million, which represents a 48% increase year-on-year, and then the adjusted mid-income of $4.47 million, which is a 46.7% increase. In total, this means that we're executing well on the contracts, the business that we have, and it's flowing through into profitability. The other thing I'd like to point out is that the balance sheet remains strong. So the first thing is total cash reserves, both restricted and unrestricted, closed the quarter at $73.8 million. In addition, we did that while managing to reduce debt. So the debt has dropped from over $20 million at the end of the year to $18.4 million. Subsequent to the close of the quarter, we actually have reduced the debt further to $17 million as of today. We've done that in a cash-neutral fashion where basically we have blocked deposits that are collateralizing the loan, so pay off a dollar of debt that releases a dollar of blocked deposit. So we're very proud of the way that we've managed the balance sheet in this time. A couple of other things I'd like to point out. is, first of all, the cap table. So we ended the first quarter with less than 20 million shares outstanding, slightly less than 20 million, and now it's a hair over 20 million shares outstanding at 20.15. And then the fully diluted share count remained the same because that increase in outstanding shares came due to the exercise of warrants. The other thing I'd like to point out is that during the second quarter, so subsequent to the earnings release, we spent $1.8 million on share buyback. So that means that we've spent a total of $5.4 million on the buyback program in the last 12 months. In addition to that, we have a total of $10 million program authorized. So that gives us $4.6 million of remaining capacity. We've done all this with the business, with the balance sheet, while also investing for the future. So Jay, of course, mentioned some of the pipeline and some of the partnerships that we have. I would like to highlight, first of all, the one Amazon partnership where in the first quarter we made a $1.5 million investment. We followed with $3.5 million in the second quarter. So a total commitment of $5 million to secure that long-term partnership. I'm sure Jay can mention more about what's going on in general with that, but we're very happy to be participating in this partnership in a financial way. At the moment, you can see that that investment is carried at cost on the balance sheet for the quarter. One other thing I'd like to point out is the guidance. So the guidance has remained for 2025 the same. where it's $100 to $110 million is the revenue guidance. This is based on a backlog, which is revenue that we have secured in the sense of where we have contracts signed and is either due to be implemented or it's being implemented already. There's a date attached to the revenue. And we expect an EBITDA of $20 to $25 million based on that revenue number, and then a net profit in the range of $15 to $20 million. Of course, that excludes extraordinary items. So that guidance remains the same. And then 2026, we are not in a position to issue guidance for the full year, but we can say that the backlog continues to shape up. So it's at 70 million for 2026. And then also we have several projects that we have talked about where it's in the proof of concept stage and advancing. So we are confident that that backlog will grow. And then the last thing is Jay mentioned that we have over 5 billion in pipeline and qualified leads. The SHARP observers will note that that is actually decreased from earlier in the year, whereas over 6 billion. The reason for that is actually because our MOU with the PEA, the Provincial Electricity Theory in Thailand, has moved into proof of concept stage, so it's no longer a qualified lead. It's in the proof of concept stage. So that is the reason for the drop. Outside of that, actually, the qualified leads, you know, the amount of sort of contract, potential contract value attached to them grew. And then one other thing, not quantitative, but I'd like to talk about the funding. So as you can tell, we have strong balance sheets, which is like in terms of cash balance, both restricted and unrestricted cash. and also the debt that continues to reduce. The funding that we have on the balance sheet now is enough to tackle the projects that we have signed already, and it's enough to tackle what we envision as the projects that we'll be signing shortly. If we were to sign more projects that need funding, then we would first look for project-level funding. Second would be debt or debt-like insurance, and only then maybe when we look for equity. But I'd just like to emphasize that we're very confident in the balance sheet that we have and our ability to take on new projects without, first of all, hopefully without having to raise outside funding. And if we do have to raise outside funding, Jay and I remain committed to protecting shareholders. Those are the main points from me. Back to you, Jay, or over to the moderator.

Thank you. Nick, I'm happy to take questions so that we can respond, get some more time and respond more diligently to all the questions both the analysts and the shareholders may have.

Gotcha. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. For any additional questions we ask that you please rejoin the queue. We will now pause for just a moment as callers join the queue. And your first question today will come from Brian Kinslinger with Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Nice results. Hopefully we can dig I thought I heard your comment that helped clarify, but I want to make sure I understand. For the Royal Thai tourist police contract that you had originally talked about, $50 to $60 million, can you remind us, is this a signed purchase order? Did you just say you were going into POC? And just maybe I'd like to hash out if details have already been completed or where you are in that process.

Right. First of all, thanks for joining in. The Royal Thai project has actually exceeded our expectations. We started out with a simple proof of concept. And as I'm not sure if you've seen, the National Daily actually put out a press release about us. This is the National Daily put out a press release about gorillas and was commending our AI surveillance systems. What we've helped them do, as soon as we finished the proof of concept, was to apprehend a little more than 200 suspects every week, which has been a real success. That, for me, in the real world, speaks for itself. We are closely working with the leadership to expand and deepen the platform capabilities nationwide. We have now been asked to actually work on a multitude of projects because of the success of this. And as you can see, tourism is growing quite significantly in Thailand. They've gone from having 32 million tourists to 43 million tourists a year. What we are doing is we are now integrating the Royal Thai Police with the Royal Thai Tourist Police, with the immigration, working with the AOT, And finally, we're going to be working with the individual provinces of each of those key islands, including Phuket, Kuwait, Similin, James Bond, Koh Phi Phi, Phang Nga Bay, and so on and so forth. What they are asking us to do is not just deploy surveillance systems, but they're also asking us to build connectivity across these two islands so that they could keep in touch and allow each of these tourists to travel safely across all these islands so that they don't get lost. And this is also helping them connect to the emergency services at any given point of time where they're going to use an RFID tag or their mobile phones if they're stranded or lost. And that would be guerrilla technology as well. I hope that answers your question.

It did mostly. I just want to make sure I understood. The $50 million to $60 million that was discussed, is that the total opportunity of the Thai police and the islands? Is that a signed contract number? Just take me through. I think there's questions about those kinds of things about your contract. So just take us through what has been signed versus what's the opportunity. Perfect.

So the one that is being signed is to a tune of $50 to $60 million. What we are now going towards or headed towards is where we've actually got a teaming agreement with them, and I can confirm that. that we will be looking at a total size of between $500 to $550 million for the entirety of the project. But this is spread over five to six years, just FYI.

That's the addressable opportunity. Got it.

That is the addressable opportunity.

Yep. So I've got a few more. I'm going to ask one question and respect and go back in the queue because I have a few more. Again, talking to... You put out a lot on different contracts. Can you update us on where you are with that large $400 million opportunity for the smart education contracts? I believe that was MOU, and we're six months down the road. What's the progress you're making on a formal agreement? Thank you.

Brian, I understand it's been a little over six months, but let me tell you, the world has been in turmoil. For sure. And all governments have been shaking. shaking every single day, as you can imagine. So, you know, decisions have been, you know, have been very complicated. Political situations have been also very complicated, but that did not stop us from pushing. We've been pushing. And I'm very happy to report that we're in the late stage negotiation process on actually two of the projects, of the education projects. One is for smart education. And on top of that, they've just added a little nugget, which is another $80-plus million for smart cloud infrastructure for the same educational project as well. As I mentioned, we are working to get their support, their final support, both of which are very transformative. And if you give me a few more slides, days, maybe a couple weeks, two to four weeks, I will be able to give you a more concrete, solid update by then. But I can tell you that we are literally in the last stage right now.

Don't commit to weeks. When it happens, it happens. You'll update us. Thank you. And I'll get back in the queue and ask tomorrow when I'm back.

If I could just chip in one thing. So when we announced an initial MOU or something along those lines with clients. That's usually based on the proposal that we've made. All sides understand the proposal, the scope, et cetera, and we move forward on that basis. But governments, when it's dealing with critical national infrastructure and security, they don't just say, let's go and do everything all at once. There's usually a proof-of-concept phase where we test it, We make sure that everything works as planned. The economics are what's planned, et cetera. And then it moves into a rollout phase where it's more copy paste and scale over. So typically when we announce an agreement like this, for instance, with the Royal Thai tourist police, you know, the initial scope, we have to go through a proof of concept phase that takes months and for a larger opportunity may even take a year or more. And the whole process, The purpose of that is to make sure it works properly, and then it moves into a binding agreement where all sides are happy with the scope, who's going to do what, what timeframes, what milestones, billing cycles, et cetera. So the timing may be a little frustrating for investors where things take longer than they would like, but that's the only way that it's going to happen.

Thank you. Great. I'll get back in the queue.

And if you have a question, please press star and then one. And your next question today will come from John Roy with Water Tower Research. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Hey, last one, a quarter. I was curious as to what definitive steps you're taking to sustain the growth. Obviously, this kind of growth is amazing, but it's difficult to continue. I was wondering if you'd give us some color as to the steps you're taking to continue the growth.

John, great question and good to hear from you. So there are five to six key steps we are taking today. First of all, as you know, we built a strong foundation. We're scaling towards what we call position. First step, we're converting pipeline into revenue. We have a very significant qualified pipeline. What we're doing in Q2 and Q3 is we're laser-focused on converting these launch deals, which are an eight-stage negotiation. Bruce touched upon it. It is frustrating for shareholders. It is frustrating for us. But we have not lost sight. These are across public safety, education, energy, in regions such as Southeast Asia, Latin America, Middle East, North Africa, and the United States. And this is not just pipeline for the sake of PR, as many have alluded to. It is active, progressing, and type of national outcomes. Second, we are very actively working across major deployments in the progress. For example, we are now entering into multi-year contracts. None of our contracts, none of our contracts are one-year contracts. The minimum is three, five. I think the average is about seven to ten now is what we've been looking at. So what we are doing is we're working with national stakeholders to get them to understand the difference between an OpEx model and a CapEx model, making sure that these deployments will show up meaningfully for our guerrilla at the same time, not just in Q2, Q3, and Q4, but 26, 27, and 28. We are looking at new markets and new partnerships. That's number three. That's our foot number three, or prong number three. We expect... to announce new market entry, including further expansion into the regions I've just mentioned. But at the same time, we're also advancing our discussion with very well-known household main partners, particularly around energy, AI, hardware integration. And these alliances are only helping us scale faster whilst we maintain a capital discipline. The fourth most important approach is our financial discipline. We could be going out willy-nilly and spending a lot of money trying to bring growth, but what we are focused on is profitable growth. We're not chasing it purely because of at any cost, but more importantly, what we are doing is we're scaling with structure. What is important to us, margins, EBITDA, cash flow, they remain core to our KPIs. The fifth most important point is we are keeping a very keen eye on media and market visibility. We are making sure that investors are taking note. They're starting to pay attention to the world. With earnings, new partnerships, global projects in motion, we hope that Q2 and Q3 will be more a period of increased exposure and momentum building. And last, to round it off, John, We're also pursuing strategic acquisition in Southeast Asia. We're finalizing currently on an acquisition in Thailand that will allow us to get operational depth and local scale. This will allow us to consolidate regional operations and turn Gorilla into a dominant AI infrastructure player, not just in Thailand, but also across the entire ASEAN region. We expect to close that sometime in Q2 and begin the integration in Q3.

I hope that answers your question. Great, Jay. Yeah, that does a great job. Maybe this was one for Bruce as a follow-up. I mean, what is the state of your pipeline or backlog? And maybe you could give us some color on what is in that and what is not in that, if you know what I mean.

Without going into specific contracts, I would say that in 2017, 25, the guidance is we have 93 million of backlog for this year. That is almost entirely due to existing contracts and clients. And then that's three large clients and then several sort of smaller ones. For next year, we count the backlog at 70 million so far. That is a couple of existing clients And then that is several smaller new contracts that start end of 2025, but most of the financial benefit hits in 2026.

Great. Thanks, Bruce. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. And your next question today will come from Mike Lattimore with Northland Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Aditya on behalf of Mike Latimer. So could you give some color on if you expect sequential revenue growth each quarter this year and also some color on the gross margins?

Did you say sequential? Sequential, yeah. Revenue growth.

Revenue growth, yeah. Yeah, sequential revenue growth.

Right. Do you want to take that?

Yeah. So our guidance is for the full year. We don't guide to any particular quarter. And that's just because some of the, you know, the government clients and sometimes the timing could slip by a week or something. So we don't want to risk the quarter by saying, you know, that every quarter will be stair step up. But I, you know, it's obvious from the full year guidance compared to the first quarter that the second half will be stronger than the first half in terms of top line. In terms of gross margin, we guide to 40% to 45% for this year. Jay mentioned about our financial discipline, and I think that's a very good point. So the first is that we have basically a cutoff for new projects of 40%. The other thing is that given the scale of the number of qualified leads and the number of new opportunities that are coming our way every day is we're basically tightening up the terms that we accept. So like Jay mentioned, you know, in terms of margins, in terms of length of contracts, duration, et cetera, the nature of the mix, we're trying to be much more disciplined. So the aim is to drift, is to see the gross margins drift higher over the next two or three years, hopefully towards close to the 45% to 50% range.

Got it. And what is the current headcount and where might that be by the year end?

Great question. So we're currently north of about 200 plus. Those are full-time employees. Contractors will be in the middle, over 100. With the acquisition closing, we'll be at about 300 full-time employees. And by the end of this year, we should be between 300 to 400 full-time employees and probably between 100 to 200 contractors. As you can see, Aditya, we've been hiring quite significantly in India, Egypt, and in Thailand. And what we are going to do is scale book loads. That's great.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And your next question today is coming from Brian Kinslinger with Alliance Global Partners with a follow-up. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. Three quick questions. The first on the Amazon contract, you've spent $5 million in terms you said of investments. What is it that you're investing? Where is that money going towards, and how much more investment is needed?

Bruce, do you want to talk about the safe agreement and then talk about it? Yes.

Yes. So, so we have a safe agreement. We're basically one Amazon, which is the company that does two things. You know, we have an equity stake in that. So for those not familiar, the safe means a simple agreement for future equity. So when they do a price funding rounds, that is the moment in which we're issued the equity. But right now this is a, this is a contract that will guarantee us equity in that event. So one Amazon, Jay will go into more detail, but basically this is not in the token. This is in the parent company that manages the token and also the impact investments. So it's the top goal.

Okay. So that gives you financial interest. Got it.

That's why we brought Corilla on board of the company as well. The One Amazon project, as you may know, is a 30-year project for environmental monitoring across the Amazon basis. On the capital side, we are in deep, deep discussions with leading family offices, institution investors, and development banks across the US and Latin America. This is not just an environmental data project. What we're calling it is a new financial framework for valuing and protecting natural capital using real-time AI-driven intelligence. Now, the reason why we've been very active and what we are doing right now is three things. One, we are working with strategic partners and creating a global validation. So as you know, we have partners such as ACOM, Goldman Sachs, MIT, TAC, Media Labs, and so on. And what we are doing is that we're expecting this alliance to become a gold standard for climate-aligned finance. Now, if you look at the second aspect of the OneAmazon, we are actively engaged in evaluating the deployment, of our own constellation of low-orbit satellites so that we can provide sovereign environmental intelligence over the Amazon itself, replacing overpriced third-party services and putting us in control of our own data economy. This is important because this would mean that Gorilla, along with OneAmazon, will launch its own low-orbit satellites. So we are actively looking at whether we purchase these satellites or actually we buy the company itself. That's number two. Third, what we are also doing is actually we're building a model where we're not just talking about deploying value for the token, we're actually creating value for the data that is being generated. So what are we doing today? We're working very closely with companies who are potentially going to be investing into ecotourism, renewable energy, agroforestry, biodiversity, credit monetization, and so on and so forth. And as I mentioned previously, Brian, 25% of the funds of every dollar raised is going towards Gorilla for technology deployment, and we're well-positioned to create both, you know, increasingly intensive token value and long-term recurring data revenue. And as I've mentioned, this is putting us in control of our own data economy. I hope that answers your question.

It does. Thank you. My last two-part question for Bruce, I think, is a numbers question. First, the gross margin of the quarter was about 500 points below your target. I assume that's more hardware deliveries and that the remainder of the year will be less weighted towards hardware? That's my first question. Is that true or is that what you're thinking? And then second, on the cash flow, you would have been cash flow positive, but you've got this large unbilled receivable, a very large outflow. Maybe just speak to that and how that might reverse itself so you'll be generating cash for the remainder of the year maybe.

Yes. So on the on the first one, that is absolutely correct. So there was a disproportionate amount of hardware, you know, more than sort of what we expect for the full year in the mix in the first quarter. And that is what that is what that's one of the reasons. The second thing is that in terms of the overall margins for the company is first quarter is usually the slowest. So, you know, in terms of business and we also carry higher SG&A costs. So there's usually 13 months in Taiwan, there's usually some other kind of costs. At the same time, activity is slower. So yeah, those are the two reasons why the margins are both gross and then EBITDA margins would be a little bit weaker in the first quarter. And we expect that to normalize over the full year. Like I mentioned, we target the full year, not an unusual quarter because things can move around. And then second, to your second question, I'm sorry, I'm blanking on it.

You have an $18 million outflow for unbilled. So I assume you have an invoice yet, but maybe just take us through dynamics of that in collections.

Yes. So there are two components to it. So one is what we need to bill, and the second is what we need to collect. So in the second quarter so far, we haven't raised any new invoices, substantial new invoices. We will do that in the, in the remaining two weeks. And then we have collected on the receivables that were there. We've collected about 7 million on the receivables that were there at the, sorry, 5 million on the receivables and 2 million was released with guarantee and the receivables that were there in the end of the first quarter. So the cash is, is moving in the right direction. And then basically we we are, We're collecting on some of the other receivables. We anticipate collecting on them either before the end of June or in July.

The $18 million outflow is you didn't invoice yet to some of your customers for your work. Is that right?

That's correct. So we didn't really invoice in the first quarter. And then the second thing is that we performed a lot of work or we deliver a lot of goods. So that's why.

Got it. Okay, thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Nick. Bruce, do you want me to take this? Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Everybody who's listening in should know I've been awfully quiet, and that's with a purpose. It has been a phenomenal period of momentum and expansion for Gorilla. As I mentioned to Brian and the rest of the team, John and so on, we're scaling rapidly. We're currently engaged in projects across infrastructure, port, seaport, data centers, and so on. We're expanding very rapidly across Asia. As I mentioned, we're in the final contracting stages for quite a number of projects. Our One Amazon project is moving forward at a pace. We are really, really kicking it out there. As you all know, we've also recently signed an OEM agreement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise. This is not a local partnership, as many have alluded to. It's an operational venture. I'm actually meeting with their CEO and all of the senior leadership next week in Las Vegas where we'll be showcasing Gorilla's full stack to their global partners. This also marks a major leap in our global scale-up strategy and validates our strength of technology and execution, unlike others may lead you to believe. We're also actively very engaged in scaling up our core intelligence platform. For example, we didn't talk about this, but we have been actively engaged with one of our current large clients, in scaling up their 5G local interception in Taiwan, and being an existing customer and moving to the next phase of deployment, we're also in active discussions to introduce the same solution in the Middle East where there's a high demand, especially now, for secure, high-integrity 5G interception infrastructure, which is growing very quickly. So across the regions and sectors, Gorilla is no longer just participating. We are absolutely leading. And the reason I've been quiet is not because of some report. I've been quiet because I've been working, I've been pushing the boundaries, and we're all coming together to make sure that we're able to deliver success to our customers and to our stakeholders. That is my only objective. Now, we are solving national problems of speed, position, and confidence. But more importantly, this next phase of growth is all about converting that momentum into lasting infrastructure and long-term impact. So thank you all for believing in us. Thank you for believing in me. And we will make this happen. This is just the beginning. Thank you once again, everybody.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.