Intrusion Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to Intrusion's third quarter 2021 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of today's conference call, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Joel Akramowitz of Shelton Group Investor Relations.

Joel, please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Intrusion's third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. I'm Joel Akramowitz, Managing Director of Shelton Group, Intrusion's investor relations firm. Joining me today are Intrusion co-founder and CTO Joe Head, CFO Franklin Bird, and CMO Gary Davis. Also on today's call is Intrusion's Chairman of the Board, Tony Ulavecchio, who will be available for questions after management's prepared remarks. Before we begin, I want to remind you that today's conference call may contain forward-looking statements regarding future events, including but not limited to expectations for Intrusion's future business, financial performance, and goals, customer and industry adoption of Shield technology, successfully bringing to market Intrusion's design pipeline, executing on its business plan, anticipated capital needs, as well as the engagement of investment professionals to assist the company. These and all forward-looking statements are based on estimates, judgments, current trends, and market conditions and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. We encourage you to review the company's SEC filings, including the 2020 Form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 9, 2021, and other SEC filings made from time to time in which we may discuss risk factors associated with investing in intrusions. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this call, Thursday, November 11, 2021, and except as required by law, we do not intend to update this information. This conference call will be available for audio replay for at least 90 days in the investor relations section of Intrusion's website at www.intrusion.com. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Franklin. Franklin, please go ahead.

Thanks, Joel, and thank you to everyone who's joined us on the call today. As mentioned in our last quarterly call, we expected our third quarter would be a period of transition due primarily to the effects of an aggressive hiring in the first half of the year that wasn't aligned with our projected operating model. As such, early in the third quarter, we announced a reduction in force along with additional cost reduction initiatives and a new shelf registration and an ATM at the market stock sales program which has been effective in raising capital. Additionally, in the third quarter, we experienced a partial delay in some of our consulting revenues tied to the number of changes at the company. I'm happy to say that for the most part, these transition items have concluded and Q4 will show clear benefits from the changes that were made. Now I'd like to review the company's third quarter results. Third quarter 2021 revenue was $1.8 million compared to $2.0 million in the second quarter. and 1.6 million in the third quarter of last year. Similar to past quarters, the majority of the third quarter revenue was derived from our consulting business, which was slightly lower from the prior quarter due to certain contract delays associated with the recent changes at the company. Revenues from SHIELD increased sequentially and represented approximately 13% of total revenue as compared to 7% last quarter. Gross margin in the third quarter was 62%, as compared to 63 percent last quarter and 59 percent in the third quarter of 2020. Third quarter operating expenses were $7.2 million compared to $6.9 million last quarter and $2.3 million in the same quarter a year ago. The $300,000 increase in operating expenses from the prior quarter was primarily due to headcount payroll prior to the reduction in force, higher legal expenses associated with previously announced matters, fall season trade show expenses, all of which were offset by a non-cash credit and stock compensation, and subsequent lower expenses for partial quarter, both as a result of the recent reduction in force. We expect next quarter's operating expenses to more materially reflect our cost reduction actions as we continue to focus on optimizing cash. Net loss for the third quarter of 2021 was 6.1 million, or minus 34 cents per share. compared to a net loss of $5.0 million or minus $0.28 per share in the prior quarter and a net loss of $1.4 million or minus $0.10 per share in the third quarter of 2020. Turning to the balance sheet, as of September 30th, 2021, the company had cash and cash equivalents of $7.2 million compared to $9.3 million at the end of the second quarter. During the third quarter, we raised $4.8 million in net proceeds from the issuance of new stock through our ATM facility that we put in place in August. As mentioned last quarter, this facility enables the company to periodically raise cash through issuing equity at market prices. Our intention is to use the facility in a measured way that minimizes dilution to our shareholders while providing capital as required. In addition to this facility, Both the Board and the company continue to evaluate all potential options that are consistent with our goals of accelerating intrusions growth, achieving improved operating results, as well as maximizing shareholder value. Regarding the company's financial outlook for the fourth quarter, we are maintaining our policy of not providing quarterly financial guidance until such a time that we have greater visibility into our revenue ramp. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Joe Head, for a more detailed update on our business and our sales initiatives.

Joe? Thank you, Franklin. Let's start with an update on our legacy and consulting business. Our base government business declined slightly this quarter due to some contract renewal delays, which are now behind us. Despite quarter-to-quarter fluctuations in this business, it's been a very solid base of business for us, consisting of longstanding customers that are expected to continue renewing for years to come. And last quarter, we reported that we expected a few new program starts in the second half of the year. We expect that these new programs, along with increased spending rates on others, will contribute to a gradual upward trend on top of our historical run rate. Now shifting to our Shield business, over the past several quarters, we've made substantial progress on Shield. Most recently, we included a number of enhancements based on customer and market feedback that includes the following. A new executive dashboard which shows what security issues SHIELD has prevented. We display four quadrants on the dashboard. Quadrant one is how many times SHIELD has blocked malicious traffic today and yesterday. Quadrant two is which machines are sending how much data to each foreign country. And you can now drill down to see details of each individual instance of communications. Quadrant three is counts of events that made it past your firewall that SHIELD caught. And quadrant four shows you which machines on your network have transmitted traffic that shield block. In other words, machines that you should consider cleaning up. Enhancement number two is enhanced daily reporting. We now offer a three-day look back on live views of traffic where previously it was an hour and a variety of custom drill downs and data export options. to give threat analysts much more visibility into all kinds of traffic, the good, the bad, and the suspicious. And then finally, we've made major engine improvements that greatly refine our DNS protections and increase our speeds, even as we have added more protection methods. We also have made some key product discoveries as we worked with customers in Q3 that further shows how Shield delivers value. For one, bad guys scan infrastructure and launch attacks on devices which are not behind a firewall. In this case, Shield blocks those incoming scans, connection attempts, and zero days simply based on the source IP's reputation, showing value as part of a defense-in-depth security architecture. Another example is around credentials theft, which bad guys use to gain access to internal systems. Bad guys don't try this from their homes and businesses. Instead, they use virtual private hosts and other relay types to protect their identity while logging in and stealing data. In one case, Shield blocked 23 of 25 places bad guys tried to log in from, and these failures allowed the customer to isolate the stolen credentials and deactivate them. Our lessons learned is that Shield has unique strengths in blocking inside-out connections, but also delivers surprisingly good resistance to outside-in attacks due to its bidirectional zero-trust approach based on reputation. We will continue to make refinements to shield and meet our customers' needs. And finally, we established an advisory board of cybersecurity experts and executives who will collectively serve to help us further refine and optimize our business. They're already opening doors for us and assisting us with new opportunities. On our new advisory board, we have Vice Admiral TJ White, Greg Akers, and Eric Jackson as our inaugural members. Greg Akers was the Senior Vice President and CTO of Advanced Security Research and Government, as well as Chief Technology Officer within the Security and Trust Organization at Cisco. A major focus of his group was to expand security awareness and launch product resiliency initiatives throughout Cisco's development organization to deliver high-quality and secure products to customers. Before joining Cisco in 1993, Akers' career included more than 15 years of designing, building, and running large networks for Fortune 100 companies. Eric Jackson, retired FBI special agent in charge of the Dallas field office, had a career in law enforcement spanning almost 22 years, which included experiences fighting terrorism, fraud, and cybercrime. Jackson currently serves as the chief security officer and risk mitigation executive for TBK Bank, SSB with locations in Dallas, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, Illinois, and New Mexico. Vice Admiral T.J. White, U.S. Navy retired, is a 30-year-plus national security practitioner, strategist, and cyber operations expert, leading joint military formations and combined intelligence community organizations. He's commanded at all levels within the Navy and Joint Service, most recently as the Commander, United States Fleet Cyber Command, United States 10th Fleet, United States Navy Space Command, and previously as the Commander, United States Cyber National Mission Force of U.S. CyberCom. These prominent individuals joined our advisory board because they know us and recognize that SHIELD delivers value like no other cybersecurity solution in the market. They're motivated to help us get the word out to the market and connect us to potential new customers and partners. I can't tell you how excited we are about these initial appointments. Their professional counsel and cybersecurity expertise will be of great value to us. Our plan is to add additional members to this important group in the future. Now, Gary will update you on sales and marketing.

Thank you, Joe. Notable achievements in Q3 include the addition of five new customers. We also met with great success at GSX in Orlando this September. We onboarded new partners, 4Quest, to extend our reach across to me in Brazil, and Liquid PC as a conduit at the top tier distributor, CDW. We also continue to make progress on the thought leadership front with media coverage across TV, radio, and online outlets. As part of our recent efforts, we recognize the need to improve our sales structure while also implementing incentive programs to drive improved performance. As part of this process, we are actively hiring a new sales team with a strong deal-closing mindset and cybersecurity experience. Our hope is that we will have the new sales team on board in delivering closed deals by early in Q1. As part of this reassessment, we've also stepped up our work with our partners, working closely with them to better understand what we can do together to help them succeed selling Shield. In summary, we have a strong pipeline of opportunities and have already closed four new deals since the start of the fourth quarter. Back to you, Joe.

Thanks, Gary. We're glad to report traction in sales as we've made necessary changes to the sales organization and connected new potential customers at trade shows, via our marketing activities, and advisory board connections. We received some great feedback on the new release of Shield based on first impressions. We expect this latest version will accelerate adoption by new customers. With that, we'll open the call to your questions. Operator?

At this time, I'd like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile our Q&A roster. Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Zach Cummins with B. Reilly Securities. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon, Franklin, Joe, and Gary. Thanks for taking my questions. And, Franklin, just starting off, in terms of the OpEx run rate, I know a lot of the changes you made to really optimize that occurred in this quarter. But what sort of run rate are you assuming for Q4 of this year for OpEx?

I appreciate that, Zach. And I think what I tried to convey last quarter is still true. And we kind of expected Q4 to be closer to our Q1 run rate. with a couple exceptions. So it will be a little bit higher than Q1, but we do have a bit more non-cash stock compensation now with the ramp up of employees. And we are experiencing some heavy legal costs right now too. So try not to give you exact number, but it'll be a little bit higher than Q1, but closer in line to Q1.

Understood. And Joe, could you talk about, I guess, some of the traction that you're seeing with Shield now? I mean, nice to see it ramp up to 13% of total revenue during the quarter and secure five more customers. I mean, can you give us a sense of kind of the industries that those customers are in and kind of what are the areas where Shield is really standing out and driving a lot of interest?

Well, we're still, you know, like Gary reported, we had four new customers. We've had some Subsequent demos have gone pretty well since that. The numbers are so small, I don't think you can get zero in on an industry.

We've got banking, education, DOD. We've got all kinds. What's that? Manufacturing. Yeah, manufacturing as well. Not for profit. Got it. And in terms of... Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, I didn't mean to cut you off there. Sorry about that.

That's all right. You first, then I'll continue. I won't forget my thought.

Okay. Yeah, perfect. I'll let you finish kind of talking about on Shield. I mean, and maybe I'll just pile one more on in there that both you and Gary can address in terms of changes to the sales force. I mean, why was this kind of considered to be a necessary change to really kind of revamp that entire team and really refine the process there?

I'll take that one, Joe.

Yeah, sure, Gary.

Well, for me, it was a very straightforward thing we had to do. It's easy to assess the effectiveness of your sales team, and when they are closing deals and making quota, then it's time to rethink their participation at the company. So, you know, certainly we're also looking for, I think, a different mindset going forward. We're really looking hard for salespeople who have a strong closing mentality. They love to hunt. They love to get out and close deals.

And I think it's just we're looking for a different DNA in the people we're interviewing now to bring them into the company. Understood.

And I guess just final question for me would be around your legacy consulting business. It sounds like you also made some changes there. I mean, can you just talk about maybe some of the changes that you're making? But it sounds like you have at least some pretty solid momentum there that should drive at least historical rates or maybe slightly above that as we think about it going forward.

This is Franklin. I'll start and I'll turn it over to Joe who knows a lot more about it. I'm measuring it and he's driving it sometimes. No, you're right. We had a little dip in our quarter here. We kind of took a pause on some of the activity there based on just some change of activity, but we do see momentum. We've already had new orders in Q4, and we do see it returning to some of the historical levels, and we've already taken a snapshot of what we think it'll be next year, and we're excited to see it moving up. Joe?

I'd further say that your comment about that we've made changes in the legacy area, I would say that probably isn't true. So none of the staffing changed, so there was no cuts in that area. like I said in my comments, we had a little blip in the quarter just due to a slow renewal, and that is behind us now. And so I'd say that we're going to see a tick up, a slight tick up from the historical run rates that have been reasonably flat for a long time. But we had one new program start that's already entered, and we're expecting another one that's been in the queue for a while. And like I said, it's It's unfortunately at the whim of the, is there a CR or a real budget? We expect it, well, I don't know. Will it go forward if there's a CR? That's an open question. We're thinking, yes, but you never know. Either way, without it, we still have a slight pickup. And then... Go ahead.

No, no, go ahead. Go ahead and finish your thought. So...

Yeah, I would say there's a tick up, and then also the gap we had, we'll end up making back that missed revenue as well over some period of time. So it's a pause that got made up.

Understood. Well, thanks again, guys, for taking my questions, and best of luck as you go forward from here.

Thanks, Zach. Thanks, Zach. Appreciate your time.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from Ross Taylor with KRS Investment Corporation. Your line is open.

Thank you. Gentlemen, I'm trying to get a handle on whether the moves you've made with the sales force are basically a complete reset of what you had been doing or if roughly 10 months into the process we are gaining and should be gaining more meaningful traction with the major customers and potential new business that we've been looking for earlier this year?

It's a reset. You know, it's all but one was let go. And I think the thing of note is that even with those departures, we're still making meaningful progress on the sales front. It feels like we're getting a better pipeline. We're getting more commitments. We're getting more proof of concept. And the we're getting more engagement than we had before. Another thing that we've done is we've changed the incentive plan to make it be very deal-focused. The one we had before really didn't get them any money until they pretty much hit their quota, so we changed that to let them have a commission on everything that they bring in. So I think that was an important distinction as well. And then, you know, finally, I think another important thing that we – We set out early in the year. We said we wanted to sign, I think, 100 partners before the end of the year. Then it became apparent that it was more of a quantity thing than a quality thing. What we aspired to do is to really lean into those partners that really want to work with us. Instead of just getting a logo on the website and not hearing from them again, we really want to make sure that we're being mindful of those partners who are committed to S.H.I.E.L.D. and committed to our success and make sure that we're doing the same for them. There's a lot of things that have been changed and will continue to change, but I believe the changes we've made are having great impact already.

And how long do you think it takes to get this new sales force you have in place with meaningful traction? I think that everyone obviously previously there have been pretty high expectations that they haven't been met. they probably weren't necessarily meetable. But now you're kind of looking at this going, are we six months away from something? Do you think the sales force can start to show us something in the next three to four months? What kind of time horizon are we looking at?

I feel strongly that we'll see some meaningful traction from the new sales team starting in Q1. They're stepping into a pipeline. It's not that they're going to have to come in and and building on pipelines. We'll have a pipeline to share with them because we've been building a pipeline all along and nurturing. And then it's just a matter of distribution as well. For example, making sure that we have the right business development and sales people focus on the right partners to make them successful as well. So I genuinely believe that everybody we're bringing on is going to have some level of success starting in Q1 for sure.

You've received some fairly favorable feedback from third-party reviewers, and yet that hasn't yet translated into new business. When people don't buy, what are they telling you as to why they're not buying?

Well, the biggest thing that we see now is that, you know, Shield is a very different cybersecurity product. So a lot of what we're having to do is, is really inform and educate them on a different way of thinking about how to fix a problem. You know, the good news is there's been a lot of discussion around this notion of zero trust, which we've been talking about a lot of our media mentions and on our homepage. And we really think that there's an intersection at the category of zero trust work access, where the category itself has an explicit way of how that's done, but the outcome is what Shield does. So it's really the thing that we think will have a lot of success going forward is that most companies, especially bigger companies that do category buying that are looking at that type of product will have a lot of success there. We also think we're going to have a lot of success in the IDPS displacement area because there's not a lot of innovation around IDPS and there's a lot of companies that are thinking about replacing either their McAfee or Cisco product. And we think there's a lot of opportunity there for us to get some business as well. So, yeah, getting reviewers to say good things is always what you want, but it doesn't necessarily equal to, you know, people signing a purchase order any faster than they would have anyways.

Ross, I'd also add, you know, when you look at changing the sales force, I don't want you to overlook the fact that, you know, we had other people working on the partner relationships and other people working on deals that we had in process, and they weren't being closed. So the lead guys are now me and Gary and Trent, who have been here all along. And to some degree, me and Gary have upped our interaction with the major partners that we expect to perform well. And we've mentioned some of those in the narratives and releases. So I think part of the thing you see is zero closes going to four and then larger numbers since then. that's the effect of Gary and I leaning into those. And so it's not a matter of waiting on the new guy. It's let's work with the partners we already have and keep it going.

And do you see, in fact, the issue with the federal government and the continuing resolution being a roadblock to getting something like perhaps a win with the DOD or someplace where you actually have a lot of experience? Yes.

We just got one order from DOD, so that's positive. So I think it will move. Right.

And you got a shield order from DOD?

Correct.

That's actually, I would think, fairly significant because I would tend to think, I mean, there is a school of thought around the company, advanced by some, that shields are divining rods.

Right.

And yet you have DOD, you just secured a DOD piece of business. That would, to me, be, I mean, the DOD doesn't mess around with things like this. So I would actually think that would be something that you would consider, I mean, did you dance when you got that?

Did what again?

Did we dance?

Yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah, we did. We have a bell in the hall that we rang really loud, and then we took it off the wall and walked around. Some of the other guys did. I just sat in the office and made calls. It is a bellwether event, and it won't be the last in that direction. We've got others in the queue.

I know you were kind of trying to go the opposite direction of the prior administration, but to be honest with you, to me, so much of what the story is is getting proof of concept and getting the Pentagon involved getting a DOD contract tells me is a major proof of concept approach because I know how, how seriously they take this issue. They are the greatest, you know, they are attacked more than anyone else in the world. And so, you know, next time you don't have to be humble and wait for me to ask you.

Right. Yeah.

And I mean, I think it's a big deal though. I mean, if you ask around, like if you look at TJ Wyatt and acres and crew, um, all three of those guys have connections that we, you know, they call people at home that we barely know or don't know. And so I'd say that we expect good things in our former space as well.

Okay, well, I apologize. Yeah. For some reason, my call dropped, so I apologize. It came back in. So if I missed something, I apologize.

No, you're good, Gary. Yeah, and thank you. As I said, I think that, you know, as I said, it looks like it was starting to get someplace where you can get that meaningful traction that will actually show people that you've got a product that's real and that's been endorsed by people who are serious. And that would be, I think, a major positive. So, congratulations.

Thanks, Ross. I appreciate the question.

Thank you, sir.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star followed by number one on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Joe Head.

Thanks, Operator. And for you guys on the call, this is not just a quick wrap-up, so don't hang up. So before closing out the call, I want to quickly highlight that we're participating in a virtual roadshow with Alliance Global Partners this coming Monday. We'll also be attending Benchmark's Discovery Conference on December 2nd. Feel free to reach out to your respective sales reps at these firms, or contact the Shelton Group if you're interested in meeting with us. Now, our chairman, Tony Lavecchio, has a few comments he'd like to make.

Thanks, Joe. One final update. I'm very pleased to announce to you today that we've appointed a new president and CEO, Tony Scott, who will start on Monday, November 15th. A press release will be issued within the next 30 minutes announcing his appointment and giving a substantial detail on his background. Tony brings to Intrusion many years of cybersecurity experience, including serving as the federal CIO for the U.S. government, CIO for multibillion-dollar corporations such as VMware, Microsoft, and the Walt Disney Company, as well as having served as a cybersecurity private consultant. As I mentioned, you can read more about his background and his qualifications in the release that will be sent out in the next 30 minutes. Both the board and management team are very, very pleased to have Tony Scott join the company, and we're excited about the future of Intrusion under his leadership. We thank you again for your support and interest in Intrusion. We look forward to speaking with you during our fourth quarter call and introducing you in the coming weeks and months to Tony Scott, our new CEO. Operator, thank you, and you may now disconnect the call unless there's I can take another question if there's any other questions that people want to ask after that comment.

There are no further questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.