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spk04: Good day, everyone, and welcome to the NetCapital, Inc. Quarterly Earnings Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Corrine Kressler. Ma'am, the floor is yours.
spk03: Thank you, Matt. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining NetCapital's first quarter fiscal 2025 financial results conference calls. This is Corrine Kreisler, CFO of NetCapital, Inc. I will begin with a review of our financial results. Following that, our Chief Executive Officer, Martin Kay, will deliver his prepared remarks before we open up the Q&A portion of our call. Before we begin, I'd like to draw your attention to the customary Safe Harbor disclosure regarding forward-looking information. Management discussion may include forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements reflect management's current views with respect to operations, results of operations, growth strategy, liquidity, and future events. NetCapital assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. With that said, I'd like to now turn to our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2025. Revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 for the period ending July 31st, 2024 decreased by almost 1.4 million or approximately 91% to $142,227 compared to approximately 1.5 million in the first quarter of 2024. The decline in revenues was primarily attributed to a decrease in revenues for the services that we provide in exchange for equity securities during the quarter. We had no revenues from equity-based contracts, as compared to over $1.1 million in such revenues in the three months ended July 31, 2023. We are focusing on establishing a broker-dealer subsidiary so that the company may have additional sources of revenue, and we have not been pursuing equity-based revenue contracts. Total funding portal revenues declined by $233,800, or approximately 62%, to $242,056 during the first quarter of fiscal 2025. Total funding portal revenues consist of portal fees, listing fees, and a 1% equity fee. Revenue from portal fees decreased by $132,427 or approximately 60% in the three months ended July 31st, 2024 to $8,429 from $221,856 in the three months ended July 31st, 2023. Revenues from portal fees consist of a 4.9%
spk01: fee of the total capital raised by an issuer plus fixed miscellaneous charges such as a rolling close or the filing of an amended offering statement.
spk03: The decline in portal fees is the result of the decrease in the amount of capital raised on our funding portal during a period. Total funds raised in offerings decreased by almost $1.8 million or approximately
spk01: in the three-month period from July 31, 2024 to approximately $1.2 million, as compared to approximately $2.96 million in the same period of 2023. Revenue from listing fees decreased by $111,500, or approximately 72%,
spk03: in the three months ended July 31st, 2024, as compared to $154,000 in the three months ended July 31st, 2023. Listing fees are typically $5,000 per issuer, and they are the first form of revenue earned by our funding portals when an issuer signs a contract with us to sell securities on the portal.
spk01: The drop in listing fees can be attributed to an experienced salesperson who's previously had assistance
spk08: And, Corrine, I do apologize.
spk04: This is the operator. Your line is breaking up. I'm going to attempt to dial out to your line so I can get a clear connection.
spk03: Okay.
spk04: Corrine, your line is live.
spk03: Thank you. We had an operating loss of approximately $2.5 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 as compared to an operating loss of $749,020 for the first quarter of fiscal 2024. Our net loss for the first quarter fiscal 2025 was $2,527,170 as compared to $491,665 for the same period prior. We reported a loss per share of $5.10 for the first quarter ended July 31st, 2024, compared to a loss per share of $4.61 for the same period in the prior year. I'll now turn the call over to our CEO, Martin Kay.
spk00: Thank you, Corrine. I'd like to thank everyone for showing their interest in being on this call today. We did see some challenges during the quarter, especially in regard to our operational and financial metrics. The climate for fundraising does slow down during the summertime, and there is, of course, some cyclicality and some unpredictability in our business. With that said, we've taken some important steps this quarter. First, the beta version launch of our secondary trading platform through the Templum ATS. which may offer investors another way to trade through the net capital funding portal. Templum ATS is now approved in over 50 U.S. states and territories, and this partnership may provide our investors with better liquidity for secondary trading. The second thing is another key initiative is our application for broker-dealer registration with FINRA, which Corrine mentioned. We intend to use this to offer Reg A-plus and Reg D deals. and form broker-dealer partnerships. This may help grow our revenues through hosting and fees and enhance our distribution capabilities, which may expand our current ecosystem and our addressable market. During the quarter, we also put in place an ATM agreement and regained compliance with NASDAQ's Listing Rule 5550A2, known as the Bid Price Rule, which will allow us to continue trading on NASDAQ. It's important for us to maintain our NASDAQ listing to further support shareholder value and confidence. So despite the challenges we face, we very much remain committed to our vision of empowering entrepreneurs and investors by providing a streamlined platform for capital raising and investing in early stage and growth stage companies. Our portal facilitates access to capital through equity crowdfunding and other investment opportunities, democratizing the investment process and fostering innovation and growth. By focusing on transparency, efficiency, and user engagement, NetCapital seeks to create a more inclusive financial ecosystem that benefits both issuers and investors. Again, and as always, thank you for your interest and support of NetCapital. Operator, we are ready for questions.
spk04: Certainly. Everyone at this time will be conducting a question and answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone. Please hold while we poll for questions.
spk07: Thank you. Your first question is coming from John Gillian from Point Clear.
spk04: Your line is live.
spk05: Yes, Martin. Thank you. Could you give us an idea of the launch date of the secondary trading portal where it will be fully available to retail investors?
spk00: I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch the question there. My phone bleeped. You were asking about the secondary?
spk05: Asking about the launch date of the trading platform, the secondary trading platform, yes. When will it be available for retail investors?
spk00: Got it. Great. Thanks. Great question. And that's not something that we have specifically stated to the market at this point. We're still working through some issues with usability and so on, and we want to make sure that when we go live with it to a broader group outside of our closed beta that we get the most impact from that launch. So we're holding off for now on launching that more broadly.
spk05: At the Wainwright conference, you mentioned it would launch soon. I guess what I'm looking for is a ballpark idea. Are we talking Q4? Are we talking 2025? calendar year 2025, just a ballpark idea?
spk00: I can't give you anything too specific, but we're moving as quickly as we can with both the regulators and our customers, our issuers and investors to make sure that we get that, we launch that to have its maximum effect in the marketplace.
spk05: That's not a very good answer. Really looking for, I mean, is it going to be in the next year? Is it going to be two years?
spk00: It's certainly not going to be.
spk05: It's been 18 months since it was announced. 18 months ago thereabouts is when it was announced. So just trying to get an idea. I mean, what are we looking at?
spk00: It's a very fair question. And, you know, again, we have had, as we've announced, we've had the end-to-end platform in partnership with the ATS, Templum, We've had that technology and that platform built out for some months now. We've been doing some testing with a closed group of beta users. I think, you know, our – I would like to be able to – we'd hope to be able to launch before the end of this calendar year. But, again, there are factors, as we've stated in all of the – filings we've made on this topic there are there are factors that are you know somewhat beyond our control with respect to regulations and so I can't really be much more specific than that unfortunately all right um with regard to the companies that are listed on our balance sheet as you know at the price that they've had offerings recently with
spk05: Will all of those securities be available to trade on the secondary trading platform when it opens?
spk00: That is the intention, yes.
spk09: That's what we have stated in our filings.
spk04: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Patrick Rooney from Crosby Capital. Your line is live.
spk02: Hi, Martin. On your ATM, Will, do you intend to do a press release as you partially complete that or only when it's totally complete? That's one. Second question, what is your monthly burn rate?
spk09: And I think you meant the ATM, right, Pat? You were asking about that.
spk02: Yeah. Yeah, the ATM. In other words, if it gets partially done, you do not $2.1 million, but you do $300,000.
spk03: Will you make a press release or not? We did not announce usage of the ATM. You will see it in our quarterly filings.
spk02: You will not make an announcement if you're
spk03: We're not required to put out a press release or an AK when we use the ATM, but we do disclose the ATM usage in our quarterly filings.
spk02: Okay. And the burn rate, I assume, well, go ahead.
spk03: We've said in the past that our burn rate is $300,000 plus a month. Okay.
spk02: All right.
spk04: I appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Robert Topping from Topping Capital. Your line is live.
spk10: Hey, everybody. Sorry for the background noise here. I'm on the street. But I'll probably just kind of extend to the two earlier questions in another manner. But on the operating burn, you know, given all the investment in the ACS system, do you see that For tailing, I mean, when you effectively do a full launch, does the burn on that slow down pretty dramatically? I mean, how much of that $300,000 a month is dedicated towards that? And then the other question I had, and I may circle back to two more, but the other question I had is on the ATS launch, is some of the friction regulatory or is it just the beta group and the technology and working through that?
spk00: I'll start us off and Corrine can jump in for sure. You know, with respect to the secondary and the burn, yes, there is some relationship. I would say, you know, one of the things that we're doing is we're spending a lot of time and resources and energy of our own and with third parties educating regulators on what we're doing, why we're doing it, why we're allowed to do it, why it's part of the regulatory framework that we operate within. So, yes, I think, Rob, and thanks for the questions, I think there's a relationship there, but maybe not the one you suspected around building out the platform. All of the technology, as you guys know, it's never done. A product is never done. There's always improvements. There's always enhancements. But we have a launch-ready beta. That's why we announced it to a closed group. So there's always work to be done to enhance the product as we go forward, and there always will be. But a lot of what we're spending time and money on right now is making sure that from a regulatory perspective, the various regulators we deal with understand what we're doing, why we're doing it.
spk09: Does that answer part of your question? I'm sorry.
spk10: Yes, it does. I was on mute. Sorry about that. And I'll circle back with my other questions here if somebody wants to change.
spk00: Oh, and with respect to the burn, just I think you had a question about that, Rob, as well. You know, again, as we've talked about in May, we announced our broker-dealer application process. That's an attempt to move upscale into bigger transactions. And so, obviously, our burn is a function of revenue minus cost. And so we'll, you know, we expect and hope that that will happen. allow us to generate, you know, incremental revenue streams beyond where we are today.
spk10: But it seems like from what Green has said, I think is, I mean, a million and a quarter burn is kind of a fair conservative amount. Is that correct? Because there's operating and then a lot of other numbers that show up. But I think I just heard 300 a month. So, you know, if I was just mindset of a million and a quarter, that would be maybe a good number on the operating burn.
spk00: I think that's right. I think, you know, I'm not going to say wild cards, but the things that can change that for us on the revenue side are, you know, it is a little unpredictable. We, you know, we have whales that come through our model and, you know, raise big amounts of capital in certain quarters. So that can make a difference. And then, yes, we have responses to regulatory inquiries as everyone does in both financial services in general and in our industry specifically, that tap resources. But your general rule of thumb, yes, that's what we've said in the past, and that's still true.
spk07: Thank you.
spk04: Once again, everyone, if you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone. Your next question is coming from John Wheeler from Resurgent Realty. Your line is live.
spk06: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Martin, this question is for you, sir. How are you doing this morning?
spk09: Good, John. Good to talk to you.
spk06: So I have a couple of questions, and I think the first question would be, at the current stock price, why is management and the board of directors concerned not really stepping up to buy the shares to support the company at this time. So I'm not going to give you two or three questions at one time, but if you could answer that question, that's my first question. Can you hear me? Hello?
spk03: I'll answer that. John, are you there?
spk06: Yeah, I think you all, we've had a bad connection all morning. So can you hear me now?
spk03: I can hear. So my answer to your question would be thus. We're severely restricted in what we can do in terms of management purchasing shares themselves due to the nature of the fundraising that we have been doing. So we've been very severely restricted in doing that so far. What's your next question, please?
spk06: So the next question is you're publicly traded. And it seems to be at some point in time, dealing with reality and the associated public cost to be publicly traded, your $300,000 per month burn rate, when I looked at your last filing, it says you have a little over $800,000 cash on hand. What point in time do you all face reality from the standpoint, maybe it's not best to be in a public platform and more so private, maybe more so associated with some of your peer groups? Because I feel like every six months, there's another warrant to conversion, $2 million, extreme dilution, and now you've put up an ATM with Rainwright, which will be another dilution. At what point in time does the treadmill stop from potentially moving from public to private. That's question two.
spk00: Again, hey, John, sorry, I lost you for a little bit there on your last question, but I heard that one. Look, you know, for us, we, as I've said in the past, we are 100% committed to our vision in this business. We believe in the business and we believe in the value that we can create and can be created in the business. So we're in this for the long term. We succeed, you know, when our issuers succeed. We're, you know, every quarter there are more examples of our issuers coming out of the, I like to say, the back end of our process and having success in progressing to the next level. We had a company, Avidane, that raised, I think, $4.5 million on our platform in the fall and just announced a couple of weeks ago they're in the graphene business that supplies electric vehicle companies, and they just added Henry Ford III to their board as the chairman of their board, and he's obviously on the board of the Ford Motor Company. So That, along with the others that we always talk about and the others that are getting added, is examples from our perspective of growing market awareness, more success stories, this becoming more of a mainstream market, and something, again, where we really believe in the long-term value here. And we appreciate the you know, the investors, the shareholders who have stuck with us along this process. To your question of, you know, when does it change? Yes, there's a, you know, there's a gradual, there's a momentum, a swelling momentum that I just talked about in the industry and in the marketplace. There also, obviously, you know, we have a portfolio of minority positions. We've also started, as of FY24, taking 1% of equity issued from every issuer on our platform. So I believe I'm right in saying I think we have 37 of those small equity positions alongside the 22 portfolio, what we call portfolio companies. So obviously there's optionality in all of that portfolio, especially as we broaden it now to include everyone who comes through our platform. So any one of those minority positions becoming, liquid or getting to the next level is obviously a way that sort of proves out our model to those that don't believe it and generates liquidity for us. In the same way, in the core business, we're talking to some marquee, what I call marquee issuers, so folks who would be newsworthy and noteworthy as participants on our platform so so there are sort of you know there are quantum steps that we can take as we as we progress down this path and obviously I can't necessarily predict any of those but what I can say is that the groundswell of activity in our space is is maturing and as it matures and You know, these are early-stage private companies. It takes a while, but they do get there, and some subset of them will be successful, and that's what will drive the value that we're creating.
spk04: Thank you. That concludes our Q&A session. I will now hand the conference back to our host for closing remarks. Please go ahead.
spk03: Thank you for joining, everyone. We really appreciate your support, and we look forward to speaking with you again soon. Thank you.
spk04: Thank you all. Thank you, everyone. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.
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