Freemelt Holding AB (publ)

Hello and welcome to today's webcast with Freemelt, where CEO Daniel Gietlund and CFO Martin Gralen will present a report for the first quarter of 2026. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A, so if you have any questions to the company, you can send them in via the form to the right. And with that said, I hand over the word to you, Daniel.

Thank you. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our Q1 webcast. The world around us is changing quickly. Political shifts, supply resilience and demand for regional production are all accelerating. And these are exactly the forces that make additive manufacturing more strategically relevant than ever. So when I look at this quarter, I see a company that is well positioned to benefit from these trends. So I'll walk you through the highlights of the quarter and then hand over to Martin for the financials. In this quarter, we continue to strengthen our number two position in EPVF. As we can see, industrial customers are coming to us because they need solutions that shorten the lead times, also strengthen their supply chains and that enable efficient production closer to home. And this is exactly what our technology delivers in the end. Looking at 2026, our focus is clear. We want to grow order intake and at the same time move our customers toward longer term commercial commitments, both on the machine side. but also within our component manufacturing services. And we believe that this hybrid business model that we have is the path to scaling this business sustainably. And before I get into the quarter, let me just anchor where we sit in the market. So if you take metal additive manufacturing, It's on a strong growth trajectory. The industry forecast to grow at 18.5% CAGR, reaching a total addressable market of around 15 billion euros by 2032. So to put that in perspective, I mean, that still only represent a small part. I mean, about 8% of the adoption rate against the total market for high value metal parts. So, I mean, we're still... very early in this transition, but the runway ahead is significant. So what I want you to take away from this slide is that the fundamentals of our markets are getting stronger, not weaker. The underlying demand drivers, supply resilience, regional production, and the ability to produce complex high-value parts are all structural, not cyclical. And Fremont is positioned right at the center of that opportunity as well. So turning into the quarter itself then. So Q1 was a quarter of good operational progress. Revenue more than doubled year over year, up 116%. The growth came from that we converted prior orders into deliveries and from also advancing several of our strategically important customer projects. On the last 12-month basis, revenue now stands at 58 million SEK, which I think gives you also a better view of the underlying trajectory rather than, let's say, any single quarter. During the quarter, we booked one machine order and three product orders, and we closed the quarter with an order book of 12 million SEC. And until end of Q1, we have sold 41 machines. Order intake in the quarter was lower than we would like it to be. And this was due to customer decisions that is taking longer time in the current environment. So with that said, no, let's say potential orders that were lost. But the positive side here is that the pipeline is healthy, the customer engagement is good, and as you will see on the next slides, the strategic projects we are working on are progressing as we want them to as well. One of the highlights of the quarter is the strengthening of our position in the fusion energy. Fusion is a market we have been investing now for some time. I think we started mid 2023. And this is also an area where our technology has a genuine fit. These customers, they need to produce highly complex, high performance metal components that are very difficult to make any other ways. And again, our ePBF process is uniquely suited to that challenge. What we're seeing is that Fusion players now are moving from research, let's say, stage activity to more real component qualification. And they are choosing Fremont as a partner to support them on that journey. This is the kind of long-term sticky customer relationship that we are building the business around and it starts with evaluation, it moves into qualification and ultimately it leads to serial production. So I see Fusion as a clear example of where the structural demand for our technology is starting to translate into commercial momentum and therefore I'm happy to both get an existing customer coming back in a quarter, UKAA, and the fact that we also have signed the MOU, Memorandum of Understanding, with the only Nordic fusion option, Novartron. And here we expect also a lot of common collaboration moving forward. And I want to underline this, that we close Q1 with seven active customer projects, which are spanning all of our application areas, which means that we're not dependent on any single vertical. And it gives us also a strong foundation for converting projects into orders over the coming quarters. If we quickly then move into Q2, we have had a positive start with two orders already, one machine order and one follow-on order on a phase two product with a leading Swedish defense customer. Defense is a sector where the strategic case for additive manufacturing is becoming undeniable. I mean, customers in this space, they need shorter lead times, they need to be able to produce new designs quickly, and they need materials that perform in extreme environments. So these are precisely the areas where our technology is well positioned. This follow on order is more than just a transaction. It actually marks a key milestone in our customers evaluation and qualification of component for future defense applications. And we are now moving into the proof of concept phase, which deepens the partnership and also brings us closer to serial production. The machine order from CERES is highly appreciated as CERES is one of Belgium's most influential research environments. They annually collaborate with more than 1,500 industrial companies. So this means that Ceres can actually influence the adoption of EPBF in the Belgian manufacturing industry. And this is actually also one of the reasons why Freeman focuses on the research and academia to really get the enablement of a driving adoption of EPBF. So with that said, I'll hand over to Martin so you can walk through the details, the financials in more detail. So please, Martin.

Thank you, Daniel. So as usual, we'll start with a look at the order intake, order book and net sales. As Daniel already commented, the order intake was slower in this quarter compared to what we've seen in the past quarters, and it is a longer customer decision process, and especially in the US, I would say. The order book is at 12.8 million SEK, and I want to draw your attention to that we've changed the definition of the order book compared to what we've presented in the past. and this is to improve visibility of expected future results so the current definition is that its order is received but not yet booked in the P&L the previous definition referred to whether the order was invoiced or not so there is a difference and as you can see on the left graph We've tried to illustrate this difference where the green line is the new definition and the gray line is the previous definition. So this means that the order book number is slightly higher, all else equal, than what we've seen in the past. Because in the past, when you invoice, you get the order in the balance sheet and then it goes into the P&L. So you sort of drop that step and you get better visibility for what to expect going forward. Looking at the net sales, we had 6.3 million in the quarter, which is a great step forward compared to the same quarter last year. Machine sales was 57%, aftermarket 23% and projects and other 20%. This is then lower than what we've seen in the previous quarters or for the last 12 months. There was 80% machine sales, 13% aftermarket and 7% project and others. And of course, the difference this quarter is that we booked one Fremont 1 delivery compared to previous quarters where there have been more deliveries being booked. And then the machine sale percentage is naturally higher. On the next slide, we look at cash flow. So we had operating cash flow negative six million for the quarter. This is a significant improvement compared to the same period last year where it was minus over 13 million. So we've seen improvements compared to the same quarters of last year. We've also graphed the total cash flow as a green line. We've excluded Q125 because there we have a rights issue distorting the picture. So to get a visible graph, we've excluded that data point. But the total cash flow was negative 4.8 million for the quarter. This includes investments of 4.3 million and financing activities giving a positive surplus of 5.5. And I want to highlight that we had loan financing in the quarter of 5 million SEK and this is the starting point where we The starting point in our financing strategy to finance working capital with loans going forward to the extent possible. Because the company will need working capital financing as we execute our growth strategy going forward. Cash at bank at quarter end was 27 million, which is then down from 32 at year end. I'd like to highlight then another part of our financing strategy, which is the proceeds from the warrant T01 that the company expects to receive end of June. And this is a listed warrant, which some shareholders have. It was a part of the rights issue in beginning of last year, where shareholders or subscription, those who subscribed received shares and a warrant, which then matures in May. The structure of the warrant is favorable. So the subscription price will be set in the second half of May where it's 70% of the market price observed during this period. So there is a good likelihood that it will be an attractive subscription price and the subscription period is then from 2nd of June to 16th of June. So, and on the next slide, we talk about what the proceeds will be used for. So this is again, coming back to the growth strategy that we set some while ago, that was also listed in the prospectus in the beginning of 2025. And it's basically two main themes. One is to industrialize the company's product and service portfolio. This is of course key to get the serial production in place and to get repeat orders from customers in the future. And these also refer to the projects that Daniel are talking about and especially interesting are of course the projects with our implant OEMs who are key in this effort to industrialize our machines and to execute on this part of the strategy the second part is commercialization It's to find more applications, continue to build pipeline and to convert that pipeline into order intake and especially then for serial production. This also unlocks the aftermarket, which is quite limited for the company for the moment, but aftermarket is expected to grow over time and especially when we get serial production in place and repeat orders from customers. I will stop there.

Thank you so much for the presentation. We will now carry on with the Q&A session here. You closed Q1 with seven active customer projects versus nine in Q4-25. Can you comment on the two projects that have been discontinued?

Good question. Not in specific details, but what I can say, I mean, typically what happens is you have different kind of stages of projects, which then It results in some sort of, of course, results. And if you start with the feasibility study, you get the report on the feasibility study. Typically, what the clients must do is to ask for an additional, let's say, round of funding for the next stage. Or in some cases, I mean, the customer... is just asking for a specific stage just to, let's say, understand or get better kind of insight about what's possible on material properties. But typically it's a lagging in between those different kind of phases while you can see also different, let's say, number of active projects during the different kind of quarters as well.

Thank you very much. Gross margins or sales minus trade goods were 57% quite high. Can you comment?

You're muted, Martin.

Do you want me to repeat the question there?

Martin, you are muted. Okay, I pushed the wrong button on Zoom here. Terribly sorry about this. So it's a good question. And it has to do with the sales mix. So as I mentioned before, the aftermarket and the projects and other revenue was 43% compared to 20% where it's normally. And these kind of activities generate revenue but have very little trade goods associated with them. So this margin development is basically an effect of this and that we had one machine sale in the quarter where we typically have slightly lower margins than for projects and off the market.

Thank you. What feedback are you receiving from Julie and what do you expect from this partnership near term?

That's a very specific question. I think all in all, I think the partnership is developing well. I think if I generalize a bit, if you look into Chinese way of doing business, they typically have a long-term relationship. let's say, view on everything they enter and they invest for many years in the future. So I think Yuli had done a very thorough and good assessment prior to, let's say, joining in the collaboration agreement. So I think it's full steam ahead. And so far, I think it's been a good start on this partnership.

Thank you. Do you see any positive signs from the US or is the market still very hesitant?

I think as Martin commented on before as well, I think the US is the market where we have faced most uncertainty until now. I think it may start to become a bit more clear at least and a bit more stable, especially from the academia side about who is receiving funding and what kind of funding and so forth. So slight improvements, I would say.

Thank you. What drove the sales growth in the quarter and how sustainable is this level going forward?

I think I can answer, I guess, more from a numbers point of view. So the same quarter last year, we had muted sales. This quarter, it was improved, I think, on all fronts with machines, with projects, with aftermarket. Having said that, it's a slower quarter than some of the quarters we've seen in 2025. So I think we should, of course, work for more going forward, much more. And I think the sustainable level should be much higher for the company than what we've seen in the first quarter.

Thank you. Can you provide more detail on the follow-up order from the defense customer and its potential future scope here?

I did comment a bit earlier, but future scope, I can't disclose. I mean, this is a phase three stage. So again, we're now entering into proof of concept. So this means it's getting... more to the real product and then to get more focus on the production efficiency of that specific product. So it's more proof of concept, both on our technology and so forth. but also proof of concept which ends up in live testing for the component in the end.

Thank you. Moving on to the last question here. How important is the fusion segment for Fremont long term and when do you expect it to become more commercially material?

I would say that fusion is definitely one of the strategic focus areas for Fremont. I mean, that we have said many times. I think also what we have seen over the past year and a half is that it's really now ramping up quickly. First of all, we see much more funding coming into this area, both in the private sector and the public sector. But also the fact, I mean, regardless of the fact that they are still building research reactors or machines, I mean, they need to be produced and just to give an example, I mean, these are big machines and they require a lot of parts and they require a lot of parts starting now because many of them, not all of them, have been for construction for quite some years. And of course, I mean, long term, then of course, I mean, it's in the end, if and then when that fusion energy will be commercial viable. If that happens, and now, when you talk to the fusion industry, they don't say if it's happened, but when it happens, then of course, I mean, this will be the largest industry globally. And can we, let's say, establish a good position at Fusion? Then, of course, this will be a fundamental critical business for Fremont, short, mid and long term, I would say.

Thank you so much for that. And that was all the questions we had. So thank you, Daniel and Mark, for presenting here today. And thank you all for tuning in. I wish you a pleasant day.

Thank you very much. Have a good day. Bye.