Clear Blue Technologies International Inc.

Good morning and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Clearblue's second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call. My name is Miriam Tuerk. I'm co-founder and CEO of Clearblue Technologies. I'm joined today by Farrukh Anwar, our CFO, and by Jonathan Van Der Veen. Before we get into the numbers, I want to flag that today's discussion includes forward-looking statements. I'll touch on that on the next slide. But I'd encourage everyone to review our full disclosure on CDAR. And in terms of this webinar, I'm just going to share with you, let me just share screen here. When you go into the webinar presentation, On the bottom right hand here, because we're using Google, more cost effective, you can click on this nine points, then you can click on Q&A and leave any questions that you have here. So that is the way to leave questions. You know we like to receive questions, so please provide your questions there. So with that, I'm going to dive right in and start the presentation. So forward-looking statements are important. Everyone wants us to provide guidance. We're trying to do the best that we can with our fiduciary responsibility and our public market responsibility. But please be aware that we are providing the best information we can and take any forward-looking statements under consideration according to the guidance of how to handle forward-looking statements. So just to go over the company and if anyone's joining for the first time, let me set the stage of who we are. So Clearblue is a world leading provider in delivering clean, managed wireless power for mission critical infrastructure. So when it comes to telecom towers, satellite ground stations, remote off-grid sites where reliable power isn't available or isn't good enough, that is the market that Clearblue provides and focuses on. We were founded in 2011 and today we support more than 400 customers with over 15,000 units deployed in the field. Those units are connected to our cloud platform, which has processed more than a trillion transactions across more than 15 million cumulative days of operation. That data and control layer is really the heart of our business. It's what lets us guarantee uptime and manage power remotely at scale. We also hold 12 patents across North America and Europe protecting that technology. Our vision is to become the world's largest virtual renewable power utility. Everything you hear me talk about today, our strategy, our UTELSAT partnership, our cost structure, all of it is related to delivering energy as a service. So let's talk about the highlights for the quarter before Farrukh takes you through the details. Our bookings increased by 19% in Q2 and recurring revenue, the part of our business that compounds and that we care most about long-term was up 11%. We also significantly improved our adjusted EBITDA and we delivered positive net income for the quarter. This reflects the cost actions we've been executing alongside margin improvement. We're seeing the benefit of the cost reductions we outlined previously with more planned through the rest of 2026. Our partnership with UTELSAT continues to advance on multiple fronts, and we now have good visibility into the back half of the year. We are expecting approximately 3 million of revenue in Q3 and Q4 together, and I'll unpack this a little bit more in the next couple of slides. So we talk about Clear Blue 2.0, and this is really about how we're prioritizing the business for the rest of this year and moving forward. And there are three pillars that matter most to us. Firstly, we're focused specifically on the space satellite and telecom markets. These are verticals where our value proposition is the strongest and where we're seeing the most traction, including with UTELSAT. In addition to that, we're deepening our relationships with large-scale customer partners who are focused on large-scale rollouts in satellite, telecom, but also in power and transportation sectors in North America. Third, and this is the one that we know that you ask about the most, we're driving revenue growth and cost reductions together to build a clear pathway toward positive adjusted EBITDA. That's not a someday goal. You'll see in the next few slides exactly how the cost side is tracking and what needs to happen on the revenue side to get us there. So this is our PICO Plus unit. It's the product that is at the heart of our UTELSAT partnership. In December of last year, we signed a letter of intent with UTELSAT for a three-year supply agreement to provide the PicoPlus for their Connect Wi-Fi service rollout across Africa. That LOI targets volumes of approximately 15,000 PicoPlus systems over three years. And of course, depending upon demand that the customer at UTELSAT sees, it could be more, it could be less. The 1,500 to 2,500 units that we expect to deliver in 2026 is the first meaningful tranche of that ramp up. And those 1,500 to 2,500 are currently targeted for four countries in Africa. There are more countries planned. The majority of Sub-Saharan Africa's population is still unconnected, and UTELSAT needs reliable, low-cost power to run this mission-critical internet connectivity. in an environment where energy is heavily constrained. The combination of our solar power, our smart edge computing, and our cloud analytics is what's getting them there. Higher performance and reliability at a lower cost. It's also a multiplatform relationship. UTILSAT is integrating into our Energy Technology in both its GeoConnect and LEO OneWeb platform. So it's not just a single product line and it's not just a single regionable sector. We're targeting having the final contract for this completed in the next few weeks. So as Canada begins to focus in a more global market and look beyond just the US market that we've had a heavy focus on, I wanted to spend just a minute talking about who UTELSAT is. UTILSAT is one of the world's largest satellite operators. Formed in 2023 when UTILSAT merged with OneWeb to create the industry's first fully integrated multi-orbit operator. The group operates 31 geostationary satellites as well as a 600 plus LEO satellite low Earth orbit constellations. And that puts it among the few global players alongside Starlink with a meaningful LEO broadband fleet. UTELSAT generated 1.2 billion euros in revenue in 2025. They have 1,600 employees in 50 different countries and its services reach well over a billion viewers and users worldwide. The French government is now UTELSAT's largest shareholder and this reflects the strategic importance of UTELSAT in Europe's strategy for sovereign space and connectivity initiatives. For Clearblue, this context matters because Utilsat is not an early stage or niche company. It's well capitalized. It's strategically a significant player. It's going after multiple markets, including Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe, Canada, and the scale of the opportunity for Clearblue is quite significant. Our work plan with UtahSat covers Africa, Europe, and Canada as it stands right now. Geo-satellite Wi-Fi services to the 1 billion people needing better internet across Africa. It also covers Europe's push for its own LEO and geo-satellite services to cover Europe. And it is also, there are some discussions and work that we're doing related to Canada's Arctic and defense. Every one of our deployments across this network will be remotely monitored and managed through our cloud platform, which is what is allowing us to guarantee performance in the field without needing a truck roll every time something needs attention. That remote data-driven management is the meaningful part of why UTILSAT is trusting us at scale to deliver this service and capability. It's the key to point of differentiation of what we do compared to other off-grid systems which don't have the ability to deliver on a reliable basis. So why do we have confidence in the second half number that we've given guidance on? And I've mentioned earlier, our PICO Plus deliveries are scheduled for the second half of this year. We're expecting additional telecom orders based upon notice of awards that we've already received. So we're comfortable providing this guidance for the back half of 2026, Q3 and Q4. We're already at the end of the second month of Q3. As those revenues come in, we also expect to continue to benefit from operating leverage with costs continuing to decrease as revenue grows. Year over year, that puts us on track for a 53% increase in revenue. Please be advised that this is forward-looking estimates and subject to change based upon delivery timing and other factors. But be also aware that myself and Farrukh and the management team are aware that in the past we've not been able to realize what we thought we were going to realize. And so we've been very conservative in ensuring that this number that we've provided now, we're solid on being able to deliver on those results. So with that in hand, I'm going to turn it over to Farrukh to walk over the quarter's financial results and our cost and revenue trajectory. Farrukh, I'll keep control of the slides and just move them forward for you as you go through this.

Thank you so much, Miriam. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Let me walk you through the quarter. Revenue was 1 million, essentially flat with Q1 and right where we guided you last quarter. It was down 12% against Q2 of last year, but Q2 was always going to be the back half of a transition, so not a growth quarter. What matters to me more is the quality of the revenue. Gross margin came in at 53%, our strongest in the last two years, and recurring revenue up 11% to 200,000, which is the part of the business that compounds. Bookings were the real turn in the quarter, at 1.8 million, up 19% year-over-year. Remember in Q1, I said Q1 bookings were light purely on timing? Since then, utilset and iset orders landed, and Q2 caught up. Now the number I want to point everyone to is the adjusted EBITDA. So adjusted EBITDA was a loss of just 48,000, a 78% improvement year over year. On an adjusted basis, we are essentially at breakeven, and we delivered positive net income for the quarter. This is cost work plus margin working together. At the balance sheet, So what I want to point out in the balance sheet is that it's in a materially better shape with working capital of 1.4 million, up 113% from year end. Higher margin, lower cost, stronger bookings, a better balance sheet. That is the quarter. Slide to Miriam, please. So this slide is the cost story and is a simple one. We said that we were going to take out cost, and we took it out. Start on the left. Fiscal year 2025, operating expenses were $4.5 million. Through 2025, we removed $1.2 million from the business. The point of this chart is that when you annualize our actual half-year 2026 spend, those reductions have held. We are tracking closely to the plan we showed you in June, and nothing has crept back in. Moving right, we have roughly another $750,000 of reductions targeted for 2026, with about $286,000 in salaries, $186,000 in professional fees, $256,000 in general and admin, and the balance in rent and travel. Most of these actions are already taken or are in motion, but the P&L benefit shows up in Q3 and onwards. So you should expect the operating expenses line to step down again in the second half of 2026. Now, this brings us to the exit run rate of approximately 2.5 million annualized by Q4 2026, roughly 45% below where we started in fiscal year 2025. And here is why it matters. With gross margin in the low 50s and a cost base at that level, we do not need a heroic revenue number to get positive adjusted EBITDA. This is the whole pathway. Slide number three, please. Next one. So this is the last slide for me, slide three. Okay, I think that this is the most useful chart in the deck. Look at the revenue bars. The last two quarters at one million each, and the five of the last six quarters at or near the one million mark. Q2 2025 is obviously an outlier. And as I walked through in June, that was because of year end adjustments. It wasn't a demand problem. It was basically some adjustment that we had to do. So what I want to take from the left side of the chart is stability. Post restructuring, the business now delivers a consistent quarterly base. The line that you see in the middle is the gross margin line, and the trend is up. So if you see it from left to the right, 37% in Q3, 51% in Q4, 52% in Q1, and 53% this quarter. Then on the bar on the right, our approximate goal is 3 million of revenue for the second half, as Maryam pointed out earlier. We are targeting almost with $2 million already booked in H1, you know, our first half. We are targeting roughly $5 million for the full year, which is almost 53% growth over fiscal year 2025. So this is not a hope. It is util set geo delivery scheduled for the second half in the range of 1500 to 2500 units plus telecom rollouts where we already hold a notice of awards. You will notice we have modeled H2 gross margin at 40% rather than the low 50s. This is deliberate. The second half is more hardware weighted and util set volume and we rather set the expectation conservatively. Even at 40%, our cost base and with our reduced cost base, we just walked through earlier, the revenue is what takes us to a positive adjusted EBITDA. So, Miriam, over to you.

Thanks, Farrukh. Let me bring back everyone. I just want to make sure I'm not muted. I was trying not to mute.

No, you're not. I can hear you.

OK, thank you. So let me bring it back to the high-level big picture before we open it up to questions. Our goal is approximately $3 million in the second half of the year, and we've re-visibility into the contracts that get us there. More broadly, we're seeing a clear progress in our clear blue 2.0 strategy. with a combination of half-two revenue growth and improved adjusted EBITDA that Farrukh just walked you through. Our cost reductions are tracking closely with our original forecast with more planned through the rest of this year. Longer term, we're building exposure to more space-saddling defense-related projects, markets that value the reliability and mission-critical nature of what we do and we believe gives us a durable growth runway beyond this year. and on UTILSAT specifically, the 1500 to 2500 deliveries this year is moving forward and finalizing the formal three-year supply agreement we expect to have done in the next few weeks. So in summary, we believe the fundamentals of the business have turned, the cost structure has been right-sized, we have the sales funnel and a credible, visible path to profitability. It's been a tough hike up this mountain and we have really greatly appreciated every stakeholder support right from every employee in this company. There's not been a lot of turnover with investors, with lenders, with suppliers, with customers. So we really do appreciate the continued support and I'm really a little bit excited to actually demonstrate to the market that it was the right decision to really push through and that we're delivering and showing that your confidence in the company and the opportunity in front of us can be realized. So at this point, I'd like to open it up to questions. Jonathan, do you want to curate the questions and ask us what the questions are?

Yes, I think we should just do a quick refresher too on how to access it because it is a little bit different than on the Zoom we had last month or last call. Would I be able to do that or would you be able to walk through again?

Sure, let me just share screen. So if you've logged into the conference call, here on the bottom right, There is nine buttons and then there's the QA button. Click on that. You can ask the question.

Awesome. Thank you, Miriam. We do have a couple so far. So to kick it off, what other space satellite opportunities, if any, are you working on?

Well so the big one of course is Telesat for Canada and we have engaged on discussions and are starting to move forward with them. I think we announced in the MD&A that when it comes to security and defense there are a number of large consortiums being put together going after a number of programs. Within those consortiums you can get telcos involved and other initiatives so to some extent you don't have to be dealing with directly the satellite vendor, it could be MDA, Calion, other types of companies that are playing in that market. And so we're involved in all of that. In Europe and in Africa, we have pilots and discussions going on with, we have a pilot test, sorry, not a pilot, but we're in product design development discussions with one satellite vendor. We've got two other satellite vendors where we've done some pilot projects last year and are hoping to be able to announce some nice contracts in the next 12 to 18 months. So we are going after the entire market. We've not approached Starlink. I think we may talk to Amazon but there are many other players in the market and we are pursuing them.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. Okay, next question is, what do you think the likelihood is of landing another larger contract in the second half of the year?

So right now, our focus is scaling up UTILSAT. There are There is one additional contract with UTILSAT that could be bigger than the one we have, could be smaller than the one we have, and we are starting a pilot project for that in December. Some people love him, some people hate him, but I will quote Elon Musk in the next four to eight weeks, I'm going to be living in the factory because we've moved from, you know,

developed the sales opportunities to execute, execute, execute, ship, ship, ship.

In terms of additional other contracts, we do have at least one, maybe two or three telecom projects that are more traditional cell phone, telephone, related systems. One of them is expected and there's a potential second one out of those three that we will see in the fall.

Okay, great. Thank you. So shifting over now to lighting, has there been any progress with the existing partners on the lighting side of the business?

So we've made really good progress with the power utilities. Both Duke Energy and Georgia Power have been testing our systems and we've passed the tests and we're now moving to the finalization stage and getting it rolled out. There are a number of utilities including Duke that are moving to get formal regulatory rates for solar power services and systems. So right now, solar lighting is an unregulated utility service offering. and getting it as part of the regulations is something that they're working on. And of course, in order to have a regulated service offering, they need the kinds of services that we have. We have been making good progress there. I do want to speak to the tariffs issue because I'm sure everybody's asking about that. Clear Blue is 100% definitely in the bullseye. We are affected by the tariffs. There's both a short-term issue and a medium-long-term issue. The medium-long-term issue can be resolved, so we're not worried about the medium-long-term issue. We're pretty comparable to the rest of the market. Lithium batteries come from China, and all of our competitors in the market get lithium batteries from China. you know that'll normalize itself out whether you're an American supplier or a Chinese supplier or a Canadian supplier into the market we'll have that covered in the short term it can be and is disruptive we've done a review of the potential exposure between now and the end of the year and it is not significant it's something we think we can absorb and we've decided to just absorb it we're not gonna you know upset the market by announcing new tariffs and we're not going to send our operations team focused on that right now the only thing this company cares about is the execution of the scale projects and contracts that we have for our half to revenue so in the short term between now and this end of this year we'll absorb any tariff impact and as things settle out we will have a strategy to basically get it mitigated from a long-term perspective

Thank you. Okay, next question here is, do you see the cost reductions having an impact on the growth trajectory?

So, I've mentioned this. I once ran a marathon and two weeks before you run a 42 kilometer marathon, you need to run a 35 kilometer training run. So getting to the start line of a marathon is an accomplishment in and of itself. But the start line is the start line. I have the same view of EBITDA positive, cashflow positive, profitability. Once we get there, that's the start line. We didn't do all of this for that to be the end result. A few years ago, I would have talked about how big this company could be and what the potential revenue and market cap value of this company could be. I'm not going to mention those numbers now, but they've never gone away in our objectives. At a certain point, we need to start to invest more in sales, more in marketing, and scaling up our business, getting into new territories. The UTELSAT EU opportunity would give us an entry into the EU, which is a huge market opportunity for us, like to get there and do that. So we are going to need to start to invest. The plan will be, of course, that for every dollar of profitability and cash flow we add, we're adding, and I'm not giving guidance, but we're adding a small portion of that for expenses. But yes, we do need to grow. But only once we are really solid, delivering good profitability and cash flow and positive EBITDA and cautiously moving forward.

Okay, great. So this is the last one we have queued up, so people please feel free to post more in the Q&A section, but is there any thought about expanding the board currently?

Yes, this is an active item. We've talked to the marketplace that we are working to expand the board. I had hoped to actually have an announcement for an additional independent director prior to our AGM and as part of the AGM materials and the director that we have identified and are close on is a really good senior who can really help us a lot. So the bigger and better and more valuable the director, you have to sell them and he's just getting to know everything that's going on in the company. So it is our target by the end of this year, if not earlier, to announce an additional independent director. We do of course have one observer and we may add a second observer to the board as well. Observers are treated like board members. They're active, they ask questions, they review things, they vote on stuff. I mean, not formally, but we ask their opinions and thoughts. Joachim Wingren, who is from Sweden and was one of the big investors in eSight when we acquired the company, is an observer on the board, knows the business really well, knows Europe, knows investors. So that is coming this year. Once we get back to a five-person board with two independents, The next step is how to grow the company to the next level by adding more independent board members. That is on deck for 2027 and is part of the plan. So we won't be done when we finish to five, but we will be back up to five by the end of this year. I will also emphasize anything that, for example, stock options and compensation and that kind of thing, we over over manage that with the board in terms of recusing ourselves. So, for example, the board has said to me, you know, we don't need to approve the compensation down the chart. You know, we'll just deal with the sea level and you do the rest. No, no, no, no. We share everything. We get their input and we make sure that the independents drive those decisions.

Perfect. OK, next question. Do you foresee the need to raise funds again within the next few months or years?

Our objective at this point in time is to not need funds in order to keep the company going the way it's going and to achieve our objectives for this year. At the point at which we get to the start line, and we want to scale. There may be an opportunity to either restructure and clean the balance sheet up or use a bit of growth investment. But at this point in time, our plan with $3 million of revenue this year is looking pretty good. Certainly at the stock price we're at right now, that is not favorable. But as things and the market starts to see that we've delivered what we've promised, we'll take a look at that. So I'm not saying no, but it's not like it was a year or two years ago where we had to go raise funds. That's not the situation we're in at this point.

Perfect.

I think that's all we have lined up for now.

So maybe give another minute or two if there's any last questions that folks have.

This presentation is going to be, has been recorded and will be distributed through an email to all the people who, you know, so they can get access to it. It'll also be on our website. I do want to encourage shareholders to reach out to myself or Brandon Chow or IR person and give us feedback, ask questions, check in, you know. I don't know whether Rob McWhorter is on the phone here today but he sent me an email about a battery which of course I passed on to John and I thought John would just say yeah I know about it blah blah blah he came back and he went no no no like oh okay I'm researching this this needs to be action now so we always appreciate the feedback and input from people it keeps us honest it keeps us not Oh, this is the wrong word. What I meant to say by that, when we get excited and exuberant and we're drinking the Kool-Aid about how wonderful the business is, it keeps our feet down on the ground and asks the hard questions. I will tell you that Brandon Chow, our IR person, does that as well. But I have investors who do that. So every once in a while, rah, rah, let's go move forward. But you keep us grounded and we appreciate that as well. Sometimes you pick us up off the ground as well when we're perhaps looking at it a bit negatively. So the feedback is important.

We had one more question come in here, Miriam. So this one is about the Audit Committee. So meeting independent majority requirement with only one clearly independent director. So they're just wondering who is currently chairing the Audit Committee?

So the independent director is a lead independent director role, which gives them some extra things. He chairs the audit committee. He also chairs the compensation committee. I chair the board, but as I said, we recruit ourselves for anything that could be perceived as a conflict of interest. I sit on the audit committee as well. and we treat it as serious as we can. This is not something that we deal with in a trivial way. We are a publicly traded company and we treat it as such. When we bring in the additional independent director, they will also join the audit committee at which point we will have three members of the audit committee, two of which are independent.

Okay, I think that's all we had come in.

I just want to add one thing in there for the for the requirement of the audit committee. So Clearblue is, because we are on the TSX Venture Exchange, so Clearblue is exempt from the composition requirements in part three of the N152110 under section 6.1. So that's, I'm just reading out the exact section. So the requirement that applies to us is section 6.1.1 and our audit committee complies with that. So with the

you know independent audit committee person uh independent director being the chair of the audit committee so just want to clarify that question because that had a second part of that question as well thank thank you uh thank you for that we are in compliance with all the requirements for TSX-B for IFRS um uh um and uh you know moving up um on that but I appreciate that Farrukh we have always been in compliance Thank you everyone. For more information, don't hesitate to reach out to Brandon or myself. We really appreciate your time and attention today and wish you a really great rest of the summer and we will talk soon.