I, like the majorityon this forum, am interested in the future trajectory of this company. I havetrawled through the various Press Releases and ASX Announcements to identify quotesand text directly attributable to the company. I have also listened to the variousinterviews to identify the actual words spoken by Louis DiNardo. I did this inthe interests of accuracy. I have focused on contracts, customers andcommercialisation. Here is what I have come up with.
25 March 2020: Marketand Product Development Update
“So … an update onsales and markets … Certainly AI edge is … our target market. That includesautomobile manufacturers, module suppliers to automobile manufacturers, Tier 1global market manufacturers for smart home and smart city. Tier 1 automobilemanufacturers: we’ve got Detroit, we can’t name names, but we’ve got Detroitwhere we’re close to a proof of concept agreement. That’s kind of a first step,we’ll get a little bit of money. But more importantly it’s validation that Tier1 automobile manufacturers are interested in developing a solution which includesan Akida device in a module or in some part of their infrastructure in theautomobile. Automotive module suppliers are probably the most target richenvironment for us … we have a proof of concept, it’s been frustrating … it’s alarge European Tier 1 module supplier – the contract’s taken four months,almost five months now but it’s moving forward …
In the module arena … inour case what we’re finding is a sweet spot in the Lidar environment. So that’smoving forward very nicely, unfortunately again we’re dealing with a large multi-nationalconglomerate, the legal issues sometimes take longer than you would like, butthose are being resolved effectively now.
Smart home … primarilyin this case it’s South Korea for us …”
21 April 2020: FinanceNews Network interview with Rachael Jones
“Akida … been in themarketplace for the better part of a year, it’s a full simulation, so people,customers, potential customers have been able to play with the Akidadevelopment environment for quite some time. The chip is now in wafer fabricationand we’ll have engineering samples in the early part of Q3 2020. In the meantimewe are marketing aggressively the intellectual property. There are edge deviceswhich really don’t have enough space for another chip … the opportunity for usto market our intellectual property for those companies that are building theirown chips is already well underway and we’ve got several contracts that we areworking on.
[Technology validation],that’s been really what we’ve been working on for the last six months to ayear. We have very deep technology validation going on everywhere; you know, Seoul,South Korea, mainland China, Europe and the United States: top tier suppliersin the automotive industry, top tier suppliers in the smart home industry, we’restarting to work in the medical industry”.
15 June 2020: BrainChipSuccessfully Launches the Akida Early Access Program
BrainChip “todayannounced an Early Access Program (EAP) for the Akida neural processor System-on-Chip(SoC) … Since announcing the start of wafer fabrication in April 2020, thedemand for evaluation systems, including engineering prototypes, has beensignificant. In response to this demand, BrainChip has established an EAP forselect partners to ensure availability of initial devices and evaluation systemsfor key applications. Multiple customers have committed to the advancedpurchase of evaluation systems for a range of strategic Edge applicationsincluding ADAS/AV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), Edge vision systems andfactory automation … The EAP agreements include payments intended to offset theCompany’s expenses to support partner needs.
Louis DiNardo, BrainChipCEO commented, “We are very pleased with the level of interest and commitmentto the Akida neural processor. Leading companies in the automotive industry andsurveillance market have committed to the Early Access Program or signed DevelopmentAgreements. Additionally, we are focused on opportunities in the Smart Homearea, Smart Health and Industrial IoT”.
10 August 2020: June2020 Quarter Update – Management Presentation (thanks to cyberworks forposting the transcript)
“We have an EarlyAccess Program, which I’m sure everybody’s aware of. We’ve got some majornames. We’ve talked about Ford publicly. We’ve talked about Valeo publicly.We’re being somewhat selective, frankly … So being very selective with respectto those companies that could be commercially successful … And maybe moreimportantly are these proof of concept agreements that we have, where peopleare stepping up for a little bit more money. So early access and proof ofconcept all include, you got to pay to play. We’re not giving it away for free.You need to bring a cheque … If it’s a light touch deal, maybe it’s less money.Maybe it’s less access to evaluation boards or the number of devices that aredelivered. Proof of concepts are significantly more with respect to cash thatwe get in the bank …
The early accessprogram and proof of concept engagements will start in probably August of 2020.So, it’s a real device and it’s going to start to hit customers’ hands.
[Akida] is a bigchange. It’s a big architectural change. There’s no CPU required. There’s noexternal memory required … That’s an opportunity, both for us and for potentialcustomers, in that they can reduce the footprint, they can take advantage ofeverything that Akida brings to the table with respect to ultra low power,higher performance in most regards. But it is a learning exercise, and it’sbeen a learning experience for us and it’s been a learning experience for potentialcustomers. But what we have found is that major multinationals, and we’vetalked about Ford, we’ve talked about Valeo. We’ve got others we’ve talkedabout, one of the world’s largest storage manufacturers in the world, storageand server manufacturers in the world. They’re all attaching themselves to theidea that they can offload the CPU. They don’t have to use external memory. Andthey can use either Akida IP or Akida as an IC so that they can take advantageof the best of both worlds.
How many companieswould receive the evaluation devices? As I’ve said, we’ve been somewhatselective in the Early Access Program … We’re really focused on what could bereal commercial opportunities, significant commercial opportunities. So acouple of dozen is probably where we’ll land.
Are there outstandinginvoices? Of course there’s outstanding invoices. I’m waiting on purchaseorders from early access customers.
How many commercialpartnerships does the company have? You know what? I hesitate to put a numberon that. That’s really very competitive information. But the Early AccessProgram has been really successful. And these are household names, every one ofwhich you would know and appreciate”.
2 September 2020: TheCapital Network interview with Lelde Smits
“We’ve been designingand developing Akida for the better part of three or four years. We’ve hitcertain proof points. I think the collaboration with Vorago makes a bigstatement … I think the investor base in Australia has been very loyal,somewhat patient, we are at a turning point where we are ready to commercialisethe product and we’ve seen great receptions from some of our key names.
I do expect to seesome incremental increase [in expenses, growth and cash burn] in the early partof 2021 as we commercialise … put some people in the field, to visit customers …so we will add to sales and marketing, what we call solutions architects thatwill work with customers to help them design their systems …
Primary goal [examplesof the practical application of this technology] is to work at the far edge,not data centre, not cloud, but at the far edge or near edge, so in devices,surveillance cameras … cameras, pixel based cameras and net based cameras andautomobiles, medical diagnostics …
Focus [in relation tolonger term growth prospects] in Japan, South Korea, Europe and the UnitedStates … we have a wide variety of applications we can serve.
We’re looking at[health sector] applications for recognizing VOCs, or volatile organiccompounds … originally the application for VOC detection was aimed at cancerresearch, early detection of cancer, can also be applied for infectiousdiseases, COVID-19, H1M1 and others, so we’ve focused heavily on the medicalaspects and medical implementation of Akida on those types of devices.
Well one year fromnow, we should certainly be well into the commercialization of Akida. I thinkwe are very focused on very specific end markets and applications, all of whichcan drive significant revenue growth and profitability. A year goes by veryquickly … we can make up a lot of ground in the next 12 months”.
This post should serve as a reminder of why we have all invested. I hope that the last paragraph, as directly spoken by Louis, remains ringing in your ears.
(20min delay)