It seems battery startup SES’ traders are fairly proud of its first earnings report. The corporate went public in February by way of a SPAC merger, and to nobody’s shock, reported a loss.
And its traders don’t appear to thoughts. Its shares, whereas nonetheless buying and selling beneath its SPAC merger value, have been up 16.7% at $6.15 on the time of writing, outpacing broader markets good points earlier within the day.
The corporate posted an working lack of $19.2 million within the first quarter quarter. Basic and administrative prices accounted for a lot of that, at $15.1 million, whereas R&D ate up one other $4.1 million. It reported a web lack of $27 million, or $0.12 per share.
On the finish of the quarter, SES had $426 million in money and expects to have sufficient runway to enter business manufacturing in 2025.
Battery startups like SES all lose cash, and it appears like the corporate is dropping simply sufficient to remain within the race, however not a lot that it will burn by its reserves earlier than it has a business product. Growing and commercializing a brand new battery is a protracted, costly recreation and traders appear to be proud of SES’ balancing act. If it spent an excessive amount of, it will threat chapter, in fact. And if it didn’t spend sufficient, it will threat falling behind its rivals.
Buyers additionally seem like rewarding different battery startups which have gone public by way of SPAC within the final yr, together with Stable Energy, which is up 10%, and QuantumScape, which is up 13%.
The stability of common bills versus R&D means that whereas work continues on its lithium-metal know-how, an growing quantity of the corporate’s money hoard is being spent on constructing bigger scale services within the ramp as much as business manufacturing.
Certainly, in an interview earlier this week, CEO Qichao Hu instructed TechCrunch the corporate is continuous to develop its Shanghai Giga web site and one other facility in Korea, which was introduced earlier this yr. At the moment, the Shanghai web site has an annual manufacturing capability of 0.2 GWh, which Hu stated is “greater than sufficient” for what they’re making proper now.
“In March, we began constructing cells for Hyundai and Honda out of our Shanghai facility, and for GM out of Korea facility,” he stated.
The corporate is testing these cells in-house after which sharing the information with companions. By first quarter subsequent yr, Hu expects to start delivery cells on to automotive firms to allow them to do their very own testing.
