VOXX International Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 6, 2024

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the I Specimens Second Quarter 20 24 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow management's remarks. This conference call is being recorded. A replay of today's call will be available on the Investor Relations section of A Specimen's website and will remain posted for the next 30 days.

Operator

I will now hand the call over to Phil Carlson, Investor Relations for the introduction and the reading of the safe harbor statement. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to iSpecimen's Q2 2024 Conference Call. With us on today's call is Tracy Curley, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer and Leslie Hoyt, Senior Vice President of Operations. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today's call contains certain forward looking statements from our management made within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 as amended concerning future events. Words such as may, should, projects, expects, intends, plans, believes, anticipates, hopes, estimates and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

These statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the control of the company, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of the company's Form 10 ks for the year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the SEC. Copies of this document are available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this call except as required by law. Now it is my pleasure to introduce Tracy Curley, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer.

Speaker 1

Tracy, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Phil. Good morning, and thank you all for joining today's call. I'm pleased to report that the Q2 of 2024 results exceeded our internal targets with many of the initiatives we implemented over the last few quarters starting to produce tangible results, including the Next Day quote program that was rolled out in the Q3 of 2023. With me today is our Senior Vice President of Operations, Leslie Hoyt, who will provide additional details about the operational programs we have implemented and the impact they have had on ICE specimens. Finally, I'll review our financial results for the 3 6 months ended June 30, 2024, and then open the call for questions.

Speaker 2

As we noted during our Q1 2024 earnings conference call, we continue to take a measured and disciplined approach to our business to ensure our long term financial success By strategically reducing our capital, human resources and operational expenditures and aligning to focus on key market opportunities, we are setting the stage for revenue growth for the rest of 2024 and beyond. For the Q2 of 20 24, we generated revenues of approximately $2,900,000 as compared to approximately $1,600,000 for the same period in the prior year, representing an increase of 76%. As I mentioned earlier, these results exceeded our internal projections as we continue to improve operationally, while simultaneously providing our customers with a streamlined specimen procurement solution. We also continue to strategically reduce our spending in various operational areas as we focus on our core capabilities. These efforts allowed us to continue to reduce our cash burn from approximately $7,100,000 in the first half of twenty twenty three to $2,900,000 for the first half of twenty twenty four, resulting in a reduced burn rate for the first half of twenty twenty four, a 59% compared to the same period in the prior year.

Speaker 2

Our results in the first half of twenty twenty four clearly demonstrate our operational initiatives are taking hold and we expect to see continued success as we move into the second half of twenty twenty four. In our ongoing efforts to strengthen our leadership team and optimize our sales structure, we welcomed Leland Schmachowski, our new Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development to Ispecimen during the quarter. Leland brings over 15 years of experience in life sciences and healthcare. She will be leading iSpecimen's business development and sales efforts going forward, helping scientists and their organizations procure the biospecimens necessary to advance their research and technologies. As I mentioned earlier, Leslie Hoyt, our Senior Vice President of Operations has played an integral role in developing several of our operational initiatives like the Next Day quote program.

Speaker 2

She has also led the effort to ensure that we understand more deeply the competencies of our supplier network and engage with those suppliers that offer the strongest capabilities. This effort has already helped us greatly improve the quality of our supplier network and the next day quote program has contributed to increased velocity to our sales funnel and the strong results we have generated. I would now like to turn our call over to Leslie to review our operational improvements and what we believe the impact has been for iSessment. Leslie, please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Tracy. 2nd quarter results show that the actions we have taken to streamline our operations coupled with the programs we implemented at the end of 2023 are starting to gain traction. As Tracy mentioned, these programs contributed to the company exceeding its internal revenue targets. We remain squarely focused on the quality of our supplier network and the specimens that we provide to the research community. With the Next Day quote program, we also remain focused on an expedited quoting process in order to increase conversions at every point through the sales funnel.

Speaker 3

I believe that we are better positioned to meet the demands of our buyer specimen customers than we have ever been. As our NextDay quote program grows, so do the results. The percentage of total opportunities we are qualifying as Next Day Quotes across all segments for remnant and biobank specimens as well as prospective collections continues to remain high. Our NextDay Corp program has allowed us to streamline the process for our customers and our suppliers. For our customers, this means that I specimen will often respond to inquiries within the same or next day, outlining the cost, timeline and approach to provide the needed specimens.

Speaker 3

We are proud to say that 99% of our customers are able to participate in the Next Day quote program. For our suppliers, it means that we can search internal data on supplier capabilities and pricing, reducing time consuming phone calls to suppliers and redundancy. For Q2 2024, 44% of quotes provided to customers were part of the Next Day quote program, a steady improvement from 38% of quotes in Q4 of 2023 and 43% in Q1 of this year. In the first half of twenty twenty four, an incredible 58% of Next Day quotes were converted to purchase orders, directly contributing to our ability to exceed our internal revenue goals for Q2 2024. Over the coming quarters, we will continue to expand the Next Day quote program.

Speaker 3

With information gathered from our suppliers and the ability to search that data, we are planning to provide Next Day estimates to customers even when we are not able to offer a quote. This process should expedite and enhance conversations between sales and potential customers and lead to more quotes with higher conversion rates. Over the next few quarters, we will provide more information on the expansion of the Next Day quote program and the tools that are being built to support it. I would now like to turn the call over to Tracy to review our financial results. Tracy, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Leslie. For the 3 months ended June 30, 2020 4, revenue was approximately $2,900,000 compared to approximately $1,600,000 for the 3 months ended June 30, 2023. The increase in revenue for the Q2 of 2024 was primarily due to an increase of 12.36 specimens or 26% in specimen count from 4,682 specimens in the 3 months ended June 30, 2023 to 5,918 specimens in the 3 months ended June 30, 2024. The average selling price per specimen also increased by $137 or 39 percent from $3.47 in the 3 months ended June 30 to $4.84 in the 3 months ended June 30, 2024. For the 6 months ended June 30, 2024, revenue was approximately $5,200,000 compared to approximately 4 point $6,000,000 for the 6 months ended June 30, 2023.

Speaker 2

This increase was primarily due to an increase in average selling price per specimen of $119 to 34 percent from $3.43 in the 6 months ended June 30, 2023 to $462 in the 6 months ended June 30, 2024. The increase in average selling price per specimen was offset by a decrease of 2,152 specimens or 16% in specimen count from 13,311 specimens in the 6 months ended June 30, 2023 to 11,159 specimens in the 6 months ended June 30, 2024. Cost of revenue increased by approximately $570,000 or 67 percent to approximately $1,400,000 for the 3 months ended June 30, 2020 4, compared to approximately $864,000 for the 3 months ended June 30, 2023. The increase in cost of revenue was attributed to a 26% increase in the number of specimens of session for the current period and a 32% increase in the average cost per specimen compared to the same period in the prior year. Cost of revenue increased by approximately $423,000 or 21 percent to approximately $2,400,000 for the first 6 months ended June 30, 2024, compared to $5,200,000 for the 6 months ended June 30, 2023.

Speaker 2

The increase in cost of revenue was attributable to a 45% increase in the average cost per specimen impacted by the specimen mix offset by a 16% decrease in the number of specimens of sessions compared to the same period in the prior year. For the Q2 of 2024, we decreased our cash spend for technology to approximately $541,000 from approximately $1,500,000 for the same period in the prior year. For the 6 month period ended June 30, 2024, we decreased our cash spend for technology to approximately $1,200,000 from approximately $3,500,000 for the same period in the prior year. The decrease in spend for the 3 6 month periods in the June 30, 2024 compared to the same prior year's period is due to reductions in workforce stemming from our decision to invest at a significantly lower level in 2024 when compared to 2023 in prior years. While we focus on growing our revenues through key market opportunities and assessing our capital raise prospects.

Speaker 2

For the 3 month period ended June 30, 2020 4, cash spend was comprised of approximately $172,000 of capitalized internally developed software and approximately $369,000 of expenses that we were otherwise not able to capitalize and therefore classified as technology expense. The remainder of the technology expense for the 3 month period ended June 30, 2024 was comprised of approximately 540 $3,000 of non cash amortization related to internally developed software. Total technology expense for the 3 month period ended June 30, 2024 was approximately $912,000 compared to approximately $843,000 for the same period in the prior year. For the 6 month period ended June 30, 2024, cash spend was comprised of approximately $448,000 of capitalized internally and developed software and approximately $748,000 in technology expense that we were otherwise not able to capitalize and therefore classified as technology expense. The remainder of the technology expense for the 6 month period ended June 30, 2024 was comprised of approximately $1,100,000 of non cash amortization related to internally developed software.

Speaker 2

Total technology expense for the 6 month period ended June 30, 2024 was approximately $1,800,000 compared to $1,700,000 for the same period in the prior year. The sales and marketing expenses increased by approximately $105,000 or 11% from approximately $978,000 for the 3 months ended June 30, 2023 to approximately $1,100,000 for the 3 months ended June 30, 2024. The increase was primarily attributable to increases in compensation expenses of approximately $123,000 and advertising and promotion expenses of approximately $100,000 partially offset by decreases in external marketing expenses of approximately $96,000 and general operating expenses related to sales and marketing of approximately $22,000 Sales and marketing expenses decreased by approximately $276,000 or 14 percent from approximately $2,000,000 for the 6 months ended June 30, 2023 to approximately $1,700,000 for the 6 months ended June 30, 2024. The period over period decrease was primarily attributable to decreases in external marketing expenses of approximately $191,000 compensation expenses of approximately $179,000 and general operating expenses related sales marks of approximately $42,000 partially offset by increases in advertising and promotion expense of approximately $136,000 General and administrative expenses decreased by approximately $703,000 or 40 percent from approximately $1,800,000 for the 3 months ended June 30, 2023 to approximately $1,100,000 for the 3 months ended June 30, 2024.

Speaker 2

The period over period decrease was attributable to decreases in compensation costs of approximately $183,000 taxes insurance of approximately $176,000 professional fees of approximately $165,000 bad debt expense of approximately $102,000 general and operating expenses of approximately $51,000 depreciation amortization of approximately $21,000 and utilities and facility expenses of approximately $5,000 General and administrative expenses decreased by approximately $311,000 or 9% from the approximately $3,500,000 for the 6 months ended June 30, 2023 to approximately $3,200,000 for the 6 months ended June 30, 2024. The period over period decrease was attributable to decreases in compensation costs of approximately $348,000 general operating expenses of approximately $105,000 bad debt expense of approximately $57,000 depreciation and amortization of approximately $44,000 utilities and facilities expense of approximately $9,000 which were partially offset by increases in professional fees of approximately $161,000 and taxes and insurance of approximately $91,000 As of June 30, 2024, iSpecimen has $2,100,000 of cash and available for sale securities, which represented a decrease of approximately $2,900,000 from approximately $5,000,000 as of December 31, 2023, and a decrease of approximately $405,000 from approximately $2,600,000 as of March 31, 2024. As we mentioned in our last earnings call on March 5, we entered into an ATM to issue and sell shares of common stock with an aggregate offering price of up to $1,500,000 through our shelf registration statement.

Speaker 2

During the 6 months ended June 30, 2024, we sold 3,980,075 shares of common for gross proceeds of approximately $1,500,000 under the ATM agreement. We incurred offering costs of approximately $255,000 resulting in net proceeds of approximately $1,200,000 Proceeds were used primarily for the management of our accounts payable. The future success of the company is dependent on its ability to successfully obtain additional working capital and or to ultimately obtain possible operations. We are actively working on both. We have initiated aggressive efforts to decrease our operational expenditures by cutting costs and rightsizing the company through reductions in the workforce.

Speaker 2

Throughout the year ended December 31, 2023 and into the first half of twenty twenty four, we have executed reductions in workforce while streamlining operations and rationalizing resources to focus on key market opportunities. The reductions in workforce since January 1, 2023 through the end of June 30, 2024 has resulted in an estimated reduction in compensation costs of approximately 45% and technology costs of approximately 66% by the end of June 30, 2024 when compared to January 1, 2023. In addition, the company plans to add additional customers and suppliers to increase revenues as well as to continue to reduce and manage expenditures to improve its financial position, ensure continued funding of operations. We are actively seeking to fund operations as we reach a cash positive position through public equity or debt financing as well as other sources. This concludes our prepared remarks.

Speaker 2

Now I would like to open the call for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Operator

Thank you so much presenters. And ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer And our first question comes from the line of Matt Hewitt of Craig Hallum Capital Group. Your line is now open.

Speaker 4

Good morning and congratulations on the strong quarter.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Matt.

Speaker 4

Maybe first up, could you describe or talk a little bit about the macro environment, what you're hearing from customers and suppliers, but more so on the customer side of the equation? How are they feeling about their funding? Has there been any shifts in prioritization of projects, anything along those lines?

Speaker 2

It's still a real tough environment for researchers right now. So, they're being very careful on what they're willing to invest in for research, but they're still out there pursuing projects. Leslie, you're a little bit closer to this than I am operationally. Any insights that you'd like to share with Matt?

Speaker 3

I would add 2 quick things, Matt. I would say that the projects continue, but the demands are high. We're seeing more and more specificity in the requirements. And number 2 is timeliness matters. When they get funding and they're ready to go, they're ready to go, which is why we're really working on the timing of our response, in both getting to a quote back to the customer, and then also the timeliness of starting our projects once we have a purchase order.

Speaker 4

Got it. Well, that's a great segue into my next question on the next eight quotes. 58 percent converted to purchase orders in the quarter, that's fantastic. Do you have an internal target or is there some type of a goal that you've kind of set where you'd like to see? Is it 75% or how should we be thinking about that metric?

Speaker 2

So, we do, but as you know, we don't really give guidance on that. I would love for it to be 100%, to be honest. But so we're not giving guidance on that, but we do have an internal goal that we are tracking towards for that. And it is much higher than the 58%.

Speaker 4

Got it. Okay. And then shifting gears a little bit, the focus on the increase in the quality of your suppliers, Are those suppliers able to fulfill most, if not all of the requests you had previously been getting from a broader requests that you would come across at the transom?

Speaker 2

So I'm going to answer that a little bit, but then I'm going to turn it over to Leslie because she's really, really much closer to this. So we realized last year that we had a lot of suppliers that we really had not been engaging with in a meaningful fashion and they hadn't been engaging with us either. So we embarked on what we call supplier refresh, which we've talked about in prior quarters. And we terminated a lot of contracts with suppliers in the first half of this year. We are now down to 105 suppliers from where we were at 240 in 2023.

Speaker 2

And the reason for this is because as we did our supplier refresh and engage with those suppliers to understand quality, pricing, quantity, capabilities, we actually found out that over time our suppliers' capabilities had shifted and we had not been aware of that. And so we have discovered that we actually have suppliers within our network that could provide us maybe they were only doing remnant or bank specimens, but they had expanded their capabilities so that now they could provide us for a perspective, which was a real eye opener for us, a real pleasant eye opener, if you will, for us to find that out. And so those are the suppliers that we want to and have been engaging with more. I'll turn it over to Leslie to sort of complete that.

Speaker 3

Yes, I 100 percent agree, Tracy. With the limited or less suppliers that we have now, we actually have more capabilities. And mostly because we're aware of the capabilities, having taken the time to survey and have conversations with suppliers to truly understand what they do and what they're capable of doing. I would say, we are a larger percentage of their business now, which makes them more responsive to us, and hence to our customers. So it's really been an interesting endeavor getting to know these suppliers, which we continue to do more and more and to see how we can have a smaller network with more aligned suppliers that we know more about.

Speaker 3

So supply has not been an issue to date.

Speaker 4

Got it. And then maybe a couple of metrics and I apologize if I missed this, but do you have the number of unique customers during the quarter and the number of registered research and supplier users during the quarter?

Speaker 2

I think I'm going to have to get back to you on that. I don't have that at my fingertips.

Speaker 4

No problem. All right. Thank you very much and congratulations again on the quarter.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Matt. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you so much. And I show no further questions in the queue. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Ms. Tracy Kehrli, CEO for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you. I would like to thank everyone again for joining us on today's call and for your continued support. We believe the operational advancements that we've made this quarter and frankly, for the last several quarters will play a significant role in our future growth. We are changing the landscape of our business by more rapidly and effectively connecting biospecimen suppliers with researchers, And we believe that that is key for our success. Our next day court program has proven successful, and we look forward to updating you with our continued rollout of this program as well as other initiatives that we are currently working on.

Speaker 2

And with that, thank you and have a great day.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect. Have a good day.

Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
VOXX International Q2 2024
00:00 / 00:00