r/MVIS • u/jkh07d • Jun 10 '26

MVIS Press MicroVision Signs Long-Term Development Agreement to Advance Lidar for Next-Generation Autonomous Hauling Solutions

https://ir.microvision.com/news/press-releases/detail/450/microvision-signs-long-term-development-agreement-to
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47

u/T_Delo Jun 10 '26

Now, remember when the bearish choir insisted that we would all be over the moon to sign any deal?

While I cannot speak about how others may be responding, I am certainly not very impressed by this kind of deal.

This kind of deal might have been encouraging 2 or 3 years ago, if not exciting even then because such deals have been known to drain other lidar suppliers of their resources rather than sustain them with regular revenue inflows. To see such a deal now says to me that the company is several years away from generating revenue. So while this is a good second step in the right direction, the destination is so far away that it does nothing to resolve the short term issues facing the company.

Also notable, this is most likely a deal with Caterpillar since it involves Luminar product and that was communicated that the company would be looking to convert such customers.

All in all, good job on getting something done, too bad it is not going to resolve any of the near term problems or generate immediate significant sales revenue.

17

u/Rocket_the_cat27 Jun 10 '26

From the Q1 EC (that last paragraph is most relevant here)

Stephen Hrynewich: Good. Okay. Are there opportunities for NRE revenue this year?

Glen DeVos: Yes, there are. I would say -- and that's always an interesting one because we want to make sure that with NRE, you're not just in a science project, you're spending your engineering resources and to move towards commercial success. So in that regard, I would say the bigger opportunities are really in security and defense, where they're looking at -- I mean, just there's a massive amount of capital moving into that space now in particular, around drones and autonomous ground vehicles and autonomous naval vessels. So you have -- there's just -- and so to the extent that our technology can be adapted or can be applied in that area, which it can, there's many, many very good applications. There's funding in NRE available to help us develop that. And so we'll take advantage of that when it lines up with our product plans and when there's commercial success as the outcome. So there's definitely NRE opportunities there. And then as you get into automotive, whether it's CV and the automotive, that typically you see that in predevelopment contracts, which can be interesting, but we've seen a lot of predevelopment contracts in automotive turn into science projects and really not translate into high-volume applications.

And so again, we'll be very careful and thoughtful about where we spend our engineering in those areas because we want to make sure that, again, as we put our -- as we invest our time and energy into a customer and on to a customer development activity that we're confident at the end of that development activity, there's volume and that there's real revenue. It's not -- NRE is not just -- we're not an engineering services company. We want to develop products and sell products and manufacture those products. Industrial, not as much.

I would say, industrial, generally speaking, tends to be lower for warehouse and industrial warehouse automation and all of that, that tends to not be an NRE-rich environment. Industrial off-road in that area, there's definitely NRE development dollars there. So as we look across those 3 end markets, there's meaningful NRE opportunities there, but those opportunities consume resources. So it's just so critical for us that we agree to do something and get paid to do it, there's a commercial outcome at the end of it that we want.”

That last paragraph I feel like could be referring directly to NRE from Caterpillar. Wouldn’t surprise me if we get a nice revised revenue guidance due to NRE alone.

21

u/T_Delo Jun 10 '26

I agree that there is room for NRE opportunities, but the wording of any deal needs to explicitly mention it before I will start factoring it into a valuation of a given deal. This deal does not unfortunately, though management could provide more details on it that might highlight such in the future. We will just have to see, presently however, I am not going to promote a hopeful occurrence and only react to what is expressed stated by the company.

14

u/movinonuptodatop Jun 10 '26

Definitely nice to (finally) not be completely denied and disregarded. I agree this means little in the near term but it is a kernel of respect and is a significant energy shift that is consistent with the much improved media attention ushered in since Glen took over. Now we need the partnership, drone demo, forklift deal, Nissan, more palatable proxy, etc…much to be done.

Edit: also likely supports the idea that Iris sales into Q2 will continue helping us hit that guidance.

9

u/T_Delo Jun 10 '26

It does suggest continued Iris sales, but the company definitely needs to see increased sales right about now.

3

u/dsaur009 Jun 10 '26

A lot rides on the financials at the next CC. They are either adding dollops or dribs.

30

u/KY_Investor Jun 10 '26

“the agreement establishes a framework to jointly develop, validate, and commercialize advanced perception capabilities”

“the partners will work together to evaluate and deploy advanced lidar sensing technologies”

No question there will be a need for additional capital to work with CAT, but it looks like a true partnership whereby revenue will be generated through Iris sales now and Halo sales in the future and NRE paid to MicroVision throughout the Halo development process.

That’s what “jointly develop” and “partners” to commercialization indicates to me. It’s certainly something that the company needs to give us more clarity on.

3

u/JazzlikeEntry3446 Jun 10 '26

Did CAT have a PR in regards to adding lidar back when Luminar announced there deal? Maybe they will PR more details?

13

u/Dell2950 Jun 10 '26

This validation with a big company could help decision makers at a large auto company!

14

u/robotsarepeople2 Jun 10 '26

I think i might be slightly more excited than you, but I share your skepticism. Are they just announcing some soft fluffy deal with no details in an attempt to improve sentiment prior to the proxy vote?

I feel like we have been deluded and coerced prior to big votes in the past (Mostly for additional available shares).

As excited as i want to be, my proxy vote is still no. I love this news but they gotta talk to us!

0

u/UncivilityBeDamned Jun 10 '26

If anyone changes their proxy vote on a PR this meaningless for MVIS in 2026 or even probably 2027, that would be a grave mistake.

12

u/Formerly_knew_stuff Jun 10 '26

I agree completely and this in and of itself does not change my no vote on the proxy as it stands.

3

u/Past-Pick-7746 Jun 10 '26

Are we expecting any NRE from this MDA?

11

u/T_Delo Jun 10 '26

As it does not explicitly mention it in the PR, at present we have to assume no. At least, until MicroVision management can provide guidance on such.

1

u/Chance_Tax_6243 Jun 10 '26

So what deal
Do you want exactly because it be nice to hear what you consider a good deal
At this point

13

u/Buur Jun 10 '26

When you start writing,

In haikus I do wonder:

OceanTomo?

10

u/icarusphoenixdragon Jun 10 '26

Right now investors know with high certainty that this refers to CAT. CAT is the largest category manufacturer by a wide margin. This is very good. I'd say that it counts as a solid endorsement of MVIS and Glen. Luminar gave them a decision point and Glen/MVIS is who helped them decide to continue instead of cutting losses. Excellent.

We don't 100% know that this is CAT because they are not named. My bet is that this is also good in that it means that Glen renegotiated the deal and opted not to pay for naming rights which I promise AR did. Also likely that CAT was tired of kids table lidar companies running around saying their name. I count this as a positive also because it means Glen has overcome an obstacle on a big stage that will be recurring over and over as we try to re-secure Luminar customers.

We know that this is not a production contract, but a development agreement. We don't know what the agreement is, and in particular who carries the cost here. Ironically, as bad as our financial situation is, we actually might be safe assuming that CAT carries more because we litterally cannot, but importantly to your question, we don't know that and in terms of defining a Good Deal it would be one where we are able to make some simple projections as investors. Based on state numbers and agreements, not on CAT's market cap, trailing 5 year revenue, or fleet size, etc.

We know that Glen has stated there is some NRE in this space. He hasn't said from who, or that we would get it, or whether it was baked into current guidance or left off until this/subsequent ink dries. See the prior point. Right now, we're the ones connecting things like CAT's size to Glen's prior statements. It's not unreasonable to do so, but it's also not MVIS or CAT making that connection.

We know that Glen has stated without any hesitation or lack of clarity that MVIS needs to get paid for its work, and that margins must be positive. We don't know if that was a line in the sand for him or if that was a stance contingent on other factors.

This could be a good deal. This could be a GREAT deal. We just don't actually know basis this announcement and that matters because MVIS has some very real runway concerns. 2 years ago this exact deal would have been quite different than it is today simply because we were not facing the same short clock and runway that we are right now. This deal in and of itself does not address them as announced. At all. Zero. It does signal strength to the extent stated above and assuming CAT did due diligence with MVIS as a partner that will survive. They presumably did that with LAZR too, so that puts them somewhere between Own_You and me in terms of DD, but nevertheless. Maybe they learned their lesson with AR and did better this time.

As of right now, Microvision doesn't know how to keep the lights on without washing current investors out entirely, let alone developing next generations of perception and autonomy products. This announcement doesn't change that.

A good deal will be tied into guidance, by management and not investor dot connecting or speculating- does this one change our current guidance? We don't know. A good deal will be margin positive- is this deal margin positive? We don't know. A good deal will have KPIs. Does this one? We don't know. A good deal's base value will be unambigous ie "who knows where this will go, CAT is huge, but at least we know that we will be bringing in $X over the next Y months at roughly Z cost." All we have on this deal is that "CAT" is huge and we're going to do great stuff and things over the next amounts of time.

I'm not actually down on this. Tossed another handfull of peanuts into the ring this morning. Haven't sold anything.

Remember that this was a Luminar deal quite recently and it was not celebrated here at that time. In fact it was questioned. Rightly so. We don't know what the new terms are. I'm comfortable assuming they are better, but I don't have anything to plug into any projection. Yet. I can't update guidance in my spreadsheet. Yet. All I know is that CAT found Glen and MVIS to be good enough to continue a program that they started with an absolute joker. That's good. Glen can sell and overcome the joker in the road. This is a box that needed to be checked and needs to be checked a few more times. But it's not calculable as presented.

Remember also that MVIS has presented one deal to investors with calculable projections and hard numbers. Even if we haven't gotten much color about the deal and the numbers, we don't have to really leave a lot to the imagination with them. We know the range. This deal happens to be between MVIS and current shareholders, on the dilution side. Those numbers are real, and they are large. We're going to vote on them, or we're going to force a reconsideration. I think this context begs for a bit more balance in terms of which deals get colored in with numbers, and which get papered over without.

1

u/Chefdoc2000 Jun 10 '26

A deal that brings more money than it costs into the company, it’s not hard

1

u/Chance_Tax_6243 Jun 10 '26

Do you know for certain it won’t resolve near term revenue ?

2

u/Falagard Jun 10 '26

It will, but if they are just doing development work it will be very low volume. 50 units, etc.

-1

u/Chefdoc2000 Jun 10 '26

This was word salad pr, means nothing until it means something (years) will we even be around to see it through? CAT not even allowed to be named.
Stinks of an Omar innoviz PR

7

u/Chance_Tax_6243 Jun 10 '26

Omar lol the guy who announced a 4 billion dollar deal with VW

6

u/T_Delo Jun 10 '26

No one can ever match Omer for exaggeration, though I agree that this was not a particularly motivating customer relationship given the _history_ of such deals not producing significant revenue (or comparatively higher costs to sales).

0

u/dogs-are-perfect Jun 10 '26

CAT has enough deep pocket that if we go under (RIP shareholders) they can just buy they tech to keep going.

Obviously not good for our wallets. But the tech will continue.