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Army Research Lab comments on Warrior Web:
I assume the over-subscription rights can only be exercised some time after everyone has had a chance to execute their basic subscription rights? Any idea what kind of time period we're looking at?
Universal tensegrity joints for human exoskeleton - NEW PATENT
Variable joint flexibility is an obvious goal, but it's all about innovative application. I see that here.
https://www.google.com/patents/WO2017015086A1?cl=en
I think this could be one of Ekso's strongest patents yet.
None of that is concrete. The company holds the right to cancel or change the deal at any point.
Plus even just looking further into the details, the entire thing is sort of hanging on threads. For instance, right now Ekso currently has fewer than 100 stockholders of record who are residents of Nevada, and that makes a difference. Ekso would be subject to Nevada’s control share law if it has more than 200 stockholders of record. So essentially the laws surrounding the deal could change at any point. I also don't know how many shares are needed for a majority control. It depends on the class of share, so it's not just one simple number. I know our market cap is 40mil+ right now, but I wonder how many shares need to be sold to the runner up to create a new controlling interest. Perhaps this offering will have the potential to change the controlling interest. It's not entirely clear. It would be simpler if more of Ekso was institutionally owned.
So as to why I'm not buying shares now, I'm simply overextended. I thought I'd see Ekso start moving up years ago, but it's pretty much only fallen. The only thing that raised share price was a reverse split, but that didn't make anybody any money and since then it's fallen further. I'm worried that if I put in more, the company could delist and go back private if things continue trending down. I'm hoping that I'm simply too early to the game. If Ekso seems like it has the potential to hit 100$ dollars in the future, I'll be happy to buy more at $50. Until then, I just don't need anymore money in small cap stocks. I work in politics and I can see first hand how the rules are set up to benefit big companies - anti-trust laws have to be set up for a reason.
Pretty much the only reason I'm still holding onto hope for EKSO is their TALOS and DARPA involvement. Even there, it's not entirely clear Ekso can translate their military tech into corporate success - perhaps the tech is just too expensive for the corporate world still. Still, just the money from the contracts is a thread keeping the company upright.
What it comes down to, is I believe TALOS release will create a public demand for Ekso stock, despite the financial implications of it. Everyone wanted to invent into Tesla after they saw the car, but Tesla pretty much did horribly right up until their flagship product. I think TALOS will be Ekso's flagship, even though it's just their chassis. My rationale I can't fully explain, but I think it has to do with a superiority factor. Making work easier is nice and all and so is recovering the ability to walk, but for the most part people only care about the best/fastest/strongest - just look at the Olympics.
Another positive long term factor that's beginning to come into sight is Ekso's sports involvement. Think how much easier it would be to train an Olympic diver to do a complicated series of flips if they had an exoskeleton that would help assist them. It could literally do the whole thing for the person and then gradually scale back it's assistance as they begin to get comfortable/familiar enough to do the flip themselves. Same is true for any sport. Ekso basically just received this patent.
Everyone is subject to manipulation, did you know that even a stock's symbol has an effect on how it is traded? Market's symbol-lists are broken up into arbitrary groupings and sometimes it's beneficial to have a stock symbol that starts with two A's because it means you're 'first on the list to be read' by computers.
More specifically, yeah Ekso definitely got hit hard by a short attack which turned out to be totally baseless a few years ago. I don't think the company adequately responded to the threat, which resembled a psy-op attack. They should have been more vocal denying it. Ekso put a FAQ on their website awhile after the fact, which to my knowledge was their only response. Pretty much no one reads FAQ's; the word is just a turn off, not to mention it was overly concise. Instead, they should have reached out to the media to try to get their CEO on T.V. or something more drastic to get some real volume of material out there to push back.
Anyhow, that was when Ekso was an OTC-BB stock. Now we are on the NASDAQ
with a new CEO so I think we're inherently going to be more stable. Also, a lot of the negative things people could say about Ekso are sort of 'used up' by already being out there. So we are at where we're at.
Onto the present, I'm likely going to completely ignore the offering. We don't even know if will be a public offering yet anyway. If I read things correctly, Ekso has the option of making a private sale to a single buyer or anything in between.
I think as long as you're long term goals are set, confidence short term is not caring about the price. It's hard for me to say this because a lot of my stock trading success has been day trades. Still, the only way to cut risk is to be a long term investor who can disregard the short-term strong pulls one way or another. Peter Lynch would call it a strong stomach. Pretty much anyone I take advice from is in this position (with the majority of their capital at least).
I'm basically trying to see EKSO stock hit ~5 or $6 per share before I invest more.
In general, I'd argue <10% of your total funds should be in microcap stocks. Many would say much less.
exoskeleton trajectory packages seem like a really interesting concept based on the new patent: http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20170720ptan20170202725.php
From a physics standpoint, Ekso is different than their competitors based on energy expenditure (ergonomics).
"Our first prototype of that technology consumed three orders of magnitude less power than the system before it." - Nathan Harding
Source: http://newventurist.com/2012/09/ekso-bionics-making-those-who-cant-walk/
So that's pretty much what allowed the launch of EKSO as a company. 1000 fold increases in efficiency don't come easily.
Exoskeletons have been around since the 60's. Commercially with GE (hardiman) and Nationally with Los Alamos Laboratories (project pitman). So almost 60 years later and we're finally to the point where production for consumer use is underway. We've gone from exoskeletons too dangerous to put on, to FDA approved devices - all the way from research to reality. So right now is pretty much the golden age of exoskeleton tech historically speaking.
From a company perspective, I think Ekso's current edge is their FDA stroke approval. Ekso GT senses and responds hundreds of times per second to the user's motions, whereas many competitors have more rigidly programmed gait patterns. I think it's this ability that give Ekso functionality for stroke patients - and it's patented. It's a lot more complex than just software and trajectory calculations. Proper tactile feedback also requires sophisticated hardware.
The last angle I think is worth addressing is the military one. DARPA doesn't mess around with crazy ideas. If they are going to try to challenge a problem, they at least require a whiff of feasibility. So when DARPA contracts Ekso repeatedly over a long time period like they have, it seems as if they are making progress otherwise why continue. Also, the breadth of agency is important to look at.
When the TALOS project was first announced, SOCOM soldiers were chosen to be the recipient. Then some time passed and the army announced they were doing research on exoskeletons. Then a little more time passed and the Army let it slip that Warrior Web would potentially address 90% of the
military population.
Source: https://www.arl.army.mil/www/?article=2551
So in terms of robotic exoskeleton contracts the Army has made public, there are only two that I'm aware of. Ekso Bionics is part of the team working on a simulator. Also, PowerWalk by BionicPower fits into this category, but since it's not doing any weight carriage - I think it's basically non-competitive.
http://www.resquared.com/news-events/press-releases/
So exoskeletons have gone about something that only the very best of the best were possibly going to receive - to being something that potentially 90% of the military population will be wearing. If this isn't a sign of game changing realities taking hold, I'm not sure what is.
'Ekso, make me dance!'
http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20170720ptan20170202725.php
Oversold conditions can exist even when RSI doesn't suggest it.
If you ask me, we've been oversold the last 5 years
I still think a big military/government healthcare contract could send us to $10 in a single day.
DARPA is the spearhead, but the rest of the spear is what carries most of the force.
The broader military is already researching exoskeletons with simulators, and Ekso is part of the team working on that.
It's looking pretty green today, anyone know of any news?
bit of a recovery, let's see if it lasts
Meanwhile we are basically a penny stock again
I think it's a certain sign the company is struggling to keep afloat
I think the certainty of downfall should be avoided, and the possibility of uprise should be chased after. That's simple enough, but the key difference is it's more important to avoid the pits in the road than to run full speed.
They are shooting themselves in the foot, and most of the potential upside isn't to the company, but the new investors. Meanwhile all the older investors are getting disregarded. It's like an inverted pyramid scheme.
Perhaps if they hold onto enough of these 1$ share provisions long enough and don't sell them, it could be good for the company - but that's a big if to incite a 20% fall (and still sinking).
Horrible news, not sure what management is thinking. It's worse than if they actually sold 34 million at 1$ per share. At least then the price might sink to 1$, but the company would at very least have money. Just this announcement could cause a death spiral down to 1$ and then there would be WAY LESS incentive for anyone to buy it at the new price. I understand selling in volume sometimes you have to drop below share price, but less than 50% of value??????? That's outrageous.
I think we need short term good news before year end otherwise the entire company might be cleaned out soon. Management seems to be sucking the ship dry.
https://flbcnews.com/prepping-for-a-big-move-share-update-on-ekso-bionics-holdings-inc-ekso/
seems very similar to another similar article recently posted
Ekso Vest will theoretically launch this year if I remember correctly
so I think that'll be a big help. At the moment I think the industrial side of things is looking a lot more optimistic than the snails pace rate of sales to medical clinics.
Not certain about when the home unit is supposed to launch, or if they're still continuing development for a children's unit...
It's also somewhat unclear what the conformal artemis exoskeleton will be used for, although probably industrial stuff...
If you look closely at the most recently posted video, you can see what looks like Artemis listed as "conformal ekso concept"
What's interesting to me though is when they talk about ekso labs
in other news, has Keith Fitz-Gerald fallen off the face of the earth, or abducted by the Russians? Would be nice to hear from him after he pumped the stock so hard
Equity Research firms currently have a positive stance on shares of Ekso Bionics Holdings, Inc. (:EKSO). The majority of analysts covering the equity have either a Buy or Strong Buy recommendation on the stock, yielding a consensus score of 2.00. This is based on the research brokerage reports taken into consideration by Thomson Reuters. Those same analysts are projecting that the stock will reach $6.00 on a short term basis.
https://davidsonregister.com/consensus-analysts-roundup-on-magicjack-vocaltec-ltd-nasdaqcall-ekso-bionics-holdings-inc-ekso/107355/
New SEC filings, lots of options to buy stock
Seems like they will care more and more about share price, the more they own.
Ekso wins Internet-Of-Things Healthcare Award
http://medtechbreakthrough.com/award-winners/#wealth
http://ir.eksobionics.com/in-the-news
It would seem licensing to Lockeed was intentional on review.
"as of January, 2015, no federal agency has exercised its march-in rights. Five march-in petitions have been made to the National Institutes of Health."
So it seems unlikely Ekso's patents were marched in on with out the public being notified.
Still, I think it's actually a positive sign that Lockheed Martin hasn't been paying royalties recently. Their FORTIS technology is cool and all, but I would rather see Ekso products.
If the Navy and other parties stopped buying FORTIS, it would seem likely they have something else they are more interested in. It's not clear yet that that's EKSO, but perhaps it will be.
Ekso may not have only licensed to Lockheed Martin because of "march in" rights. The Bayh–Dole Act or Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act (Pub. L. 96-517, December 12, 1980) is United States legislation dealing with intellectual property arising from federal government-funded research.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act
"The government's march-in right is one of the most contentious provisions in Bayh-Dole. It allows the funding agency, on its own initiative or at the request of a third party, to effectively ignore the exclusivity of a patent awarded under the act and grant additional licenses to other "reasonable applicants.""
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Assuming march in right were executed, it would explain a lot. Why Ekso would want to (or be required to) license their tech for such minuscule royalties.
I don't think it's anything to be upset about. We still have a large number of patents to our name granted from government reserach, and hopefully enough innovative tech that 1 or 2 required licensings won't matter to the business. It's possible the royalties would even become significant
All in all, I think it's a good compromise for our country to have march in rights in return for corporations getting to keep the patents.
If anything, it proves that Ekso's technologies are fundamentally important enough to share if the march in provision was in fact activated.
I suppose lockheed isn't getting off too easy:
(Since 2008, Lockheed has purchased approximately $6 million in non-recurring engineering services from the Company and paid $1 million in licensing fees for the further development of the HULC and other exoskeletons.) - reported on the 10-k ending 2014:
http://ir.eksobionics.com/all-sec-filings?form_type=10-K#document-8954-0001144204-15-017256
EXOSKELETON EQUIPPED WITH WEAPON:
Generally speaking, exoskeleton tech is super new still.
Perhaps the only reason Ekso has FDA approval already is because of a fast-track program between the NIH and FDA. Still, no one other than Ekso Bionics has been granted FDA stroke approval for their exoskeleton. I think this is taken for granted.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-fda-announce-collaborative-initiative-fast-track-innovations-public
The new Russian military exoskeleton might prompt more information being released about TALOS. The US has a history of allowing the Russians to 'be the first', which they find satisfying. The US however, is more patient and likes to use the Russian precedent as a tool. If the common person in america get's upset the US doesn't have an equivalent, it makes pushing for spending that much easier. My opinion is that the US release date was highly calculated, and if anything, we may have baited this Russian release by ourselves setting the TALOS date. I'm not in a position to know the reality, but it's certain the exoskeleton field is heating up quickly.
VIRAL: New Russian Military Terminator Test Suit Allows You To Walk Directly Through Explosions
France has already rolled out 22,000 + military exoskeletons according to wikipedia
Felin (Fantasssin a Equipment et Liasons Integres, Integrated Infantryman Equipment and Communications)
developed by Safran Electronics & Defense.
300 were deployed to Afghanistan in 2011
The future is now: Russian military unveils next-generation combat suit
A major hi-tech Russian military research center has unveiled what appears to be a prototype of a next-generation combat suit. The stunning gear, resembling Star Wars outfits, will be worn by Russian soldiers on future battlefields.
Stay on the topic of EKSO. I admit the EKSO news isn't exactly rapid-fire at the moment however.
One thing I'll mention that's sort of adjacent to Ekso was Trump's Technology Roundtable. It was actually a square table, but they went around in a circle so I won't complain further. Anyhow, one of the 'technology industry leaders' who spoke specifically addressed the growing power emerging from the relationship between Government, Academia, and Industry. While they didn't mention TALOS specifically, I would guess it's sort of a natural born trifecta that arises from a challenge as difficult as a human exoskeleton.
Maybe not, but then again - the Richmond Tank Depot was listed as one of the reasons that brought around the military industrial complex, so perhaps my above guess is just a logical progression following that idea.
Time will tell.
On a more personal note, I just interviewed for a senate related job, where I'd be on salary at about a 40% raise from my last position. So fingers crossed on that. I know I'll certainly be buying EKSO stock if I land it.