Innoviz Technologies Ltd (INVZ)

[WeTheMarket]

Innoviz Technologies Reports 2021 Second Quarter Financial Results
August 11 2021 - 06:00AM, PR Newswire (US)
https://ih.advfn.com/stock-market/NASDAQ/innoviz-technologies-INVZ/stock-news/85805848/innoviz-technologies-reports-2021-second-quarter-f

TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Innoviz Technologies (Nasdaq: INVZ), a technology leader of high-performance, solid-state LiDAR sensors and perception software, today reports financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021. Innoviz reaffirms its previously announced long-term guidance, increases its order book potential wins, and provides operational updates on commercial traction, technology leadership and corporate development.

Commercial Traction

- Significant progress and high performance in the company's global business generation strategy with prospects and potential customers, facilitated by its research and development teams.
- Realized continued momentum from the shuttle program design win continued and we aim to increase our volume through additional orders in the near future.
- Won an advanced development project with a European autonomous truck company, which provides for Innoviz to equip the customer's 2021 fleet with Innoviz technology. Innoviz believes it is well-positioned to pursue multi-year contracts after the testing phase is complete.
- Secured four new technical partnerships that expanded the company's presence in Asia:
1. Edom - One of Asia's largest electronics and semiconductor distributors will seek to drive sales and enhance support initiatives for Innoviz's LiDAR solutions in the Greater China region.
2. Whale Dynamic - China based full stack L4 autonomous driving company. Their platform will utilize InnovizOne LIDARs, replacing previous generation Innoviz LiDAR, as its primary sensors with the goal of creating the world's best sensor fusion design.
3. SpringCloud - Korea based B2B Autonomous Mobility as a Service (MaaS) provider, with a platform conducting autonomous driving data analysis and perception validation. SpringCloud will distribute Innoviz products in Korea across multiple sectors.
4. Curium – Singapore based autonomous driving platform provider focused on the calibration and integration of LIDARs and other sensors for autonomous driving that will promote Innoviz LiDAR in the region.

Technology Leadership

- Completed several design cycles and are on the verge of freezing the hardware design for InnovizOne. Innoviz believes it is among the first in the industry to reach this milestone and is seeing strong traction for the product.
- Developed early samples of InnovizOne+, an enhanced version of InnovizOne that features components developed for InnovizTwo extending the range and resolution.
- Completed optical design of InnovizTwo, the company's top-of-the-line LIDAR that uses a single laser and detector, advanced packaging and electronic design at a 70% material cost reduction compared to InnovizOne.
- Surpassed one million object annotations within Innoviz's automotive perception platform, InnovizAPP. The platform is installed in test vehicles in three continents (Asia, Europe and North America) and is accelerating timelines for consumer autonomous vehicle (AV) programs.

Corporate Development

- Increased employee headcount by 29 people in the quarter, bringing the company's total employee headcount to 337 at quarter end. Approximately 70% of the company's talent base consists of the research and development team.

"We are making remarkable progress in global business development in parallel with advancing our technical standards," said Omer Keilaf, CEO & Co-Founder of Innoviz. "I am proud of our research and development teams that are working day and night with our prospects and potential customers on adapting and finetuning the performance, computer vision, safety and comfort features, mechanical and software integrations, as well as quality and design validations of our LiDARs for a variety of use cases."

"We are humbled to have received so much positive feedback from multiple customers and technical partners. Our success is largely attributed to our R&D team as they are the driving force behind these technology advancements. As the world reopens, we are truly looking forward to meeting our customers, prospects, partners and investors in person."

Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results

Revenues for Q2 2021 were $1.0 million, an increase of 38% compared to Q1 2021. InnovizOne-related revenues in Q2 2021 increased by 29% to $991 thousands, or 98% of revenues, compared to $766 thousands, or 76% of revenues, in Q2 2020. The company continues to see strong demand for its products and expects the positive momentum to continue.

Operating expenses for Q2 2021 were $70.7 million, an increase from $13.5 million in Q2 2020. The $70.7 million of operating expenses included $49.9 million of stock-based compensation as well as $1.8 million of issuance costs. The increase in operating expenses was primarily due to $47.2 million attributable to stock-based compensation granted as part of the SPAC business combination, which closed in Q2 2021. Additionally, the company continued to invest heavily in R&D, with R&D expenses totaling $32.1 million, of which $17.6 million was attributable to stock-based compensation, compared to $11.5 million of R&D expenses incurred in Q2 2020, of which $0.5 million was attributable to stock-based compensation.

As of June 30, 2021 the company had $156.4 million in cash and $195.0 million in short-term deposits, compared to $199.1 million in cash and no short-term deposits as of March 31, 2021. The increase in cash was related to the closing of the company's SPAC business combination transaction and will support the company's capital resource needs in the coming years.