Hi 'glb2,' I have to tell you that this post is the best one ever! It is the best one I have ever seen in all of my years on this board. You are absolutely correct in everything you said. Your analysis of KBLB's situation is dead on. I particularly like this statement:
"For the moment, Kim Thompson is selling additional shares to fund the company's operation. It is the only way he has to stay in business. He is diluting his own shares as well as ours. I am buying stock as quickly as my limited resources allow, aware that the price may continue to sag, but hopeful that commercial production is not too far away and the stock will climb once that begins."
Absolutely CORRECT, 'glb2!' This post needs to be highlighted at the top of the board. WELL DONE. Your post is a must read before anyone evern considers selling one share. As I have always said, now is the time, at these prices, to load up, IMHO of course, but I know I am right...:-)
I don't think Kim is stalling, nor lying... However I think with some more/right people around him, things could have done better/faster. We're still not able to produce the necessary quantities of sample materials to supply interested parties for testing, after over 3 years, don't understand this..... If the undisclosed location did not work out, why would it now succeed in the US?) And waiting over 2 years on Vietnam andcwe're still not active over there....
He's trying to communicate better now, but I think the company lost a bit of it's credibility (towards the investment world): don't think much new shareholders are stepping in: too much of what was said (metric tons, more details on products, sales agreements were announced and did not come through yet.
Guess we're all waiting to see production/product/commercial facts now.
Is it normal we're at 0,02 currently? In my opinion not and it's bad for the Kim and us (all shareholders) having to sell shares at these prices.
Excellent post, PFS! Well-done. I especially loved the last line:
"I am buying stock as quickly as my limited resources allow, aware that the price may continue to sag, but hopeful that commercial production is not too far away and the stock will climb once that begins."
You are one smart person! This PPS is headed only one way, UP, UP, UP, AND AWAY. EXPLOSION DATE IS VERY CLOSE, IMHO........
Wow, that was quite a post. You seem to have a lot of facts and a lot of good info on the company. I love posts like this. I agree with a good portion of what you mentioned, but I want to address a few things:
Bolt Threads is the only company to my knowledge that uses transgenic yeast. Spiber (jp), Spiber Technologies (se), AMSilk, and a few other minor companies and organizations use E.coli and other bacteria to create their proteins. Bacteria is easier to work with, but is not necessarily the best chassis to use to create the Spider Silk Proteins. As I have been told by some UCLA students that worked closely with Bolt Threads for their iGEM Project:
This basically means that they can insert more genetic code, produce more proteins, and produce the proteins cheaper than other companies that work with bacteria. This is why, despite Spiber struggling to lower their costs to produce to below $100/kg and their partner offering the Moon Parka at a loss, Bolt was still able to put out in an Article Last Year:
It is interesting to note that standard Silk, Mohair, and Cashmere all seem to generally go for around $50 per kg and can be as cheap as ~$15 per kg.
You also mentioned that teenagers will not have access to CRISPR/CAS9 from their garage. While that is true, it is still a much cheaper gene insertion methodology and many universities globally have these tools available to students and faculty to utilize, and they are being utilized as shown by the iGEM team above. While there is still a very long, very expensive workup to get to the point where you can create decent quality fibers from any chassis, it is still possible for any graduating bioengineering student to create a startup very much the way that Bolt Threads, Spiber, Brooks Biomimetics, etc. have all done and the protein production method costs will likely be coming down as the technology improves. I expect to see many more startups in this area as products start hitting the shelves.
From what I can tell, they do release this info to their financers and partner companies, but they have not released it to the public yet. Spiber has stated in an e-mail correspondence a while back that they will publicly release their QMONOS fiber info in 2017, though they did mention in a presentation for Japan’s ImPACT early last year that they will achieve 1.6 GPa strength and 354 MJ/m3 toughness. I haven’t found anything on Bolt Thread’s properties, but considering that they are primarily targeting the mundane silk market, I don’t think that they are aiming for really strong or tough fibers. TRUTH pointed out that they did mention back in 2014 that their initial product is dragline spider silk and around that time they supplied their primary financer with samples, but they seem to have deleted any mention of having dragline silk now and don’t mention it at all anymore, so I am unsure what properties that they have or had achieved.
To my knowledge, KBLB is not working with the University of Michigan, only with the University of Wyoming and Notre Dame using the expertise of Prof. Jarvis and Prof. Fraser respectively. Per their press release from September Last Year, I believe that they chose Ann Arbor as their HQ to be able to utilize their SPARK program moving forward if needed.
I agree with you on most parts of your post and do believe that KBLB will eventually do well, but I am concerned about how they will finance their ramp up to commercialization. Their current financing agreement expires later this year and the rate that their PPS has been dropping recently coupled with their increased need for funding to establish the domestic facility(s) means that they need some sort of alternate financing and soon. A contract providing upfront cash is much more preferable, but it would have to be an exclusive contract and the investing company would need to have some sort of collateral insurance if it fails such as rights to the IP or something. Another option would be utilizing a Venture Capitalist, though they would likely need to be offered preferred shares rather than the common shares that current shareholders have to invest. I believe that this is more likely and being considered based on the last 10-Q. This will likely devalue current common shares significantly, but could provide the funding needed to get off the ground. If Kim simply renews the current financing contract and has no alternate financing, the amount of dilution that will be needed to get set up would likely plunge the company into the sub-pennies. Based on that, I am tempted to try to cut my losses for the time being, but from what I have researched about Jon Rice, I believe that he can pull off that contract and possibly others like it to provide the initial cash to get moving without too much stock devaluation in the mean time.