Top member reports
Company Report
Last edited 4 months ago
PerformanceCommunity EngagementCommunity Endorsement
ranked
#1
Performance (98m)
22.2% pa
Followed by
2588
Straws
Sort by:
Recent
Content is delayed by one month. Upgrade your membership to unlock all content. Click for membership options.
#Interview
Added 4 months ago

Here's the transcript from today's interview: BluGlass Transcript.pdf, and the recording is up on the Meetings page.

First off, apologies to @Clio and others as I forgot to ask the questions you submitted!! I've emailed Stef and she'll get back to me with answers to your questions ASAP.

My 2 sats worth:

Super interesting tech, and it's encouraging they are generating a bit of revenue and seem to have a decent pipeline of opportunities. Also good to know that there's no necessary CAPEX at this stage, and the cost base seems to be largely set for the foreseeable future. They have capacity to support $160m annual revenue, so lots of capacity.

All that being said, they will almost certainly run out of cash and you can expect a good number of capital raises before they are able to stand on their own feet. That's not necessarily a problem if they get anywhere close to their ambitions, but we know things tend to take longer and cost more than what people tend to think, and lots of potential goes unfulfilled. Business is tough, and cutting edge tech in a field with massive and dominant players is especially so.

So huge upside, but loads of risk -- at least at this early stage.


here's a chatGPT5 summary of the meeting:

Summary

  • Who: Andrew interviewing Stef Winwood (Blueglass, ASX: BLG).
  • What: Overview of Blueglass’ gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor lasers, status update on commercial traction, manufacturing, and funding.
  • Why GaN: Higher efficiency, smaller form factor, better thermal performance and durability versus many incumbent laser materials; enables compact, high-power devices.
  • Use cases: Quantum computing, defense, industrial manufacturing/processing, scientific and sensing applications.

Commercial & Strategy

  • Model: Leaning to a foundry/partnering approach with OEMs and primes rather than going it alone on every vertical.
  • Traction: Recent commercial contracts signed; customer engagement across defense and quantum; qualification cycles under way.
  • Capacity: Current production footprint in place; expansion considered if contract volume ramps.
  • Differentiation: Device performance and reliability from GaN process know-how; positioning as an enabler for partners’ end products.

Financial & Capital

  • Cash/Runway: Discussed current cash position and expected inflows (including Australian R&D rebate). Last capital raise referenced.
  • Use of funds: Scale manufacturing, customer qualifications, and engineering to meet near-term contracts.

Risks & Constraints

  • Customer qualification timelines can be long (especially defense).
  • Execution risk moving from prototypes to volume.
  • Capex/scale decisions tied to visibility on orders.

Near-term Focus

  • Complete customer qualifications and convert pilots to volume orders.
  • Deepen OEM partnerships in priority verticals.
  • Prepare manufacturing scale-up playbook contingent on demand.

Open Questions (flagged or implied)

  • Expected timelines from current evaluations to revenue shipments.
  • How far Blueglass will integrate vs stay a specialist supplier.
  • Trigger points for capacity expansion and associated capex.
  • Longer-term gross margin ambition once at scale.