Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to the BioLargo Inc. Townhall Company Update. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to hand the floor over to your host, Matt Kreps. Sir, the floor is yours.
Matt Kreps: Thank you, and thank you, everyone, for joining us. With me today on the call is Dennis Calvert, our CEO; and Charles Dargan, our CFO. We want to thank you for attending the BioLargo shareholder town hall today. We'll begin in just a moment with prepared remarks from Dennis and then taking some of the questions that were submitted through the pathways noted in our announcement press release for this call. Before I turn the call over to Dennis, though, please be advised that this presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These include, without limitation, statements regarding commercialization plans and timing, product launches, regulatory developments, partnerships and distribution arrangements, financing activity, grant funding, subsidiary valuations and anticipated milestones. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and assumptions that are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including those described under Risk Factors in the company's annual report on Form 10-K and its subsequent quarterly reports from Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Subsidiary evaluation figures presented herein reflect prices paid by outside investors in private transactions that are not the result of a market for those securities. There is no assurance that any such value could be realized. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required by law. And for the call today, we set up a fireside chat with prepared remarks and some questions along the way, including those submitted by you as our investors. We'll also take appropriate questions at the end to the extent we have time, which you can submit by the instructions in the PR. And with that, Dennis, please go ahead, and welcome to the call.
Dennis Calvert: All right, everyone. This is Dennis. Thank you for being here. We're very thankful to have a chance to speak to the group, be able to handle some questions, fill you in on some of the scoop and the advancements that really are quite material. And we know it's been a hard season. And so everyone is anxious to really get some good information. So we're thankful for that. We've assembled an extraordinary portfolio of companies and technologies. We're going to dig a little bit deeper and really provide some insight as to the status of those. Let me see here if I can make sure that I've got a little technical -- hold on a second. Can you give an advanced slide for me?
Matt Kreps: Actually, I think I'm maybe having the same issue that the next slide, advanced button is not.
Dennis Calvert: Yes. Operator, let's get a little help here. Hang on everybody. Give us a second.
Matt Kreps: Here we go. Now we're underway. There you go, Dennis.
Dennis Calvert: Okay. Thank you. Perfect. Yes. So there's a basic thesis, right? We're not really manufacturing product or manufacturing companies. It's kind of obvious in the way the company has evolved over the years. We're going to do a little bit of a deep dive, talk about these companies, the technologies that underpin them, why we focus on this strategy as a finance and business development strategy. We can talk about where it's working, maybe where it's not working as best as -- as much as we'd like, but really why we're so enthusiastic about our status and our future. And I'm really glad for this format to have Matt here to be able to sort of have a fireside chat, talk through some of these issues. Our goal for the call really is to make sure that you get the information that you want and you need as much as possible. There are certain things, of course, that really require some confidentiality. Some of that's exhausting, I know. So we're empathetic to that.
Dennis Calvert: But we're going to do our best to really convey the ideas. So you walk away from this call saying, okay, I learned something. So Matt, what do you think?
Matt Kreps: All right. Let's dive in and I think let's start with the next slide because that answers one of the questions we had, which was about how we choose the companies that are in this idea of BioLargo manufacturing companies and how you create value down the road by doing so.
Dennis Calvert: Yes. The picking of strategies is interesting. We started this company years ago. And of course, it started with the copper iodine complex. I had a chance to meet Ken Code and it's been -- geez, it's been a long time. And I remember the first time I met him like it was yesterday. And what he described to me was this idea of some invention, some discovery that he made that had a chance to impact the world for a greater good. And it really resonated. And I said to myself, if you can make money and you can do something really awesome for people, for the planet and for life, right, make life better. That's our whole slogan. That's worthy of a career and worthy of a cause. That theme has not been lost, do something worthy. And so the portfolio gets picked, number one, by its potential to make an impact. And in that process of picking, we have to fill a gap, find something that's missing in the market. We have to decide if it's achievable, something that's within our wheelhouse of talent and time and resource, right? And then focus on getting through the same steps. And here's the slide, right? It works the same way really every time, find a technology that we believe can be #1. It's foundational to the business. And sometimes we have to defend that, but we do believe we can defend it. In fact, most of the journey is about defending that first thesis, which is a #1 technology. It's one of a kind and has a chance to be a foundation of change. Something that's #2 is measurable, where you can fill a gap, you can measure it in terms of value, efficiency, allowing something else to happen for a customer or a partner, right? And then really advance it through this thesis of adoption, proof of claim, commercialization, regulatory clearance, all these things that sort of derisk. And that third category is exhausting, I can tell you. It's not easy. It's really where most companies fail. And the beauty in our business is we've been able to do that in a consistent way over a very, very long period of time. So we want to carry it until the point where, "Someone else helps us carry it." And we talk about what does that mean? Helps us carry it? Both financially, distribution, licensing partnership, all these things that allow us to plug into scale, scale for distribution, scale for something meaningful. And then ultimately, that results in the opportunity for potential exit. So we've been doing this for quite some time, and that's the machine, that's the company. That's what we've been doing. And it's pretty remarkable. We've done something remarkable with a very -- really small capital base. I'd say the biggest negative is sometimes it's taken an extraordinarily long time. And even this most recent event with the opportunity up in Canada and in oil sands, it's like a full circle story coming back since 2011, and we'll put some more color on that. And it just shows you the durability of technology and a management team that stays the course to find that adoption cycle, be ready when the market is ready, and then weather the storm of sometimes things that are beyond our control, regulatory events, political events, macroeconomic events. And that's one of the reasons our diversity has really been so beautiful, I think. Anyway, those 4 steps are over and over. They run on separate companies. They create extraordinary leverage. We're going to talk about that. Relatively small amounts of capital into positions that other people's capital and goodwill and investment they've made for decades, sometimes even 100 years is now available for our leverage. And so this is what the machine is built. Let's go to the next slide. There we go. 7 companies, each incorporated to capitalize and monetize. Capitalize and monetize, a one-of-a-kind value. One-of-a-kind value, that's the argument, of course, and some of these have taken a long time. Clyra is a great example. It's over a decade of investment, and we've had substantial external investment. We're going to break that down in a little bit more detail. So when you look at the road map here and you say, okay, look at all this stuff. I mean these things have technologies, they have people, they have activity in the marketplace to get to adoption. We have 2 new ones, of course, right? So we're talking about that, the CPG, which is the relaunch, BioLargo CPG, that's consumer products. And then this new venture that just got announced this morning and yesterday with Tu Nipi. All the locals call it, Tu Nipi. Tu Nipi Water Solutions, which is a venture designed to really take technology and business development into a cooperative to do something very special for that region and for our partners and for the people that we serve, it's pretty awesome. So it's a big change, right? Two new -- even since August, we've already got 2 ventures that really stood up. So no company complete all these steps overnight. It's quite a journey from incubation, proving up regulatory, scaling through partnership and manufacturing. And this gives us a snapshot. So let's go to the next slide. So these all have a little bit different. Incubation, of course, I mean, my goodness, we just announced it this morning, Tu Nipi. It's an awesome. It's early stage, of course, proving up Cellinity. Most people believe Cellinity is the farthest out of reach. We're going to argue that a little bit. But they're not wrong. It's still a proving up stage. We've got to prove that, that technology can stand the test of scale and capital and execution in a very, very competitive dynamic market that's extraordinarily capital intensive. And for the PFAS, getting through regulatory is about getting commercial. And so we're finally commercial, which is awesome. We've got about 7 months of operating history now. And so that sets the stage for regulatory, right, the clearance, the proof of claim, the reference site. Scaling through partnership is really these 2 things, right? Our odor control products with the Pooph debacle, which is so painful. We'll talk about that. Clyra Medical, of course, a number of distributors and our big commercial partner coming in soon. So we're very excited about that. And then the exit. So the positive is there's a plan. The exit is where a big payoff is. And I think we're going to convince you at some level that some of these assets have a payoff that's much sooner than you may think. So we're going to talk about that just a bit and go through the debate. So let's go to the next slide. Matt, are you still with me?
Matt Kreps: I'm here. Should be the next on the show.
Dennis Calvert: That's good. Okay. So one of the things that this begs, right, and the challenge of that is we've got a platform of all these technologies that we believe have extraordinary value and yet our market cap has declined well over 60%, almost 70% last year. And so it begs the question, right, what's up? What are you saying, Matt? Help me frame that question.
Matt Kreps: Yes. So I think, Dennis, there's probably 2 questions that come out of this that were in the list of the submitted questions. The first is with all of these companies and assets and as the prior slide just showed, we've got 2 of them that are getting ready for that commercial or exit type of transition point where they create value. Why do you perceive that the company is being valued at such a low multiple today versus the value of these underlying assets?
Dennis Calvert: It's a good question, right. So I think it's a couple of things, right? One is certainly, time is our enemy. Some of these assets have taken a long time to get to market, and it makes people wonder if they're ever going to come. So that's an obvious issue. The second thing is the fact that we've been investing so heavily in the validation, the scaling, the infrastructure design, Clyra is a great example. I mean they've just had an extraordinary investment cycle over the last 2 years to get ready to go to scale with giant partners and big distribution. And the good news is they're coming out of that with success. But man, it really takes a toll financially and as well as manpower to get through that for a small company. But we always say that also builds the moat. That's the moat that also protects us on the go-forward plan. So we think it's really critical. We also think it's critical to make some of those investments to protect the intellectual property. One of the things people often forget is that if you're willing to do that hard work, what we call sometimes the most difficult work, you're also proving that value not only for your position in the marketplace, but the expanded intellectual property, the experience. Extraordinary experience from the team living on the front line, really proving up all that throughout that journey. So there's 2 big factors, I think, that are the biggest negatives that we've really had to deal with. And there's 2 that really hit us pretty hard this year. The first would be the Pooph debacle. It's a really sad circumstance. And we believe it didn't have to be this way. But we do look at that circumstance and we say to ourselves, it's critical that we protect the intellectual property. It's critical that we protect our products, and we'll take the good that came from that experience and we'll turn it into something great, and that's what we're doing. We're going to talk about that. But the financial toll on performance was pretty dramatic. Not only did we write down revenue that disappeared from a very significant relationship that we invested quite heavily in, we also took a financial hit on the way out the door with close to a $4 million write-down. And so that's a pretty powerful combination coming against the company. As we look back on it, I think we're all going to see a silver lining, and that is that as we reemerge, we're going to invest in a brand and all the infrastructure so that we can capture that value for our stockholders because we have such a compelling reason to do so. I'm going to come to that a little bit later. The second thing about that is that the delay, the delay for the launch of Clyra. The combination of that is pretty dramatic. And again, as difficult as it is, I think that one of our arguments for the beauty in the company is that most companies would have gone out of business, and we have not and nor do we intend to. So while we've taken our hits, we've actually stabilized and we're moving forward in a pretty dramatic way. As we mentioned prior in some of our press releases, we expect to launch our consumer products category in the October time frame. We're gearing up for that. We'll come back to that. Clyra is, while it got delayed, it's certainly alive and it's pressing hard to get into go-mode in a dramatic way. And during that delay process, we've added 3 distributors, which are all now doing the hard work on the front end to line up significant distribution capability. So I'd say today, with all those negatives coming against us, we've actually stayed the course to advance the commercial thesis, and we've advanced these business propositions in a pretty dramatic way. Now let's take a look at the next slide real quick, and that will kind of bring us up to taking a snapshot of the financial implications and what we dealt with over recent history. I'm also going to invite Charlie to say, hey, Charlie, are you with us?
Dennis Calvert: I am now. I'm off mute. So yes, I'm here.
Dennis Calvert: Okay. Great. So I know we put a lot of this into the Q, of course. We put a lot into the press release that came out a couple of weeks ago. I don't know that we have anything dramatic or new to say, but I think we should sort of highlight, if you will, the highlights of what this financial representation presents to someone looking forward from this point and say, what are the takeaways? So maybe you can walk through some of that in your eyes and some of the content we've provided. What do you think?
Dennis Calvert: Sure. I think, obviously, the Q has been out for almost a month now. And so the numbers are the numbers. But I think when we look at it from the perspective as we see in the slide, quarter-to-quarter, we've actually had an increase in revenue. And I know the Pooph business -- the loss of the Pooph business sort of overwhelms everything. But the truth is if you look behind those kinds of numbers, a lot of the growth in the revenue is coming from our engineering group, which is doing a wonderful job in increasing revenues and selling to third-party customers. And actually, the remainder of the product and services that ONM provides increased too. So the core business is actually improving quarter-to-quarter. And when we look at the loss, the loss again is overwhelmed, but also because we consolidate Clyra and it is getting to the point where it's launching, there's a large expense, a large cost going with that. But they raised third-party capital, which covers that, and you can see that in our cash flow statement for sure. And so as Dennis, as you've mentioned and as everyone has been looking at this, if you look at our cash position from the balance sheet with over $2 million in cash, we've been able to maintain our position and through a very difficult time, not only in the loss of the Pooph business, but also prepping to get Clyra into the market, which, in my personal opinion, is obviously a success for us. And we've been able to do it by raising third-party capital, granted some of its debt. But still, that is the underlying message, I think, from the quarter-to-quarter versus looking at everything else, which, again, overwhelms what we've been doing. So bottom line there is the core business is growing in revenue. It's stable, and we look forward to the next quarters.
Dennis Calvert: Great, Charlie. That's good.
Matt Kreps: And guys, a question we got was kind of around those revenues. Let me just jump in here because I think it's a good spot to ask this question. Losing the Pooph revenues, it's like $1.6 million on this slide is referenced as being from Q2 of '25, we're exiting that business. So what we're kind of seeing here to the question being asked is if we're adding Pooph back into that, we've got kind of a -- do you see that we have a short runway to get back towards more of a historical revenue rate by recovering some of that Pooph business in the new consumer products business?
Dennis Calvert: Yes. Yes, I should comment on that. We do. And the rate of how fast the consumer products can ramp is an unknown. And so it's uncertain for sure. But when you look at -- I'm going to take a round -- a rough estimate. We look at what Pooph did. Pooph started with venture capital backing. They had a much larger capital base in inception, not quite at the beginning, but pretty quickly in the process of ramping up. So we're kind of taking that same approach. We look at it and say, let's start, let's get our platform established, let's create our content, let's create our brand and let's launch into that market in a careful way, right, precise. And then as we get some traction and see the model working the way we believe it should, we believe additional capital will be available to that venture. The thing to take note on is that our strategy is to fund the venture but not fund it from the dilution at BioLargo. And that is a pivotal architectural thing that people need to really lock in here. And so we believe we could do that. Now -- and we've done it in other business ventures like Clyra and even like our battery technology. That thesis is a pretty compelling thesis for the way to finance income-generating businesses and assets that drive value for BioLargo stockholders. So we'll do the same. In a conservative way, if we took half the numbers that Pooph generated and we said, okay, let's -- our target should be about half. That's a number that realistically could come in the $15-plus million range over the first course of a year to 1.5 years. Now it's not going to happen all at once. You got to start and you got to ramp. But when we look at the significance of the way these products are adopted in digital media today, we believe those numbers are very achievable for BioLargo and BioLargo CPG, and we believe that we have the playbook, proven products, the history, the proof of claim and the marketing team to really drive that adoption. And now we're investing in the platform to see that, that platform can be used for Clyra brand. And the difference is that while we were a supply chain partner for the Pooph business, now we'll own the brand. It's a big difference. And so we'll record the gross and then we'll make decisions about deploying capital for reinvestment into the growth cycle. But I -- if you could paint the magic picture, and that would be people get excited about the business, drive our value, create currency for the company, right, in the value of our position so that we could be an investor in our business, an investor to grow and make more money. right? So we think that's what's coming, okay? So that will kick off. And so again, it's going to be some meaningful numbers. And we're going to talk about the revenues that Pooph generated is about $125 million over the life cycle. Peak is about $60 million in run rate -- that's their numbers in 2025, which represented about $15 million to us in the supply chain. But the margin on our business proposition at that time was pretty significant because of the way we struck our business deal. So anyway, that's the answer. So yes, so I think the answer is the good news is that we don't necessarily rely only on the consumer products category to replace that gap. We also have the expanding sales and the distribution initiative with Clyra. Of course, we have a big pipeline in the PFAS business. We're going to talk about that with some more specificity. We now have a business arrangement with Tu Nipi, which is brand new. And that's a business development focus. That's a commercial focus. So we're pretty excited about that. So anyway, there's a number of ways we'll do that. So Matt, what do you think?
Matt Kreps: Absolutely. Yes. And I have one more question we've been asked that probably aligns this slide, then we should definitely jump ahead into the product slides that are next. But we did have a question about just how much does it cost us for the ongoing kind of operation of the business on a monthly basis?
Dennis Calvert: Yes, right. So let's talk about that. So -- the financial statements present, of course, the complete picture of the business as required. So don't forget that. But when you look at that presentation, you're looking at a consolidated presentation of operating units, business companies that have their own P&L, their own balance sheet, and they're consolidated because of our control position. Now we believe some of these one day, we won't be in a controlled position. That would be a third-party independent company that we're connected with as a shareholder, potentially a royalty receiver. So that's the future for the company. Some of these companies are built to spin out. And I want to remind everybody that I know a lot of people know it, but if you don't know it, it's important to understand these companies have inherent value because of the technology, the work that's done to solidify their market position. And as that happens, they become very valuable. And as the value can be realized, that could be through a joint venture, a licensing, an exit like a sale or even an IPO like a public offering, okay? So when you strip -- when you step back from the company and you look at the overhead structure, the parent company basically needs about $250,000 a month to run its current level of operations. And that's pretty skinny. Now that's doing a lot. That's incubating the battery company with staff and logistics. And so what happens is to the extent capital becomes available in that battery company, we can expand its focus. Same thing in the water technology. So we've invested, I don't know, a couple of million dollars in the water technology plus years. We supported an existing overhead. We've generated about all in on all water-related technologies, about $1.7 million in commercial revenue. And so it's the working capital plus the revenue has allowed us to do what? Well, go out and find a commercial installation, get our first reference site, march through the refinement of the intellectual property and the science itself. So the current run rate is also supporting corporate, legal, accounting, insurance, all the things that are pretty important. And it's also supporting the incubation, if you will, of our PFAS business, our R&D unit that has now landed this relationship with Tu Nipi, which we think is awesome and the battery company itself. So when you step away, the engineering company has had extraordinary growth. They need some working capital here and there, but they're basically self-sufficient and they're in a profitable mode, but for their R&D. When they do R&D for us, that's eliminated in consolidation. And so because of that work, because we can't record it as revenue to the engineering group, it's not booked as something that can generate a profit on consolidation. But in an unconsolidated presentation, we believe the engineering group's financial performance is quite remarkable. It's awesome, okay? So with that said -- yes, go ahead.
Matt Kreps: Yes. I think that's a good answer to that question. And let's keep driving forward towards talking about the businesses.
Dennis Calvert: Yes, it describes that dynamic, right? So what is this slide telling us, right? Clyra is a company that's now able to secure significant independent investment. And when it gets the money, it's going to put it to work. And when it puts it to work, what's it going to do? It's going to build infrastructure to support massive scale. Massive scale, right? Scaled manufacturing to support big boy sales, big boy distribution that can support a med tech company that's competing in a very competitive market. So that's what happens. So just look at it, 6.5% of the revenue generate 55% of the loss, okay? Now what happens in the consolidation is some of that loss is stripped out and is attributable to investors that own the minority interest of Clyra. And so this is a demonstration how the architecture of the company at the macro level, shows the accumulated loss and accumulated deficit. But in reality, it's being financed by investors in Clyra. And so how does this work? Well, it means that every time that investment is happening, it's building value, value in the proposition that Clyra presents for the marketplace, inherent value that our BioLargo shareholders get to participate in. So that's a good example. Let's move on to the next slide. Yes. So now overall company -- this is really important. I think sometimes people miss it. So in the total capital -- new capital that was brought into the company on a cash basis, 86% was raised outside the parent company. We brought in about $650,000 through the quarter, plus that $650,000 also includes some subsequent events post closing, about $650,000 over, let's call it, 4 months. And what does that number match? Well, it's pretty close to the $250,000 we talked about. And so that's where we've leaned on our equity line and some of the other instruments that allow us to capitalize. And it's really a very lean overhead compared to the value propositions that we're building. I do think we should note that on the funding that's come in for Clyra, we've also guaranteed it, and that's implicit. Why would we guarantee it? Well, because it's worth it. Right now, Clyra is operating at close to $100 million valuation. Substantial capital is still coming into the business. One of the things I think alarmed people at the end of the quarter is the burn rate at Clyra, raises the question, hey, is Clyra going to be able to get there? Well, the answer is Clyra is going to raise some more money. And yes, they're going to get there. I mean we believe that. We believe that's true. And of course, anything we can do to help them we do because of our stockholder fear and some of the pressure we've seen on our stock has made it very difficult for BioLargo to be a funder for Clyra at this moment. But we believe the market will correct that when it figures out what's actually going on. And it's our job to get that message out, and that's one of the reasons we're having this call is to make sure we really sink in here that the value proposition is so dramatic, it's worth us investing. Okay. So let's go to the next slide. Charlie, you might be able to comment on the next one, just the basic concepts we've covered here.
Dennis Calvert: Yes, sure. Happy to do so. So I think, again, we're going back to the lost revenue, but what have we done as a discipline. And the corporation has always been able to maintain its operating expenses and certainly, its overhead. And that's what this is -- what we're really talking about here is we've had a reduction in our corporate overhead largely driven by lower salaries. The offset here is that as we've continued to raise capital, we've obviously paid more out in professional fees. And then obviously, with the litigation, we have additional expenses related to attorneys. But it goes back to the discipline of the corporation from its get-go, which is we've always maintained a strict operating expense methodology. And so when it's come to corporate overhead and overheads in the divisional -- the divisions and the subsidiaries, we've watched that very closely. And so have been able to maintain our positions through thick and thin and overall, have kept the corporation moving forward.
Dennis Calvert: Yes. I think that's right. Moving forward is the key operative, right, not taking steps back, but figuring out how to tighten the belt, move forward and create opportunity that can drive value. So we keep doing that. I'll also note that the leaders -- often the leaders have invested in the company. I've made substantial investments. Also, we've invested in some of the subsidiary projects as has some of the -- many of the executives at Clyra have also invested. And so that's a cultural -- number one, we believe it. We believe it's worth it, especially at these prices, it's such a bargain. So the Form 4s indicate that. So that's clearly visible. And also, Ken and I, which are the largest stockholders, have also locked up our positions to make sure everyone knows that we're in for the long haul, which, of course, if you can't see it, you're not watching. I mean it's so evident everywhere. And so that lockup is really important. We're not trading in our securities. We're investing, and we believe that the future is really bright. And we believe it's worth it, high impact, significant value -- I had a meeting yesterday at the LD Micro NASDAQ Summit. And it was such a nice opportunity. There's 20 companies presenting. We were the only OTC company there. And everybody else is a NASDAQ company or a high-tech startup. There's a couple there for that in the AI field. Anyway, it was such a wonderful experience. And part of the reason that I think people really take a note is because we -- I use the language. You have to look at what's under the hood because what's under the BioLargo hood is really a very powerful engine, and it's built for some horsepower. And that's the challenge, right? The challenge is to convey that because it takes a deep dive. It's pretty technical. It's not easy. And if you're a flyby and you just want to watch the stock price, we understand. Those are probably not the people that are going to take long positions and certainly not the people that are going to accumulate big positions. People that accumulate big positions, they look under the hood. They check the engine. They want to see that horsepower. And so we think that's the main stay of the company. And of course, our job is to turn that into revenue and cash flow and all the other things that are so important. And the beauty is we paid a dear price to be here, and we think we're on track for that future. So now we're going to talk, I think, about SNAT. Anything you want to ask about any of that? Any questions or comments?
Matt Kreps: No, I think we've hit several of the questions, and we have, I think, given a pretty strong overview of the year. It was a challenging year, but we've worked through it. We're moving towards that value recognition. So let's talk about what that looks like with the commentary on the different businesses. We've got about 25, 30 minutes here. So let's try to use that to really focus on the business line.
Dennis Calvert: So I'm going to have to go fast here. Okay. I can do it. So the battery Cellinity, right? Cellinity, Infinity cell -- Cellinity. Yes. So the business model is pretty, I think, awesome. That is don't sell batteries, sell factories. We sell factories, not batteries. Okay. So the barrier to entry is astronomically high. I mean this is huge. And so how do you come through that? How do you get through the barrier, right? And the answer is you don't carry the cost of it. You share it. So we argue it's an extraordinarily share-the-wealth business model. And it's at a time in the world where the market demand for what we're proposing with that Cellinity battery cell is so overwhelming. It's hard for me to describe. So we've got a number of substantive negotiations. And here's the way I think about the Cellinity project. It's important that BioLargo not be seen as the funder. It's going to carry that CapEx. That CapEx is going to be about $250 million, okay? So what we're going to do is we're going to be the vendor that supplies the technology and the engineering and procurement and the design and the build and the architecture to capture extraordinary incentives as much as 50% of the CapEx. We've got a project cooking down in Puerto Rico, where 80-plus percent of the project can get financed with incentives. And so there's a push and a pull, right? You've got to prop up a 3-legged stool. In any event, the business model is to take a minority equity a royalty and they get revenue the day you get it financed. So while everyone might discount and look at the battery technology and say, "oh my gosh, that's a dreamer. I say, yes, maybe, until we land one. And when we do, we're instantly profitable on that business unit. I mean, instantly. Now we'll have to put some money into the derisking on the scaling. So it's not free, but we'll have a balance sheet to do it, and we'll have an offtake committed with a partner to finance the factory. This factory is about $170 million each. So let's go to the next slide, Matt. So remember, my work with the Secretary of Commerce has been awesome, and I serve as the Chairman of the subcommittee on enabling innovative technologies. And this is one of the thesis that's part of the analysis of the strategic national interest of the United States, okay? Critical. U.S. national strategic interest. This is a one-of-a-kind asset. It's got over 15 years of R&D, and there's 4 macro trends that are driving adoption, which are extraordinary. First is AI, of course. But it's more than AI. It's the fragile grid. It's the energy, it's the demand on energy requires storage, okay? It requires a lot of storage. So many companies are being picked as the growth corridor where the market is going to go up 2x, batteries are going to go up 3x and 7x. It's astonishing. So demand, mostly driven by AI, of course. The supply chain is a real problem, and that's mostly China. China supply chain is a real problem. tariffs, geopolitical concerns, rare earth elements, lots of real problems, none of which we have. The Achilles heel of the industry is degradation. That means the minute you take today's batteries that are available at scale and you deploy them, the day you put them in the field, they start losing capacity. The day they start, they lose capacity. So we have evidence to show 5 years no degradation and up to another -- excuse me, that's 10 years, 10 years, no degradation and another 10-year cycle with only 4% degradation under pressure, under extreme testing conditions. So 4% 20 year. We're selling a 20-year technology design in a market that's arguably a 7-year market with up to 15% degradation. It's an extraordinary claim. There's a whole bunch of other things, right? No fire -- no runaway fire risk, rare earth elements. All of that's important. And then the ownership structure is one in which we share the ownership with the partners that pull us in with capital balance sheets. So we've got a number of projects in serious discussions. And then ultimately, it's really being driven by this idea of share the wealth and share the wealth with the people that pull you into the market. That's a very compelling argument. So caveat, of course, until those are financed, we were not able to execute on the commercial strategy. The idea of bootstrapping a battery company, I don't really want to do it. I don't think that's the way to do it. I think that's a mistake. So the answer is advance the technology to the level at which it's psychologically and intellectually derisked at a level to enable significant investment to go to scale all at once. So there you go. Did we cover it, Matt?
Matt Kreps: We did. And let's jump ahead to Clyra, which is the next section. I think that's where a lot of the investors were very focused and probably some meaningful updates to share.
Dennis Calvert: Yes. I mean the biggest thing is this year is pretty remarkable. So Advanced Solution is in. They're now -- they've got a first order, stock and inventory. Now if you just think through the logistics of what they're doing, they're taking the technology to the marketplace. They're interfacing with physicians, that's clinical people and wound care clinics who use the product. Those physicians and care providers use the product in the clinical setting, they get experience with it. They look at the data. They know that it's already got FDA clearance and the claims are proven. Also clinical work advances with key opinion leaders. Key opinion leaders produce data. They do conferences, they talk about the product, and it's being socialized in the market. Advanced Solution also has a significant sales force. I think it's about 350, maybe up to 400 people. I'm not sure where that's at, but it's pretty significant. And so they're now laying the groundwork for adoption with major systems. So the way that looks is physicians support it. They get a buy signal. The buy signal translates to purchasing order, purchasing orders goes through a review committee. Committees approve it. They then say, okay, you're now eligible to sale. The big systems come back and negotiate pricing and terms and all kinds of things, which is standard fare. We need to compete there, and we are. And so all that is in the works, and it's pretty remarkable. So what we think we'll see near term is the fruit of all that work with expanded orders, pretty significant pull-through to the clinics and the use of the product. And of course, the clinical work is expanding. Al-Hikma, of course, is the Middle East. I can't remember, I think it's 17 countries, and the company with Al-Hikma has been working through the regulatory filings to get the CE mark and the other regulated requirements to be licensed to sell in those countries and nation states. And somewhere between the first one, and I think it's 17. And the 17th, Al-Hikma will begin to start taking inventory and pushing product into the market. But the activity is nonetheless significant to prepare for the launching into the selling process, which will probably very much probably take the same route that you work with Advanced Solutions has taken. And then Spartan Medical, that's a super nice win. The medical channel for military and for VA and the GSA schedule is robust. That's a brand-new relationship. And I can't remember the number. I want to say we've got 6 or 7 SKUs as product designs, which is sizing and labeling that are in this catalog now. And so that's just now getting started. And basically, these 3 channels are now active. I would argue that in this case, many of the companies that come through regulatory get to this position and have a very difficult time getting distribution to take up the cause of the product. And so for us to have 3 active distributors that encompass probably 70-plus percent of the market, that's a pretty good start. And it's all happened really in about 7 months. And so we're anxious, and we think we'll continue to see the fruit of that. So let's go on to the next one, if we may. Yes, we've talked a lot about the updates for Clyra. And so that's -- a lot of this is in the press -- the last press release, so I don't have to go through all of it. But I want to remind everybody that ViaCLYR is an FDA-cleared product, leveraging Clyrasept as an antimicrobial platform that can be used to design dozens and dozens and dozens of products, okay? We've surrounded the company now with 14 full-time employees. That's that burn rate, right? That's that numbers we've already talked about. Why are we ramping up the infrastructure at Clyra? Well, that goes down to the bottom right column, which is our fourth big relationship for national distribution. I know everyone is really anxious to get the information about that. We still are under NDA. What I can say is that we're advancing towards the launch. We can see it in sight. We think it's near term. In the last communication, I think it's the press release, we talked about 2027 start, and I hope it's really early. That's the target. And so far, we're advancing on a daily basis. It's very demanding for the team at Clyra. They're handled it wonderfully. The engagement with our big partner is substantial, and it's not daily, but weekly, there's dozens of people that are involved in the decision-making on product design and put up and we're in the final steps of making the next moves with all the paperwork that gets that product ready to go into very, very, very large-scale distribution. So it's a big one, and we're really anxious for it to get to the next step. I think that -- go ahead.
Matt Kreps: So just clarify one thing on that large partner. We did have several questions submitted. I think a lot of them are addressed by what you've spoken to. But one of the questions we didn't quite speak to is that partner already has distribution, sales, access, approvals for use, et cetera. So they're kind of a plug and play as opposed to the steps you outlined early on from a pure distribution standpoint.
Dennis Calvert: Well, that's a really good question. It sort of -- I wish it was a black and white answer. I want to try and give you the more accurate version. Here's the way it goes. Some of the major systems are still going to want to negotiate volume pricing. The difference is that we're negotiating with what we call the big kahuna, a big partner at the table with built-in sales, built-in distribution, built-in pricing, all these things that can make that happen much faster. So there'll be a lot that will happen fast. But some will also require some time. I mean it's just the way it works. And it's always a rocky start in these things. But we're forecasting in that operation. I mean, here's the way to think of the evidence. Investors keep putting money into Clyra, okay? What's the difference? Well, they have advantage of confidentiality of not trading on our stock. It's just really that simple. And so we believe, right, that, that will continue because the opportunity is so substantial and the groundwork that's being laid with other distribution channels on ViaCLYR only strengthen the case. It's all additive to the financial thesis, okay? So yes, so some of it will go faster for sure. But I wouldn't expect major systems to concede pricing and volume purchasing overnight. And so there is definitely some setup things that will go on even with the big partner, which is probably something like 3- to 6-month setup. And then we should really see an acceleration occur from that moment forward. And they can't do that work until the product is finalized and got its -- all the paperwork that allows it to go into the channel, and that's where we're at with that work. So the minute that's done, that can start. Okay?
Matt Kreps: All right. Let's go ahead and push forward into PFAS.
Dennis Calvert: Yes. So the PFAS is a very exciting business unit. There's a number of companies recently that have got some pretty substantial funding, which is very interesting to me because we know the technical landscape of what's available in the marketplace. And we -- as we always often say, we've not seen a technology yet that can threaten our value proposition, and it's very unique and it's very valuable, okay? In this case, we've invested substantial capital, and that capital came from invested capital from BioLargo and it also came -- that's through our balance sheet treatment, right, because we own 100% of this. And it's also come from revenue, about $1.7 million total revenues in all water-related activities since the inception of this company. So that's a relatively lean budget to do a lot. And what we found in that is I don't know -- I think we got about 20 trials. We got our first commercial installation with a reference site. And because of my role with the Secretary of Commerce, I do see this front and center, and that is there's a lot of noise, okay? And the noise is not helpful. It's just not. It makes it hard. So when leadership stands up and says, we're going to review or we're going to take another look at the regulatory stance on enforcement of handling hazmat materials, okay? That causes a pause in the market. And the market says, wait, are we sure we have to? That's kind of how it works. So some of that's going on, and it's a headwind, right? That's against us. What's not changed though is the regulatory stance itself, which is the law has been written, the specs are set. The issues over handling waste streams, it may have some refinement. But fundamentally, you got to clean up the stuff, okay? The other thing that hadn't changed is litigation. So just in the last couple of months, the settlements in New Jersey, I think it was $2.4 billion, $2.5 billion, can't remember exactly. Then it had to go through another legal hurdle to get review under the class action for settlement. It did get -- it reaffirmed. I think there was also a litigation challenge at the Supreme Court for the regulatory stance that the EPA took on regulating these contaminants, PFAS, forever chemicals that are stuck in water in the environment. There's also been lots of push and pull at the U.S. military. And it's really simple. The military says, hey, we're busy. We're busy. We've got wars to fight. We can't be worried about all this cleaning up PFAS. It's just the nature of the beast. So here's the beauty. The beauty is that we're way ahead of the game. We've got commercial reference site. We signed a partnership, which is really a strategic relationship. So let me define it careful. It's not really a legal partnership, as our attorneys remind us. We formed a venture -- not even a venture. We formed an alliance to do business with Aquatech. And the alliance has got some meat on the bone. That allows us to do bidding as a prime contractor as a subcontractor, leveraging both resources of both companies. And we've got some things that really are helpful in the Aquatech world and Aquatech, of course, has a lot of things that are really helpful for us. So all of that activity is continuing, right? And the 6 months of continuing operations is super important, just super important. We also have finding a little traction, I don't want to speak too early, but we've got some commercial pilots going on with Garratt-Callahan and Fineman. And that's an area also that's getting a lot of attention because remember, that was all about data center recycling, which if you're watching anything in the news, you're seeing the data centers are getting a lot of pressure. Why are they getting so much pressure? Well, noise, PFAS discharge, water consumption, potential utility bill implications. There's a whole series of environmental and financial implications hitting that market. All of that goes to our advantage because we're a solution provider of many of the answers. So the other thing is that the technology has now proven very efficacious and not just drinking water, but wastewater, leachate, treatment of biosolids, ultimately the removal of ultra-short chain molecules, which really most, if not all, technologies have a very difficult time with, and we do not by nature of the physics that we operate. So anyway, this is a really nice business situation for us. And we've held on tight to the ownership structure because we could, right? We could. In other words, we thought the number was so small relative to the value. So we saw just recently a pre-commercial technology came out of the university. They put about $85 million in the bank. and they're not commercial and they're not scaled. And it just shows you that the capital markets are heading towards this market. And so I think it makes our company really right for partnerships, right for investment, right for liquidity plays or acquisition. So what we build has an inherent value that is dramatic. And right now, I believe our market cap has given us almost 0 value. And that is an enormous mistake. And of course, it's our job to really educate everybody and make sure that, that we transform now. And we transform with execution, we also transform it with strategics and execution at that front, ways to monetize that asset. Okay? Matt?
Matt Kreps: Yes. Absolutely. And talking about strategics, let's jump ahead to the newest of the companies, and then we can start bringing it all together with some values and numbers.
Dennis Calvert: Let's do it. Okay. So I know this wears everybody out. It wore me out, too, by the way. I remember back in 2011, 2012, and again, that's the beauty of being here, right? We've got legacy -- what we call institutional knowledge. So I was here. Ken Code was there, too. Richard Smith was there, too, by the way. And I was invited into this research here at the University of Alberta. And I sat at the table with the Chief Science Officers for some of the largest oil companies in the world. I mean, literally, the world -- the biggest players. And I thought to myself, I'm not sure why I'm here, but I was there. And I subbed you in and I listened carefully. And the way to frame this is the oil sands is one of the national treasurers of Canada. It really is. And it's on indigenous land, indigenous land. That's the First Nations, right? And the First Nations is the right word, and these are original peoples of the land. They own the lands. These operators operate under lease. It's very much controlled by the government. It's one of the most significant economic engines in the country. And they've been producing OSPW, oil sands produced water, for decades. And in that result of that process, they have an extraordinarily high level of water that's consumed and used. And that remains from that process, OSPW, that stands for oil sands process affected water, OSPW. Look it up. Do your searching, okay? OSPW. We're talking about 1.8 billion cubic meters, there's really 2 dissections. One is mining water that's used in mining operations. The other is the tailings. So it depends on how you want to frame it, but it's a lot, okay? 1.4 billion to 1.8 billion, depending on how you want to think about it. And it represents a massive, massive challenge to clean up because of the scale. And the scale is so big, and that's why the research chair was created that lasted a number of years with some of the most leading scientists in the world, and we were there. We were there because of our technology and our know-how. The idea of using our advanced oxidation techniques as a way to destroy some of the contaminants that are trapped in the water to make it potentially reusable. That's one, or at least safe, okay? Because the reusable versus the safe is still a debate. Can they treat it to discharge it? Should they treat it to hold it? But one way or another, it's going to get treated. So everybody always says, I thought this was so exciting. What happened? Well, what happened is the political will lost its wind back in the mid-2015. And so what was a big deal became less of a big deal because of the economic things going on in the global market. So when the regulatory mandate shifted to a lower temperature, the industry paused and said, I need regulatory frameworks to understand what my duty is to solve the problem. And so that, by the way, even as of today, the regulatory framework to mandate the cleanup is not in place. What happens, though, what's different is the government has taken a proactive approach to say, let's get into commercial trials, find the answer and begin solving this problem because we're obligated with our duty to the First Nations people and the land and the industry and the country to take action. That's what's different, okay? What's different about us? Well, that's pretty obvious, isn't it? I mean we've got engineers with global experience. They joined us in 2017. Let's go back to 2011. We've now got water experience, water engineers. We've got a full complement of technologies, not one, but multiple. We have a partnership with one of the global leaders. That's Aquatech, operates in 32 countries at a couple of billion a year. So now what happens is when we go back -- and by the way, we're invited back, we're not doing hard selling. We say we've got something special. Can we help? They say, please, right? So what we decided the best way for us to do this was to form an alliance, an alliance that would honor the First Nations, would honor the land, would really focus on a solution provider role. And so we formed this venture with Tu Nipi, and it's an extraordinary team of people, small but mighty, certainly well connected. And now with the change in the pull from the government towards solution orientation and funding, it's a chance for us to leverage the investment we've made over all these years that we've maintained in good steadfast. We've enhanced our profile to now go in and provide a solution that otherwise 15 years ago was just a dream. So we think it's awesome. So do your homework. We'll be publishing more as it advances. I also want to mention that the work with Tu Nipi is more than just oil sands produced water. There's industrial, there's wastewater, there's PFAS water, there's odor control. There's just a host of things, even engineering services. So we'll be developing business with a partnership who wants to go honor their people and honor their legacy and honor their land. And that's the same stuff that we stand for, right, make the life better. So I'm pretty excited. This should be a good one.
Matt Kreps: Excellent. Dennis, we are running a bit long. We've got about 6 slides still to work through, including this one, which is really important with the CPG business. So we'll probably have to run a little over, but let's keep moving ahead.
Dennis Calvert: Yes. I'll get more pithy. Sorry about that. So BioLargo CPG is pretty exciting. And it culminates -- there's -- and we believe this is the pitch, and we believe it's true. So let's frame it that way. Pooph generated about $125 million in gross sales. Now that's their number, not ours. That was their number. That was total sales of the products under the brand Pooph with our technology in it. And the minute they took it out, everything started going south. And so a series of decisions that we really are sad about proved fatal. And so the company has gone through some foreclosure activity. I don't believe the original staff at any level is still involved in the company. And it's quite a mess, okay? So what's -- that's the negative. And we took a hit, everybody knows that. We've already covered it. But what's the good? How can we take -- can we make lemons and turn them into lemonade? Well, I think it's actually going to be 10x better. We have the chance to recapture that. And so you say, really, I say, yes, because the technology and the products were ours, they always were ours. Everything that was sold was ours. The marketing was theirs, the brand Pooph was theirs. Everything else was ours. Now we have the playbook. So what we've done is we've set up a series of marketing teams and those marketing teams are distributed, right? So you've got Amazon as a platform. You've got Shopify platform, you've got TikTok platform. You got the creative marketing and design, social media approach. The world has changed quite a bit, we would argue, since Pooph first launched, the idea of TV advertising, just take a look at QVC. Go look at their financial condition. The model of marketing on TV has changed dramatically. Even TikTok now has direct order within its platform, allowing for customers to view content with never allowing their eyes to lose focus while they click buttons and leverage Apple Pay without touching a button to make an order that shows up at your doorstep. That's the new digital world. The beautiful thing about digital is that if you've got a product that actually works and you can get users to try it and get feedback and support the experience, then you can sell your product. And you can do so in such an extraordinarily efficient way. So the beauty for us is, yes, we've got the playbook. We've got the proof of claim. We know exactly what the customers want to purchase. And that becomes the digital marketing footprint that allows us to go back into the market and push the go button and certainly always refine. This is a very fluid strategy. You start with what you think and know have proof and evidence for. And then every step, you refine and you refine and you refine, and to the extent you have statistical measure that misses the mark, you adjust and you refine, adjust and refine. That's what we're going to do. And the beautiful thing is we have such an extraordinary playbook. I still think -- I think back to the end of the Pooph cycle with us, and it's just shameful. It's absolutely terrible, and it shouldn't have been, but it is. So now we're sort of forced to deal with it. I think the silver lining is really simple. We're going to capture that prize ourselves. And we're going to monetize it ourselves because we can. And we don't have to start rich. We can do it with our existing working capital, and we can get in the game and we can prove it up. And as we prove it up, we believe the market for our stock performance will change dramatically. It will create extraordinary marketing for the BioLargo securities as the awareness of our company. And it will also create opportunity to make invest-to-earn decisions. Invest-to-earn decisions, which have really been lacking for a long time for our company. And so I'm very excited about it. I think we're going to do great. And we have been able to bring in many of the marketing people who have extraordinary histories with the success at Pooph who have done no wrong. And so the ability to leverage that toolkit for our game now is something that we're really proud about. Okay. So that's Pooph. Any questions that come to your mind, [ Brian ]?
Matt Kreps: No. I think it's a great recap. I like the renewed, refreshed sense of moving forward. I think there's a lot of exciting things and certainly keep our head in the game.
Dennis Calvert: Right on. I like it. Okay. What's next? Engineering? We talked about this, right? So we got recurring revenue. Yes, we've covered it. We don't need to do it. We've already covered it.
Matt Kreps: Let's just touch briefly on this one and then get to the next couple of slides. So I think that's where we need to spend the last few minutes we have on the last couple of slides here.
Dennis Calvert: Let's do it. One of the questions that always comes up is what's different today than it was before? I think this pretty much does it right here. These relationships, you better have some meat on the bone or you're not going to get these deals done. And that's it. That's what we've got. We've got -- as I said when we started, if you look under the hood, we've got some serious horsepower going on over here. And the way we've leveraged these assets to find their home in the marketplace and strategic relationships is pretty astonishing. And so this is a really nice way to visually see it all in motion. And each of these is like a living organism, it's not static. They're always in cycle. So you got to support them, you got to nurture them, but we're doing it. And I love the story about the oil sands, oil sands produced water because I took so much grief on it for so long like it was a boondoggle. And the reality is it's an extraordinary opportunity that represents -- one of the questions that people ask, I'm going to give you a really quick tutorial on that. You got to do your homework. You say, well, how big is the market? Okay. So this is like a trap question. The first thing is it's very controversial. It depends on how you want to measure it. But when you talk about 1.6 billion cubic meters, that's the low number, 1.4 billion and you compare it to other waters that require treatment, it's a lot of money. And it's probably in the low billions at a minimum. And then if you go into the full reclamation, there's a whole bunch of scholarly articles that move that into the mid-50s and even higher than $100 billion. All of that's a lot of conjecture, okay? I think the way to think about it is there's a move forward. And the move forward is with political will with something that really demands a solution, and we're being asked to be proud of it. And so we're going to figure it out. And we're going to bring a whole bag of solutions to go do something that we think is awesome for our vision of the company, and it's a testimony to the staying power and it's a testimony to the idea that we just don't waste money. The work that we've done up there is extraordinarily important. Okay. So remember this slide, this is going to get published by the way. We'll do an 8-K, and this deck will get published and everybody remember this one. When somebody says, what's going on over there, just pull this out and say, this is what's going on. It's pretty remarkable. Okay. Next.
Matt Kreps: All right. So this brings us to where a lot of the questions were at, which is around value and around how we create value for the stockholders going forward.
Dennis Calvert: Yes. I mean that's a huge debate, of course, and I welcome it. I have that conversation almost on a daily basis. So I get it, especially when the stock is low. People say, give me hope, give me hope. And I think there's so much hope. I mean I get it, but there's so much. And I think this is one of the -- there's many compelling arguments, but this is one that the math doesn't lie, okay? So if you look at the capital that's raised now. On Cellinity, we've raised money, the capital that came in over -- about a year ago at a $33 million, $34 million valuation. The ask on that is much higher now like big time higher, okay? Just so you know. But we haven't brought in the capital yet. So the ask that's the ask. On the Clyra Medical, the average value right now for Clyra Medical is somewhere in the roughly $100 million range. So if we own 48%, you could pretty much make a fully diluted count and say, okay, that thing is worth at least $40 million, okay? If you just put those 2 together, the valuation of the business should be somewhere around $70 million. Now we're not saying that's what the company is worth. We're saying that's what the company is worth on a bad day. That's the message. The company is worth a lot more than that. And yet here we are, right, $32 million, $34 million market cap. So that's exhausting, and it's exhausting for you, too. I know that. So I'm really empathetic. Let me show you the breakdown again. We're not going to go through it, but we're just going to mention it. That's the next slide. Just remember, who's in the portfolio. We made the argument on 2. And the reason we picked those 2 is because those ones -- those have mark-to-market. Real money came in, real money into real businesses with real assets, finding their way to market. And then we've -- all these others, we're carrying them. We're investing, right? It's pretty awesome. Okay. Let's go to the next one. All right. So how do we change all this, right? Well, we got to do some stuff. We got to get live with the consumer products. By the way, when those consumer products launch, every stockholder in the company needs to buy some product and give us feedback, everybody, everybody and spread the word. These are great products. They actually work. Once in a while, I hear somebody say something like, well, I'm not sure they worked. It's like, well, then they haven't tried the product because the product from a chemical formulation, it's -- the way it's designed, it can't not work. So what happens is because the way it works, it works. If the chemistry is available on an organic molecule, it's going to oxidize it. If it oxidizes, it's going to break down the stain. That's it. Period. So what happens then is delivery strategies, right? Have you delivered it the right way? Are you trying to tackle too much? It's like saying, I'm going to kill the mountain with a peashooter. You can't handle a mountain with a peashooter, okay? So there's all these strategies that come into design and labeling and the way it's sold, all that's important. But the product has extraordinary performance. And listen, I don't care what anybody -- and listen, I care what you think. So I -- it's not the right way to say it. I care what you think, but the argument that to get to $60 million annual run rate in sales with a product that doesn't work, false. That argument does not hold. It absolutely works, right? So then what happens? Well, people cut corners. They ship out trigger sprayers that leak. What? Who made that decision? It wasn't me. I mean, come on. Are they shipping in boxes that don't protect it or they run it over with a truck or whatever. There's all kinds of things that go on in the delivery. But that product absolutely works. It's the best product in the market for its category. We've also done some enhancements on the science. One of the interesting criticisms that we heard about some of the things that went on with Pooph in the early days was they tried to compare its stain remover capacity equal to its odor control. And in the scheme of a digital marketing campaign, that's a potential trap and they fell into it. And so again, we have all these lessons from that journey that allow us to go precisely into the #1 sellers with the product design that leverages commoditized capacity without the traps and mistakes that they were made -- that they made in a conservative approach that leverages digital media to sell the customer exactly what they're looking for. That's what we're going to do. So it's pretty awesome. We'll have some businesses in the PFAS business. We've got too many on the doorstep. A lot of that's been waiting for the money to free up on what we call Wave Two. Wave Two is the litigation money that's not even transferred to the clients' hands yet, but it will. The other is there's other markets that are getting some more rapid adoption. And then we -- certainly, if we can get a battery factory process finalized, I think the value is extraordinary. So we -- the ask would be really simple. We're looking for equity in the battery company, and we're looking for a financial partner to back a factory, which will derisk the platform, and then we can replicate on a global scale. And then Clyra's channels converting to orders, yes, that's certainly going to happen around the horn with all of the current distributors. And then we want to get into disclosure about the strategic big gorilla partner as soon as that's available, and we're hoping it's really, really soon because we sure have paid a price to get here. Okay. Next. These are things that -- we try to give these in a way that we believe that we can hit the mark and also know that it's -- the value proposition is pretty dramatic, right? So go live in October. So we're going to do that. And it will start small, but it will be potent. We hope to have a video today to present to you the brand and the thesis of what we believe is going to be significant. And that really requires marketing to get your head around because we're doing 2 things in that category. One is we're focused on performance marketing, and we're focused on brand building. And performance marketing, we could do in our sleep because we have such a high-performing product. Brand marketing requires time and energy, but in a digital format, it can be done cost effectively as compared to the extraordinary expense that Pooph spent. And we think that we can really bridge that because we have such a solid road map with a well-defined customer base and a proven product and claim set that can work. So anyway, we're going to see that happen in October. Hopefully, it's super early October. There's a lot to go on there. You'll see the platforms, you'll see the digital footprint. You'll see initial marketing occur. We're going to put the call out for orders for all of our stockholders for sure and all your friends and your friends' friends and your community center and your club. I mean, really, everybody needs to rally on that one because it's really important. We'll see these distributors for Clyra expand, takes up second orders. We'll disclose the big kahuna when it's ready, and we see it coming, and we're very excited about it, of course. The minerals facility, we didn't talk about that, but we're progressing, right? So we've got this $1.1 million contract we announced, I don't know, a few months ago. That will head into Phase 2. That will either go or no go, okay? Now Phase 2 is a design build. That's probably somewhere around the $10 million range. So that would be an engagement to build out a pilot, that would be equipment plus services, lots of engineering, and that would record as revenue. And assuming that's successful, that would take probably about a year, 1.5 years. On the back end of that, you see another design build contract, probably something in the $40 million range, and that would go commercial at scale with that process. As you can imagine, we're really proud of the technology we've invented. We're thankful for the customer that's paying us to do a lot of this work, which is really important. And we're hopeful that we can form a long-term relationship to capture the prize, which is absolutely enormous. And so we're just marching through that process with our partner customer and doing the work that we've been hired to do. Water and water treatment, I kind of lump them together because they're so big. And what I can tell you is that the level of contracting for major water contracts is done. It's underway. Are we going to win them? We certainly think we've got a good shot. We're not going to win them all, but I'll take 1 or 2, right? But the size is pretty astonishing. You're talking about now $5 million and $10 million and $25 million and $30 million projects. And so the question it begs is, how are you going to pull that off? And I say to myself, well, if I've got to be a subcontractor to a prime to get it done, that's fine with me. But we get it done, and we get a piece of the action. So that would be Aquatech, right? We have so many opportunities there. It's pretty astonishing. And the value proposition from having that reference site is valuable. I'm just going to remind you again, so you didn't miss it. The second wave of capital is coming. It's not here yet. It's coming any minute. Midterms are going to be very important. I suspect we're going to see a lot of money flow after midterms. That's just -- that's a hunch. That's not a guarantee. That's a hunch. Tu Nipi, we're going to go from developing work to doing pilots, and I think it's going to move really quick. We've got serious discussions and it's a brand-new relationship, but we're really excited about it, and they're awesome. They're going to go as fast as they can. And then we'll strengthen our balance sheet. In the perfect world, what I need to do, and we're working on is showing up a little bit of capital that's not toxic. Not toxic. I can't say it enough, don't bring in toxic financing, okay? And so how do we do that? Well, it's people that believe in us, bring in some -- probably some debt, maybe small amounts of equity. We need to lessen our reliance upon our equity line facilities so that we can take some of that pressure off the market. We think the fundamental value is extraordinary. And I say it -- everybody has their own investment thesis, their risk profile, their timing, tax loss carryforward, all the stuff that comes in everybody's mind. We're investors, we understand, right? If you're a seller, I think you're going to regret it big time. I'm a buyer. We've already disclosed that. And we've disclosed it for most of our management team. This is an extraordinary opportunity to accumulate a position in what we believe is a long-lasting company. If there's not one thing that we've proven from our journey is that we are fully committed to building value for our stockholders. There's never been another agenda. I can testify how hard it is in the difficult journey. But at this moment in time, we've got so much evidence. I'm not going to take you back to the slide. But just remember, when you're wondering what the heck is going on, go back to that slide, I can't remember which one it was, and look at all these accomplishments in the last year, it's pretty astonishing. And so anyway, I'm anxious. So let's stop. We'll open this up for Q&A. Matt, did we cover it? What do you think?
Matt Kreps: Yes. We've got -- we're a bit past time. So just maybe a couple of questions we'll grab here. We've covered a lot of the questions in the course of the comments. But just rapid fire here, quick answers. One of the question was on CPG, why we're using Ikigai still when they were with the prior group?
Dennis Calvert: Yes. Well, so Ikigai is a company, and we're certainly not working with Ikigai. So there's a lot of other people that are involved in the marketing that's not Ikigai. And the Stanley Marketing Works team was part of the ownership group at Ikigai and the Stanley Marketing team did not cause what's happened at Pooph. And so we believe that their experience and their proven track record of significant value justifies their involvement. And we believe that they have clean hands and we should use them. It's an advantage that should not be missed. And so that's what we decided. Now there's going to be a lot of other players. Some of them are very well experienced in all these subcategories we covered, Amazon, TikTok, Facebook. All of these are very specialty niche operations, and there's specialty players for each of them. And it's a digital world. So get ready, it's a digital world. So we're going to leverage that. We think these people are going to do a great job. So we're really excited to have the team we've assembled.
Matt Kreps: Absolutely. So another question. I noted the dilution was only about 2.5% in the first half of '26, which is very low. But they also know that the ClearThink Financial deal does seem to cause pressure in the open market, and they wanted to know how that can be reduced or avoided.
Dennis Calvert: There's probably 2 or 3 different ways that we do that. One is we just get this business done, right? So you got to get cash flow and make revenue. That's -- as they say, the best form of investment is cash flow from sales. So there's no question. That's the #1 answer. And so there's a bunch of things going on with that. Clear is one of those, of course. The CPG is part of that. The industrial outage is part of that. The fact that the engineers support themselves, that's fine. So what else? Well, we should land a deal, right, land a deal with the battery company, land a deal with the water company, get them done. And so we're pushing hard on that. The other thing we could do is bring in some debt. I hate to bring in debt, but there's a trade-off, bring in a little bit of debt, put some higher yield on it, put it out so that you got some term like 2 and 3 years to make sure that you can shore up the muscle so these results can come in. And then because when they do, the value proposition is so high, you can easily pay that debt off by refinancing it with equity at a much higher price. So that's the answer. There's like 4 or 5 different ways we can do that. The other is to do business deals where people pay us and we don't pay them. I mean it's really simple. And so again, the beauty and the challenge, the beauty is our overhead is so low. The challenge is, man, are we doing a lot with very little. It's incredible. And that's -- I hear it all the time. I mean people sit down and listen to the business and they go, you got to be kidding me. And I said, yes, I mean this is what happens when -- first of all, let's talk about 2 seconds. The engineers do this for their whole career. This is what they do. They serve projects and people and technologies and solutions, and they do it for 30 and 40 years. This is an extension of that, leveraging the economic and entrepreneurial opportunities that, that creates around us by grabbing intellectual property and then creating financing structure around it so that we can monetize it. It's not rocket science. It's special, and we're special at it, right? But anyway, so the answer is I'd love to do that. I'm working on that potential financing resources that allow us to not lean on that capital resource. And when we do, the pressure on that will stop. I would argue that it's really -- while it's uncomfortable, it's a really small number compared to what we're doing with the money. But I'm empathetic to the pressure, and I live it every day. So I hope that answers the question.
Matt Kreps: It does. Another question. A person noted that we had 78% ownership listed on the CPG company. Was giving up some of that ownership done to engage partners? Or was it for sign up launch or to reduce our cash expenses on that?
Dennis Calvert: Well, it's all of the above, yes. So why would -- yes. So -- that's a strategy question, which I'm happy to answer. It's a good one. So here's the way I think about partners. Don't bring in partners unless you need them. You don't do it for fun. You do it because you need something they offer. So we made some decisions about some of the teams that bring very special talent to the table and made them partners in the deal as an owner. But we also have said everybody is going to earn their way with a successful business. So that's -- so what comes to the partnership is duty, okay? So there's duty too, right? That's one. The other is by creating that structure, right, what you've done is you've spread out capital requirements. Somebody says, well, how can you launch your consumer products business? You say, well, I've already got the baseline infrastructure. I've got to get some inventory. I got to turn up some digital marketing. I got to get the people that can do that to help me. I wonder if we can swap some equity so they have a piece of the action and carry a load until we're properly financed and executing in the market. Well, that's what we did. So you need them. They're really good. They're worth it. You want to share the price, you want a high incentive. You want to reduce your capital burden. But what you also do in that structure is you create an investment thesis. The company has an investment thesis. What does that mean? That means whoever writes the check gets something. You don't write the check and it just disappears. That means if we write the check, BioLargo, we get something. And if the investor writes a check, they get something. And that's the way it's supposed to be. And that's the way all these ventures are set up. That's why we've been able to finance it, its growth and its development of all these assets regardless, frankly, regardless of where the stock trades. That's why the company is so valuable. It really is. That's why the value far exceeds the current market. I mean, in our opinion, right? That's an opinion, of course. So anyway the dynamics of the time and the moment on a mark-to-market, especially in microcap, Microcap is under a lot of pressure, too. I want to make sure everybody knows that, too, you know that. If you're in the microcap investing business, you know we're not alone with some of that pressure. Pointing back to, are we going to uplift? I mean, I know you haven't asked that question yet, but yes, we're going to uplift, but I swear, right? I swear. We're going to uplift when our revenues are predictable and we can honor our investors. That's when we're going to do it. So there you go. Go ahead. Next.
Matt Kreps: There's another one. Does the military have any hurdles further to negotiate before ViaCLYR can be deployed?
Dennis Calvert: Did you say military?
Matt Kreps: Yes, military, I think they're referring to Spartan...
Dennis Calvert: Well, that's a good question. Yes, there's 2 -- let me -- first of all, let me say I'm not an expert here. That's probably a Steve Harrison question. So I'm going to tell you what I believe the answer is, and we'll gut check it. I'm not going to try and overstate it, okay? The current channel is the government installations, not per se the military, okay? And the military is a whole another little theme, okay? I believe it will translate into military, but it starts with like VA and GSA and all of these other facilities and then it expands. And so there's not regulatory hurdles. There may be paperwork hurdles, but there's no filing or anything like that. We have had a grant that was authorized. It's pretty substantial to do custom designs for the soldiers and that was approved but not funded, and we're hoping and we don't actually know. So I want to be very clear. We don't know for sure, but we're told that they think it will get funded in Q1. And that's a multimillion-dollar grant to do custom work for the soldiers, which, of course, eventually is going to happen anyway. So the answer is current selling channel, no regulatory requirements that I'm aware of, expanded into military, maybe and then advanced development for product designs with grants and purchase order support from the government. Yes, that's in the future, probably Q1 or thereabout. So I hope that answers. And I'll do a gut check on the answer later, too. So we'll come back to that one, right?
Matt Kreps: All right. Yes. Turning to water. We had a couple of questions asking about the scale or scope of a potential AEC project, whether I assume for BioLargo direct or through a partnership.
Dennis Calvert: Well, they're huge. I mean -- yes, I mean each of these has a unique level setup, right? So the way to think about it is, this is the beauty in the design. If your technology relies on migrating PFAS in an electrostatic field, that's what we do. We migrate in electrostatic field. It can be a big field, it can be a little field. It could be little field with many modules. It could be a bigger module with many bigger modules. It can be whatever we need it to be, okay? So the big boys, when they come to us, they say, we want bigger modules, so we can move more water per module so that when we do the manufacturing, instead of manufacturing of 24 x 36-inch plate and frame, maybe it's twice that. So what is that? That's 48 x 70, whatever, it's 6 feet or 6 feet 2 or whatever it is. So whatever that is exponential, 5x the surface area, 1 unit. Well, they like that. Okay. Well, our unit goes on a little small forklift, hand truck, you can move them around. You know what their unit is. It takes a crane. That weighs 1,000 pounds. And so it's just a scale question. We can do all that. So now that's the unit. And then to do the big volume, let's say it's, I don't know, 3 million gallons a day or something on big numbers, you're going to need multi-units. So you're talking about treatment trains that are the size of buildings. Our little facility, which is the size of a building in New Jersey is a small scale, small community, small volume, same technology, okay? So somebody comes in and says, well, I want to do a municipal system. We say, yes, we can do that. But it's going to be 3,000 gallons -- 3 million gallons a day. Yes, we can do that. Okay? So now that's maybe half a football field, or maybe it's a vertical where you go up. Our units can go vertical, too. So geography doesn't matter. So there's all kinds of way you solve that. In the financial magnitude, I can tell you that we have a lot of projects that are being scoped and bid in the $5 million to $10 million range, and we have a number that are in the $20 million, as high as $40-plus million. So they're big. And there's another dynamic we didn't cover real quick. We always said that the key value proposition of that is performance. Performance means we get it, we get it to a non-detect level. We can. We also get ultra-short chain molecules. So that's a big deal. But the waste stream is #1, okay? Why is that important? Remember, waste stream is OpEx, OpEx, operating expense, okay? So in that thesis, there's a number of clients in the marketplace that deployed carbon, okay? They got the money from the federal government. So now they're 3 years down the road. The government wrote the check so they could clean the water up and serve up clean drinking water with no PFAS to a regulatory limit, okay? They did that. That's successful. They did it on a low-risk technology, okay? And now what? Well, now they got to pay for it. What do you mean? Well, they got to pay for the operation. The operation is extraordinary. I mean, it is extraordinary. The bills that are coming due are incredible. So what happens is then they say, well, I'm getting a big check from litigation, but I've already got a system. Yes, but that system is kicking my b***. I need one I can reduce the OpEx. So we proposed an 80% reduction in the OpEx with our system. And the money is going to come from litigation, and you don't get the money unless you deploy it. That's the game. Just understand it. And it's so vividly clear to us, okay? So we go to the market and say, when you start caring about OpEx, give me a call. Well, now they're calling. And yet they still don't have the capital to put deployment in because it's all tied up in litigation. And then they had to go through and get the class actions reapproved. And I can't remember, I think it was like 2 weeks ago. Oh, I know what it was. Veolia. Veolia is a major competitor, but Veolia is in the business of selling water as a service. Well, Veolia is a global name. They're one of the largest water companies in the world, and they just did a class action litigation against the big polluters looking for cost recovery on their carbon and ion exchange systems. It's like you got to be kidding me. It is another full circle moment, okay? And so again, this is a classic example. And this -- by the way, this is the asset that was -- the reason we were recruited and I was recruited to join the Environmental Technology Trade Advisory Committee. It's this very thesis. I've now watched this for 20 years. I can predict it, just like Canada. It's -- like it's very predictable. And the beauty is that we stay alive to win. And I think PFAS is an extraordinary valuable asset in our portfolio. So I don't know. I hope that answered the question. Next?
Matt Kreps: I think it does. We are a good ways past time. So I think we probably should go ahead and close out with any final comments and let everyone digest.
Dennis Calvert: Okay. Let me ask Charlie. Charlie, do you want to add anything to this conversation? You're still there.
Dennis Calvert: I'm on. It is the mute, right? So yes, I think the explanation is excellent. I think the presentation explains where we are. And I think the only thing I would add here is look to the future because the future is really close. I know we've been saying that for almost 20 years, but the truth is now it is really close.
Matt Kreps: It is, I agree with that.
Dennis Calvert: Let me also mention as a save the date, I think I should ask John, we haven't made a formal announcement, but one of the questions we're targeting. So what -- let me talk about annual meeting real quick. The target -- and I say target because here's what happens. By the time you get to the timing of regulatory filings and things that go on with the government and all this stuff, okay? Sometimes the dates will move. And right now, we're targeting December 1, okay? December 1 is the target. It might move. So don't say it's locked, okay? But if you want to save the date, that's it, December 1. It will be in Orange County, same location in Aliso Viejo, and we'll have the same event afterwards, and we'd love to see you. We're happy to engage. I also want to say to everybody, I know it's hard, but you can reach out to us. And if you want to dig in deep, we're happy to do it. We really love the business. I don't like this pressure. I find all -- this is probably one of our harder years, but we have absolutely no fear. And we know that we're executing with really quite precision. Now we're going to have to prove some of that because the delays like with Clyra are really hard, and they're wearing everybody out, okay? But we're in it to win it. And we intend on crossing that launch pad with a big hurrah, and then we're going to watch the money flow and everybody is going to say, holy shimoly, it was worth it. And I do believe that. I believe it's not only for the purpose of what we're doing, but the financial rewards are so significant that it more than justifies the entire portfolio. And by the way, we always hear it, you got all these shots on goal, hope one hits. I still believe they're all going to hit. I really do. So we'll just stay the course. I want to thank everybody. I know that it's tried your patience in the last few months for sure, and reach out to us and thank you for your support. And as I say, go BioLargo. Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you. Everyone, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.