Tuija Kalpala
Hello everyone. Welcome to Betolar's Q4 2025 financial statements release.
Happy to have you watching our webcast. Firstly, disclaimer, as always.
Regarding the forward-looking statements. I'm Tuija Kalpala, I'm the President and CEO of Betolar, and I'm here with Mikko Wirkkala, our CFO.
Today we will talk about our Q4 '25 highlights. We'll talk about financial review, a little bit about our numbers and where we are at the moment.
Then at last we have the typical question and answers session. Please feel free to submit questions online so we can then take these questions here at the end of this webcast.
Let's get started. Main events and after the period events in Q4 2025, we had several events.
Firstly, I would say that the biggest one is this major order for infrastructure project that we received at the end of the last year. This was worth approximately €1.4 million.
This is from two Finnish companies for an infrastructure project based on our own innovation. Also, we are super happy that we started trading on OTCQX in the United States.
This our shares started trading January 20th, 2026. This is the OTCQX International Marketplace in the United States.
Of course, this also means that we're now looking forward also looking at the U.S. market more closely going forward.
Then thirdly, we have our side stream business that has been growing. We have talked about that in the previous times.
This is really related to the GGBFS, slag sales, that continued growing, especially in India. In India, we have a subsidiary where this sales is happening.
During the period we also started slag sales in Finland, and we have been building our supply chain capabilities here in Finland. We continued with the metal extraction proof of concept, really focusing on commercializing our new metal extraction technology and advancing the development of our own industrial-scale proof of concept.
We also had happy news, Amir Rafin joined our management team in December as Executive Vice President, Circular Materials. Then talking about the market, Betolar operates in a growing global market where there is a demand for low-carbon, high-performance materials and alternative binders.
We see that this demand is increasing despite the long approval and adoption cycles that are related to especially these binders and cement-replacing materials. We have been able to expand our presence in mining, industrial side streams, and infrastructure, and these are strengthening our position as these markets evolves.
Sales side, good news is that our order intake has been steadily growing, and we're very happy about that that we can really see that things are really picking up. We were able to progress our sales across the key markets, supported by the slag sales in India and building this first supply chain in Finland.
We also had multiple new mining customer project in Australia and Canada. In Finland, we have the partnership with Nordkalk, and that also advanced on looking at this circular calcite.
We also had this significant infrastructure order that is also strengthening our commercial momentum. On innovation side, we stayed very strong on continuing our innovation portfolio, especially with our breakthrough metal extraction technology that enables up to 99% metal recovery while producing circular cement.
This is the new technology that we published a little bit less than a year ago. We have been also continuing developing our AI-powered SidePrime and Optimize services.
We had new research programs and pilots across several regions, further reinforced Betolar's role as a pioneer in converting these industrial side streams into high-value materials. Really looking at how we can convert waste materials or unused side streams into something that is valuable and can be used and utilized.
Currently we have 23 active patent families, we have 49 granted patents, and we have more than 60 pending inventions. Then looking at the mining and metals and our progress on this side.
We advanced multiple projects, delivering low-carbon and cement-free shotcrete and rockfill solutions in Finland, Canada, and Australia. Really we see that there's a growing demand for sustainable mining practices and solutions, and we have been able to help our customers finding solutions that are more sustainable and uses less cement.
We have been focusing our efforts on commercialization of our proprietary metal extraction technology, and really looking at our own proof of concepts and how we can further increase our capabilities on this metal extraction. We also continued the project with Anglo American, Sakatti project in Finland.
With this project, the goal is to produce circular cement from mine this mine's mine tailings for their own needs. That has been going very well and it continues.
Construction and infrastructure. During the period we did shift little bit our focus more towards these kind of infrastructure constructions where we see growing investments and sustainability requirements are driving the demand.
On this side, we also secured this €1.4 million order for a major Finnish infrastructure project to test and validate our innovation as part of a larger multi-phase program. We also continued with this Optimize service and optimizing cement use and carbon footprint utilizing material database and artificial intelligence.
We recently had some pilots that we did with these kind of new type of side streams using this Optimize tool, and we were able to use 25% replacement for completely new type of binder material. On industrial side streams, so as mentioned earlier, we did spend quite a lot of time and effort on building our and strengthening our international procurement, and building the logistics, and especially we have been doing really good work in India, where we have our subsidiary, to really grow this GGBFS sales, slag sales, ground granulated blast furnace slag sales.
This that has been steadily growing. Every month we have been basically hitting the records, making records and selling more than on the previous month.
We're very happy about that, and doing similar things now in Finland. We continued also this project with Nordkalk to really looking at this circular calcite and how we can find new ways of utilizing this material on construction applications and also mining.
A little bit more about our capabilities and what we have been doing in Finland. In Hamina, Finland, by the harbor, we have started receiving, storing, and dispatching GGBFS for cement-replacing end users.
This is a completely new business for us, and has been now growing as well. This GGBFS enables up to 50% cement replacement, providing a proven and immediately deployable decarbonization solution for the construction industry, but also mining industry as well.
Anywhere there is cement use, we can replace cement with this slag supply that we have now in Hamina. Also this major infrastructure project is really to test and validate now our innovation.
We received this €1.4 million order for this Finnish infrastructure project, and we see that the revenue will be recognized over the next 10 months. This is just the first phase of a multi-phase program, and we are of course expecting that this will continue.
Of course, we also see a big potential in infrastructure-related projects as we see that the demand is rising, and we're very carefully looking at these kind of markets and assessing what else we can do on this side. Then Mikko, over to Mikko.
Yes.
Mikko Wirkkala
Yep. Thank you, Tuija.
Let's have a then look at our 2025 financial highlights. Starting from net sales, we saw a 24% increase in our net sales from 2024.
At the same time that we were able to improve our EBITDA by €2.3 million from last year. The EBITDA increase was mainly driven by our our cost actions, what we have been doing doing during the last one one and a half years years already.
That is driving driving the development there that we are able to improve our EBITDA, and also also what is helping us there is the top-line growth. On top top of that one still that we we are using using the the the public grants what what we are getting getting there and getting more other operating income, which is also helping us to improve our EBITDA.
Then our order intake was record high, also €2.3 million in 2025. That is driven by by the large orders orders what we have got last year.
The major major order there was what Tuija just mentioned, that €1.4 million euro infrastructure project. Then if we look more more closely then then our our numbers in in the fourth quarter.
Fourth fourth quarter revenue was €311,000, and this was 48% more than last year. Our EBITDA was was still on the negative side, -€617,000, but going to the right direction.
We had also also these grants, where had a bigger grants during the fourth quarter, which is then then improving this number. Our cash and cash equivalents, including our short-term investments, was was €6.7 million at the end of the year.
When we add the remaining grants what we have, our total liquidity and undrawn grants totaled €7.7 million at the end of the year. Our order intake during the fourth quarter was close to €1.5 million, and we had had this this one large larger larger project what Tuija was going through earlier.
Then our personnel, average number of the personnel was 31. Then if you look look at the trend from the past, you you can see see that we have been coming down down on the number of personnel, and this this is this is part of the actions what we have done to adjust our cost structure.
Looking at full-year numbers next, our net sales was €946,000, getting closer to €1 million. Our EBITDA was €3.7 million negative negative, and here we see see that €2.3 million improvement compared to last year.
Operating loss also also the same magnitude, magnitude of difference between the years. Total operating loss was was close close to €6 million there, and and the same is then then the profit profit or actually loss for the final financial period period for the entire year.
Next let's have a look at our financial position and outlook. As I was going through that, the cash balance where we are at at this moment is there there a little bit short of €7 million, and we have roughly €1 million remaining in different grants grants there.
With with this this financial position that we are we are able to run run our operations then then smoothly during during this this year, and even with not major not having a major major then positive impact there in our cash flows that that we are still able to operate there until 2027. Of course that we are looking for growth, as we have we have set our guidance for the year 2026, and we expect our net sales to grow significantly compared to the previous year.
We are and we are backing this this guidance with our our order intake what what what was what was very high high during the fourth quarter there and gives us a good head start head start then for for the coming year. Then during December our board of directors was was updating our business and financial targets.
If we first have a look at the business targets for the coming coming years, the first target is the implementation of our proof of concept for metal extraction technology and scaling that to an industrial level, and there we are using slags from the metal industry and tailings from mining industry. The second business target is that we secure commercial agreements related to the metal extraction technology, and we have the aim of achieving €1 billion revenue in the long term.
Third business target is strengthening and expanding the value chain of circular materials, especially in the acquisition and sales of blast furnace slag. We have also set the financial target to reflect these refined business priorities, and the financial target, we do not consider that to be an earnings guidance for any single year.
The financial target is to achieve the positive EBITDA by the end of Q4 2027. These were the financial highlights for the fourth quarter and for the entire year, and then we can move to the Q&A session.
We have Tuija back here on stage with the questions.
Tuija Kalpala
Yes, thank you. We have quite a lot of questions here.
Thank you for that. It's always happy that we get many questions.
Let's start with the first one. Regarding the guidance, what are the main drivers for significant net sales increase?
Mikko, main drivers for significant net sales increase?
Mikko Wirkkala
The main drivers there are, first of all, the order intake, the large order what we have there. You can actually see that looking at the number of different projects what we have been doing during the past years and during the last years, and you see the number of projects coming down.
This means that we are focusing on the larger projects there, and so that we can focus on our resources efficiently, and then getting the large projects done, and also then leveraging our AI platform when we are implementing the projects.
Tuija Kalpala
Then we have a second question, and I will take this one. Question regarding the side stream sales currently in Finland and India.
How scalable the business model is? How far can you increase material sales with current personnel and resources?
This is a really good question, and I would say that the beauty of doing this kind of very operational material sales is that it doesn't really matter if we sell 1 kiloton or 5 kiloton, the workload is the same. It's quite significant amount that we can increase our sales before it's affecting our resource needs.
We expect that there will be growth in this area, and it's not affecting that much on our resource needs. Then looking at your cost and expense structure in Q4, is this something we should expect in 2026 as well, taking inflation into account, of course, or is there something which will drive cost and expenses up or down?
This is to Mikko.
Mikko Wirkkala
Yes. We have been looking at our cost structure all the time, and we have been trying to find there savings items, and we have been then optimizing our cost structure.
When we are looking at growth, we are also then doing some investments there, not necessarily then investments then that what we are booking to balance sheet, but then that when we are building our metal extraction technology. There we are using money to scale that up, and that is why that when we are looking at our EBITDA number, which was that the best one that during the last quarters during the recent years, so that we are still expecting to get cost there where we see that those are benefiting the company there.
Also then when we are looking at our target that our target is to be the EBITDA positive by the end of Q4 2027, and that means that we are building the growth there, and that sometimes may mean that we are also having expenses related to that one.
Tuija Kalpala
Okay. Then the next question we have is regarding the timeline for possible metal extraction deals, and how is the pipeline, and would it be some kind of a piloting first?
On the metal extraction, we have the first deal from last year already. It's this Anglo American Sakatti project, where we're testing the mine's future mine's mine tailings, and looking at how we can, of course, extract the metals, but also looking at how we can make this kind of circular cement for this new mine's own needs.
This is something that we're doing right now. That was the first deal, and that's really related to this metal extraction, and of course we're looking at selling more of this.
What we see is that there's a lot of interest on mine tailings. We have a lot of interesting discussions with potential customers ongoing, where we are looking at their mine tailings and seeing if there's anything we can do to generate value from that.
Extracting the metals, and of course then creating this or producing this circular cement. This is something where we see a lot of potential, and we see that there's a lot of demand for this.
The expectation is that there will be more sales coming up for this soon. Then the next question is about our non-current capital loans that are €8.2 million.
What kind of maturity profile you have on this? This is to Mikko.
Mikko Wirkkala
Yeah. This capital loan is the maturity of that one that we have got that from Climate Fund back in the days, and we raised the last instance of that one in the beginning of 2025.
The maturity profile for this one is that this need to be paid back on the year 2029.
Tuija Kalpala
Okay. Then we have a next question, and as I said there's quite many.
The next question is related to our sales pipeline look for first half 2026. We have the order intake as Mikko was mentioning, so that of course tells a little bit about the sales pipeline, but of course we have several ongoing projects that we have, and we're all the time looking at and trying to grow the sales pipeline further.
Then a question about our €1.4 million order, and how is it progressing, and was there any revenue recognized already on Q4 regarding this, and how will be distributed throughout the 2026? Maybe me and Mikko, we can both answer to this question.
Firstly, I can take the first part of the question. Yes, this is progressing well.
We're working on it with the daily basis, and so far, good. Mikko, if you would like to take the rest of the question.
Mikko Wirkkala
Yes, the revenue recognition that we announced this new order that was at the end of October in 2025. The project started immediately after that one, and then the revenue is recognized during the project time there.
The answer is that, yes, that part of the order that was recognized in Q4 numbers, and the remaining will be then during the project time for this phase is then during the 2026 during the project time.
Tuija Kalpala
Perfect. More questions keep coming.
There's a good question about what kind of cooperation do we have with the Finnish mining industries, and especially in precious metals? This is really good.
We are working in discussion with several mining companies, and of course we're really interested in looking at these critical and strategic minerals, rare earths, and so on. We're doing a lot of testing on our own right now regarding this metal extraction.
We have tested more than 10 different metals, and we continue this work, and really looking at also closed mines and these mine tailings and different materials where has interesting residues of metals, and especially rare earths, and looking at how our technology can extract the metals, and how we can generate value out of this these materials that hasn't been utilized before and considered as waste. Yes, we're working very closely on the with the mining industry to identify new potential on this.
Then there was another question about this Anglo American deal that we have, asking if it's enough to prove this technology, or is it always project-specific proof of concept work that is required? What we are doing on this, I would say, yes, this work continues with Anglo American, and yes, this will prove if our technology works for this.
Also what we're looking at is really to have our own proof of concept unit, and with this unit we can then do larger-scale tests, and we can, the same way, we can increase the readiness of our technology further. We're hoping that we're working on this on daily basis and hoping that we could increase our capabilities regarding the proof of concept in the near future.
At the moment, when we're doing these tests, we have to go outside Finland to do these larger-scale tests that we're doing. Our aim is, of course, that we can do it in-house, and we can do it in Finland.
That's what we're doing. Let's see if we have Yeah, we have one more question here.
Congrats on the OTCQX listing in the U.S. Are you targeting the U.S.
market in business as well? For example, new sales for metal extraction or mining or infrastructure?
Yes, thank you. We're very happy about this.
Yes, we're also looking at the U.S. market very closely.
We see that there's a very interesting potential also in the U.S. We have been so far working in Canada, and we have been talking with the mines in Canada, and now the next step for us is really looking at what potentials we could have in the U.S.
market. There's of course a growing mining industry, there is a lot of new mines, mine projects ongoing, and of course we see that our technology could help also in the U.S.
Let's see how things go. I think let's see.
I think that's all. There's maybe one last question.
There's all the time more and more coming. Can you bring added value for gold and silver mines?
is a question. The answer is, yes, we can bring added value.
We have a lot of solutions for mines, especially underground mines. We have paste backfilling solutions that are cement-free, we have shotcrete solutions that are also cement-free, but of course this metal extraction technology that we have is also something that we can utilize in the gold and silver mines.
Thank you very much, and thank you for the really good questions and kind of active dialogue. Thank you.
Already premium?