Tuija Kalpala
Welcome to Betolar's Q1 2026 business review. Today we talk about our business review, record-high sales driven by new projects, push for metal extraction technology continues.
Firstly, disclaimer regarding our forward-looking statements. On our agenda today, we will talk about the Q1 2026 highlights, financial review, and lastly we have the Q&A.
I'm Tuija Kalpala, I'm the President and CEO of Betolar. I'm here with Mikko Wirkkala, our CFO.
Please, during the presentation, feel free to put any questions you may have on the online questionnaire box so we can then see your questions and then at the end answer to them. Thank you.
Main events and after the period happenings in Q1, we had the record-high sales, which we're very happy about. During the January-March, our revenue was higher than ever before in the company's history.
Also, we continued to push for metal extraction. We received follow-on order from Anglo American Sakatti mine.
This is a mining project in northern Finland, and we're doing a project regarding their mine tailings. We published this new cooperation with Ebanko mine tailings where Betolar, together with Ecocraft and Geological Survey of Finland, are collaborating together to transforming this Ebanko mine tailings using our metal extraction technology, and this project is in Tanzania.
We also introduced to the market our new solution for protecting critical infrastructure. This is against, for example, for drones and other threats, and I'll talk about this a bit later.
Also in the Q1, trading on our OTCQX started, this is a marketplace in the United States. Highlights during the period: When looking at the market, I would say that the market condition remained favorable for Betolar's solutions, really driven by increased interest in this critical infrastructure and also there was a lot of interest and increasing demand also for strategic and critical minerals.
This growing security concerns during the past couple of months, including the need to protect, for example, these electrical substations and other essential assets and critical infrastructure, are really accelerating the demand for practical, rapidly deployable infrastructure protection solution, which we have now available for our customers. As well as what we see during the period is also there is a growing demand for sustainable and circular materials.
When looking at the sales side, Q1 revenue reached a record-high level, which we are super happy about. This was really supported by strong project execution and our customer satisfactory, new customer engagement, and also these follow-on orders, which also tells about the customer satisfactory as we are able to continue working with our existing customers.
The momentum continued across mining and metals, as well as in circular materials and these infrastructure solutions, including the progress in the company's largest project order to date, which was related to infrastructure, which we announced last year. Also, we have increasing commercial in discussion related to this critical infrastructure protection solutions that we have.
On the innovation side in Q1, we focused on really solution-driven development with clear commercial relevance. We advanced our metal extraction technology towards larger-scale demonstration, and also introduced this new solution to protect critical infrastructure, addressing growing risk from drones and other physical threats.
The infrastructure protection solution has entered now the commercialization phase, which is supporting near-term revenue opportunities while strengthening societal resilience. We currently have 26 active patent families, 49 granted patents, and about 70 patents applications are pending.
We are still very much focused on developing new type of technologies and R&D, but really looking at this commercial relevance. Then if talking about our growth plan for this year and beyond, as we have previously talked about, the key part of our strategy is really this metal extraction technology.
We published this about a year ago, and we have been very much working around and further developing this technology, and we have many patents also pending related to this technology. This technology recovers critical and strategic metals from different kind of slag materials, as well as mine tailings, with very high efficiency, while at the same time producing low-carbon circular cement.
What we are aiming with this is really creating a zero-waste value chain where all inputs become valuable outputs. By transforming these underutilized materials, we are really aiming at creating new revenue streams and increasing the resource self-sufficiency.
We are aiming of course to help our customers to move towards more sustainable and resilient operating models. Here you see three different boxes.
This is what we are really focusing right now and moving forward: is on the mining and metals and really this metal extraction technology, and with this we're expecting value in a long-term. These are long projects, requires many times also some investments, these are long-term value opportunities for us and our customers.
Circular materials side, this is more like a faster route to cash flow. We have this different kind of materials that we're already selling in the marketplace.
We are selling these materials already in Finland and India, where we have a subsidiary. This is a growing business area, as well as where we continue looking at developing different cement-free and low-cement solutions for our customers.
Then lastly, we have here the critical infrastructure protection. This is also a fast route to cash flow, and this is something that we have now started commercializing.
We have several patents pending on this area as well, and we see that's really interesting growing opportunity for us in the short term. Then mining and metals side, this side was really developing very positively during Q1 through our continued projects with existing customer, and also with new engagements with new customers.
Mining and metals side, we have customers in Australia, Canada, also in Europe, and this side is continuing and growing. We also received a follow-on order from Anglo American Sakatti mine project, which is in northern Finland.
We are really advancing this commercial cooperation with them and progressing this metal extraction technology towards industrial-scale evaluation. In addition, we initiated the new cooperation with the Ebanko mine tailing project in collaboration with Ecocraft and Geological Survey of Finland, really assessing the potential to recover these valuable metals from these mine tailings and enable circular material production.
Circular materials side, this was also developing very positively. We had growth in Indian market, where we are selling ground granulated blast-furnace slag.
This continued to grow, as well as in Finland. We commenced the sales of the slag to concrete industry, enabling immediate adoption of low-carbon materials and expanding commercial activity in circular construction materials.
Also, during the period, we focused on executing our largest project to date related to infrastructure. Now on the protecting critical infrastructure solution: After the period, we announced this new cost-effective solution for protecting critical infrastructure from drones and other physical threats.
We see that critical infrastructure plays a vital role in the functioning of society, and any damage to these assets can cause widespread and long-lasting disruptions. Betolar's protection solution is primarily designed to safeguard electrical substations and the main transformers, but it's also suitable for protecting other types of critical infrastructure, whether it's water or any type of energy facilities that needs protection as well.
Where we are with this solution and commercialization, we have started commercializing this solution, and we really see near-term revenue opportunities with this. As mentioned earlier, we already have several patents pending for this area.
Then over to Mikko for financial review.
Mikko Wirkkala
Thank you, Tuija. Let's have a then look at our first quarter financials.
Starting from the revenue, the revenue was €441,000, which was the highest quarterly result in the company history. This was roughly three times higher compared to last year first quarter.
The revenue, as Tuija said, was mainly driven by the large order which we got during the fourth quarter last year related to the infrastructure project. Then this year, we are also publishing a new line item here, other operating income, and and this line item includes mainly mainly our our public grants, what we are booking to our income statement.
In the first quarter '26, the other operating income was €200,000, and this was some €228 less compared to last year. This is mainly explained by one one-off item what we had last year, and this was when we received a public grant grant from Business Finland, and that was paid, and what was actually paid was a higher amount what we had booked initially.
This this one-time item explains that why the other operating income is lower compared to last year. When looking at our EBITDA, we are slightly better than last year, but as mentioned, the other operating income item that was lower is is then bringing bringing the result to the only to the same level where we where last year.
If looking at our cost level, we were able able to still lower our cost compared to last last year last year, and we we are planning to keep the costs costs in check. At the same time, we are also then then focusing focusing our costs there so that we can can advance our strategy regarding the metal extraction technology, and and also the critical infrastructure, what Tuija mentioned earlier.
If we then have a look at our balance sheet, our cash and cash equivalents and short-term fund investments, that we had in total €5.2 million euros at the end of the first quarter. Then if we add the undrawn grants on top of that one, then we the total amount was €6.1 million.
If we then have a look at our operational indicators, order intake in the first quarter, €221,000, and this was more than double compared to last year last year, but of course much much lower than than than the fourth quarter what we had when we had the record-high record-high order intake during that quarter. As Tuija has mentioned, that during this quarter, we were mostly focusing on delivering the large large project order.
The number of new non-recurring engineering projects was three during this quarter, so three times higher compared to last year last year, and of course one of these these orders was was the follow-on order from Anglo American. Number of personnel, we are now now on average at at 28 people, and this is this is then the result of the different different cost actions what we have executed during the last year.
As mentioned about our financial position, our cash balance was €5.2 million, and then then we still have the grant grants remaining what we haven't haven't drawn yet. These projects these projects from Business Finland that that is ending now now during the during the second quarter quarter of this year, and also also we had an other project that which ended during the first quarter, and where we are expecting expecting to receive receive the money from from these grants during during the second quarter, and and some may also go to the third quarter this year.
We are all the time in active discussions with different parties that when we are looking at our financing, and this includes multiple options there. For example, that we are all the time looking for new public grants there.
It can be on a national level, it can be on EU level, and we have been actively advancing these application processes. We will then come back to the these that when we have something to report regarding the outcomes of these ones.
What comes to the guidance for the 2026, we keep that unchanged, and we are expecting our revenue to grow significantly compared to the previous year. This was in a nutshell the financial position and outlook and all the financial part of this first quarter.
We can then move to our Q&A.
Tuija Kalpala
Yes. Thank you.
There's been many questions. Let's take the questions and answer.
You still have time to add a few more. First question is related or it says, I will read it: "You started a new collaboration with Ecocraft and Geological Survey of Finland.
Is there a clear trend in the market where mining companies are looking for broader solutions, specifically for the treatment of tailings and other side streams? How do you see Betolar's competitive advantage in this market in the long term?"
This is a really good question, and I would say definitely yes. What we see is definitely that there's a growing interest with these mine tailings and finding solutions what to do with them.
There's two reasons for that. Firstly, mine tailings is considered one of the world's largest waste problem, there's so much mine tailings in the world, and there's not really not many commercial solutions on what to do with these mine tailings.
Secondly, there's quite a lot of interesting and valuable minerals, strategic and critical metals, within these mine tailings. What we have been really looking at is that how we can capture these valuable metals out from these mine tailings, and then utilize the remaining material as this kind of circular cement or green cement, however you would like to call it.
We see that there's definitely a lot of opportunities and interest in the marketplace for our solution for our metal extraction technology related to this. Then there's another question related to our infrastructure project: "How much of the major infrastructure project has been delivered and recognized as revenue, and how much remains recognized?"
I would say that this infrastructure project, which is largest project by revenue to date, is ongoing, and it's going very well. We are not necessarily disclosing exactly when is the project closing, but I would say that it's going well, and of course we're hoping that this project will continue and for a long time, and we'll get more projects like this.
Then moving on to next question: "You mentioned that you have started selling circular economy materials in Finland as well. What is the current competitive situation in the market in Finland, and how significant business could this be for Betolar?"
We have this GGBFS right now in Hamina in Finland. We have a storage facility in there, and we're selling this GGBFS to Finnish market, and we definitely see a growing opportunity in Finland with this material.
Of course, there's a competition. We're not the only one selling it in Finland, but it doesn't matter because we see that there's still room and opportunity for us to grow in this area in Finland, as well as in India, where this business has been growing on, I would say, almost every month we have been doing record-high sales.
Then to next question: "Congratulations on the revenue growth figures. I would like to ask about the Anglo American follow-up order.
If everything goes as planned, on what schedule could this metal separation technology be scaled to a broader, more revenue-generating use?" What we would say about this Anglo American Sakatti thing, we're very happy that the project is going well, and it continues.
At this point, it's very difficult to say when this technology would be taken into use. We're still in kind of testing and evaluating this, and as soon as we have more information, we will of course then share that information.
We're super happy that things are going well, and these kind of studies and testings are ongoing. Then to another question: "How does the order pipeline look right now?
Mikko, would you like to take this one?"
Mikko Wirkkala
We're not exactly disclosing the entire order book what we are having, but you can make a rough estimate that when you're looking at the received orders what we are having in. Of course, some of the orders are for example that when we are selling the GGBFS, the material sales, so that is realizing quite often during the same quarter that when we get the orders there.
Then if looking that on a big picture, that typically that when we are getting these non-recurring engineering projects, we are getting the order in and then it takes, depending on the project, it takes few months to deliver the project there. You can make a rough estimate based on this one, and but basically the new orders is giving quite nice picture about the near term.
Of course that we all the time have the orders for the longer projects, for example this infrastructure project that is then taking a lot of time to complete, these longer projects are we're still expecting those to generate revenue during the near quarters.
Tuija Kalpala
Okay. Then there's another question for Mikko: "If we look at your available funding, when do you think that you would have to start finding new external funding if your order intake does not accelerate from the current level?"
Mikko Wirkkala
What we have said said also also earlier earlier publicly that that when when we raised raised capital, that was in 2024, we said that with that capital increase that we are able able to operate smoothly smoothly until 2027. This message has has not changed since since that that one.
Basically, of course we are all the time looking for revenue growth, and you have seen the results that that we have been able to grow every year our revenue, and also the results have been improving there. We are constantly working on that that very very hard to make that happen.
Then at the same time, as mentioned, that we are discussing different financing opportunity tunities there, and and then basically turning every every stone that there are. We will then inform more that when we have something something to report on on these ones.
We are working very actively to to secure this one, and of course that the main main importance is that we are growing our business.
Tuija Kalpala
Indeed. Then we have a last question: "A new solution for protecting critical infrastructure sounds very interesting.
How quickly do you expect this innovation to bring tangible revenue, and who are the potential customers in practice?" Yes, we fully agree that it's very interesting and we're very excited about this new solution.
We kind of expect, as mentioned, that this would bring revenue in a short term. This is something that we're actively doing sales activities on.
We believe that there's an opportunity in the marketplace in Finland, Europe, outside Europe, for this innovation that we have. Potential customers: so potential customers are, for example, these electrical substations.
That's where we're starting these sales from, but also we see any other critical infrastructure owner or has this kind of assets, whether it's related to water treatment, natural gas related infrastructure, even oil and gas, any type of energy storages or facilities that would require this kind of protection from, for example, drones or other possible threats. That's all the questions.
Then on the last slide.
Mikko Wirkkala
Yes. Looking at the next events what we have there, and this has been very nice to receive your questions online, but it would be much nicer to get those face-to-face.
There you have the opportunity to meet us in the investor fair at Tampere, Finland, on the May 20th, 2026, and Tuija will be there on stage giving you more information about our metal extraction technology and also the critical infrastructure part. Tuija and I, both we will be there at the stand.
If you want to meet us there, please come there, and I recommend coming in early part of the day when we are both present there. If you happen to miss that one, our next result info will be then happening in August, and then we will have our half-year review and you will hear about the next steps what we have been able to then conclude during the second quarter.
Then looking forward into autumn, in the October 28th, we are then having our third-quarter business review. Thank you very much for your interest, and then looking forward to see you in Tampere.
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