60%+ returns in 2025: Here’s how AI-powered stock investing has changed the game
On Thursday, 20 November 2025, 908 Devices (NASDAQ:MASS) presented at the Stephens Annual Investment Conference, unveiling their strategic transformation into "908 2.0." The company is pivoting towards innovation in handheld chemical detection, emphasizing public safety and defense markets. While the company projects robust growth, potential challenges such as government shutdowns were acknowledged.
Key Takeaways
- 908 Devices is transitioning to "908 2.0," focusing on handheld chemical detection.
- The company forecasts 13%-17% growth this year, accelerating to over 20% next year.
- Year-to-date revenue growth is 16%, with a strong cash position of $112 million and no debt.
- Recent product launches, including Viper and Explorer, are driving growth.
- A potential $4 million impact from government shutdowns is anticipated in Q4 2025.
Financial Results
908 Devices reported a 16% revenue growth for the first nine months of 2025, reaffirming its annual guidance of $54 million to $56 million. The company aims for over 20% product growth in 2026. Gross margins improved to 56% year-to-date, reaching 58% in Q3 2025. Despite a Q3 adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.8 million, the company targets profitability in Q4 2025. A strong cash position of $112 million with no debt offers financial flexibility.
Operational Updates
The company has divested its desktop business to concentrate on handheld devices, enhancing its focus on public safety and defense. Manufacturing operations have consolidated in Connecticut, reducing costs. The product portfolio has expanded from one to four handheld devices, with a fifth announced. Sales growth is strong in state and local government sectors, with international expansion gaining traction, particularly in the Middle East.
Future Outlook
Looking to 2026, 908 Devices anticipates growth driven by equipment modernization and product innovation, including the NextGen MX908 launch and the DOD AFCAD program. The company aims to boost recurring revenue through connected services like Team Leader. Despite potential government shutdown impacts, the company remains optimistic about its strategic direction and growth prospects.
Q&A Highlights
The transformation to "908 2.0" focuses on handheld devices utilizing technologies such as Raman and FTIR. The Viper launch, which combines FTIR and Raman, is designed for rapid chemical identification, with a backlog of 35 units for Q4 shipment. The Explorer product is in demand for its ability to identify a wide range of volatile organic compounds. The Team Leader service aims to enhance connectivity and data sharing, supporting recurring revenue growth.
908 Devices’ strategic investments are supported by a robust balance sheet, with a focus on both organic and inorganic growth opportunities.
For a detailed understanding, please refer to the full transcript below.
Full transcript - Stephens Annual Investment Conference:
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: All right. Good morning. Welcome to day three of the Stevens Investment Conference. I’m Hannah Rayford. I’m the Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team, and I’m pleased to be joined by 908 Devices today. We’ve got CEO Kevin Knopp and CFO Joe Griffith here. Thank you for joining us. I’ll just turn it over to you all for a quick overview of the business, and then we can jump into Q&A when you’re ready.
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: That sounds great. Thank you very much for having us today. Just as a quick overview and update on 908, about eight months ago, we announced a pretty transformational pivot for 908, really going from a broad instrumentation provider into a company that’s more innovation-focused in the public safety and defense tech markets. We call this launch 908 2.0. It’s really a pivotal shift in our trajectory. It’s really more to us than a restructuring. It’s really a transformation of our business. We’ve really redefined the company around a singular focus, and that’s purpose-built, handheld chemical detection for public health, safety, and defense. 908 Devices is really working to have a much sharper focus, much stronger financial position, and a clearer operational alignment. There are four key areas that I’d love to just take a moment and highlight.
Number one, our transformation is complete, and now we are fully focused on those growth markets. We divested our desktop business, which had exposure to NIH and biopharma, and that has really sharpened our focus. We have really streamlined the business, and now we are entirely focused on our handheld chemical detection markets, which deliver rapid and field-ready analysis for some high-impact applications. We do see demand accelerating, driven by some macros across the opioid response, defense modernization, and cross-border security. We really believe we are at the right time with our products and solutions. Number two is acceleration. Backed by those secular tailwinds and an innovation pipeline and a DOD program of record that we are pursuing, we are projecting 13%-17% growth this year and accelerating to a 20% plus growth on the product side next year. Number three is execution.
Our year-to-date numbers have been strong, and we remain on track to achieve adjusted EBITDA profitability in Q4 of this year, which has been a big goal for us. That’s really been powered by some gross margin improvements, some operational streamlining. We did some manufacturing consolidation and moved things from Boston headquarters all together to Connecticut. In Q3, that adjusted EBITDA loss really improved 32% year over year and, importantly, 53% quarter over quarter because we did such work in Q2 that set us up for a strong Q3. The last is platform technology. We’ve got handhelds that are at our core, but we absolutely have the ability to take on additional markets and opportunity via OEM-funded partnerships. We have efforts today in the pharmaceutical and industrial QA, QC space.
We also have collaboration and integrations underway with drones and UAVs and other autonomous platforms. We have done multiple flights and multiple integrations with partners of our technology. We remained sharpened or focused on our handhelds, but absolutely, we have not narrowed our long-term potential there. Really, just if I think over our last 18 months, we have gone from one handheld device to now four, and a fifth we just announced in July, and we have more coming. We are seeing good growth trajectory setting us up for 2026 and beyond. We are seeing good proof points for those initial product adoptions, particularly Explorer, some Viper, which we are happy to go into. Really, it relies around having a modern portfolio of products that can handle hundreds of trace analytes, thousands of toxic gases, and tens of thousands of bulk compounds.
Broad analytes panel to do detection to identification and really serve those first responders across a myriad of applications: the opioids, toxic industrial chemicals, and the defense applications. To close the actions taken, it’s really a new trajectory for 908 Devices. We are very excited to be here to answer questions about it. It’s just eight months into that journey, but really, it’s a broader multi-segment platform, and we’re really working to become a much more focused, high-impact company around those elements. We’ve got clear target markets in that public health, safety, and defense tech area. We’re getting stronger margins, and we really have a simplified operational model now with that near-term path to profitability. We are very excited about what’s happened over the last eight months and the setup that we believe that we’re on for 2026 and beyond.
Yeah, absolutely happy to go into some details on that.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Awesome. All right. To start, you kind of briefly touched on all of the changes that you’ve had recently: the acquisition of Red Wave, the divestiture of the desktop assets to Repligen. Can you just speak to the 908 Devices 2.0 transformation, what’s different now, and then maybe kind of give an overview of the different product offerings you have and what those address?
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah. 908 2.0 is really around focusing our portfolio on these handheld devices that are, call it classical instrumentation technologies like Raman and FTIR, mass spec, that would normally sit in a large centralized lab, but they’ve been embodied into some game-changing portable handheld devices that we’ve now gone from one product to four, five now since July and have more on the horizon. Very excited that 908 2.0 is absolutely focused on that element of it. The difference of those products is really meant to serve a workflow.
Those responders need things from trace analytes, so that means a residue on a surface, that means something at very low concentrations in air, all the way through to visible amounts, bulk, as we call it, bulk chemical identification, the ability to measure a panel of 38,000 different unknown compounds, and all do this with accuracy and speed and doing it in near real time in the field. Our portfolio of products that we’ve been expanding is really meant to have a common workflow, complete offering to that base, and we get good leverage out of our sales channel as a result.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Awesome. Can you touch on your 3Q25 results and year-to-date results? What are you seeing in terms of key growth drivers? Where are you seeing strength in your portfolio?
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Definitely. We’ve been busy, as Kevin mentioned, over the last eight months and really last year and a half. It’s been great to see some of that momentum. We’ve seen some good positives. Year-to-date, we’re at 16% revenue growth through the first nine months of the year, really based upon some of the strength of new product launches with Explorer, with Viper that just launched in July. State and local, we break down our sales channels, and we go after the market internationally through more state and local municipal channels, and then kind of our federal defense channels. State and local really has been strong across our portfolio, whether it’s our mass spec technology or our FTIR products here in Q3 and year-to-date 2025. That traction has started to play out also internationally as we’ve started to invest and continue to see a strong distribution channel.
The problem, opioid epidemic and others, are an international problem, right? We are seeing good traction in the Middle East. Do not have as much presence in APAC. See that as an opportunity as we turn the corner for 2026 and beyond. As we think below the line, not just revenue growth and seeing that 16%, but our gross margins have been attractive. 56% year-to-date, we hit 58% in Q3. Part of that is mixed-driven. Part of it is with moving and centralizing our manufacturing all in Danbury, which is a lot lower cost point than Boston, Massachusetts, as our lease was coming up and coming due. That was good to see. I think as we think going forward with the portfolio of five products, pretty attractive contribution margins as we look to leverage and scale.
Controlled our OpEx, and ultimately on the EBITDA side, Kevin touched on this, but since our IPO is our best quarter on an adjusted EBITDA basis, a loss of $1.8 million sets us up. As we look at the we reiterated our guide for the full year, $54 million-$56 million. Getting to that kind of $16 million for Q4 at the midpoint gets us to positive adjusted EBITDA in Q4, which for 908 Devices is a great really transformation where the desktop business was eating into our gross margins, needed a lot of investment with subscale, and with the divestiture, it’s freed up the opportunity. Busy, good Q3, good year-to-date, and looking forward to closing out the year.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. You mentioned how you reiterated 2025 revenue guidance on your 3Q call, but you did call out potential $4 million in headwinds from the risk of the government shutdowns. Can you just walk us through some of the puts and takes to Q4 guidance and then maybe your confidence in the ability to hit guidance?
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Absolutely. I can give a few details. Feel free to jump in, Kevin. Yes, we thought it was prudent and just made sense to be transparent around the potential risk. If you think about when we did our earnings call, it was the Monday morning pre-market right after the Senate had approved, and we were still waiting on the House and the full approval. We are excited to see that we are open. The U.S. government is open for business. We did highlight the fact of about $4 million of potential risk. We reiterated our guide, but wanted to say that there are different pieces. From a federal defense perspective, about $4 million is within that guide being considered. About $3 million is really to about 60-ish MX908 device placements, and there is pipeline and opportunity around that. We needed the government to get back and open.
That doesn’t mean all of a sudden the POs flow. They got to be open, got to get through contracting, make sure we can get it. The benefit is that we build the forecast. We can ship and deliver the units right up to the end of the year, which is a good thing. It was great to see that they did reopen last week, and now are a little bit more giddy up in the step with our sales team on that side going off to the opportunity. About $1 million was export license-driven, and the fact that as we’re looking to get export license to sell into the Middle East and kind of think of a non-NATO-friendly countries, we need an export license. We have about $1 million. Typically, the good news is now that they’re open, they’re starting to flow again.
It doesn’t mean they’ve been issued yet, but they’re actually being referred for approval. I think we’ve made some progress. Yeah, the demand is absolutely there. As Joe articulated, it’s really timing to get these across the line.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: All right. You launched a new handheld analyzer, Viper, in 3Q. What’s the expected growth trajectory for that? Do you see any potential cannibalization with any of your other products from that?
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, absolutely. It’s a very exciting new product for us that we launched in July, Viper. It brings together essentially three technologies. It brings together our core from our FTIR platform, that optical technology paired with another optical technology called Raman. Both are very complementary in what they can see and what they can measure. We stitch all that together with some unique proprietary algorithms to give the user a single unified answer. Think of it this way. You’re a customs agent, and you’re having a flow of commerce. You’re trying to keep things moving. You don’t have to decide that on these types of materials, one works better than the other. In fact, having the two together can give you a corroborative result where you actually have more confidence in that result because you’ve got two looks at that.
We’ve engineered a way that you’re actually interrogating the same sample, the same compound, and doing that chemical identification. Very new, very novel in its approach. We’re very excited where that can go. We shipped the first handful in Q2.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Q3.
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Q3. For Q4, we’ve lined up approximately 35 that are in our backlog for shipment in Q4. We are very excited about that trajectory that we’re on. Lots there to be served across customs organizations globally, hazardous material organizations, even in the intel community. We saw some initial purchases from one in APAC.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: The last couple of quarters, there’s been pretty strong sales of the Explorer device. Can you just talk about what’s driving demand there, and are there any key customer wins you might call out?
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Yes. The Explorer device is our second newest device. We think that as well as the Viper we just discussed, we think are great proof points for our trajectory of growth as they get full stride for 2026 and beyond. Explorer has a lot of commonalities. These are platform technologies. We can get efficient on the gross margin in our operations, as Joe was articulating in our financial results that’s showing up. Explorer is really a device that’s engineered to use FTIR to detect and identify gases. It’s configured to identify 5,000 volatile organic or VOC gases. This is a great complement to the firefighter community because a lot of the technologies they have today are much more, call it non-selective. They’re using things like a photo-ionization detector where they can tell something is there, but they can’t tell what it is.
Not knowing what it is makes it a little bit difficult to know how it’s going to hurt you or how you should respond in that event. Having that broad capability, we’re seeing people adopt it because it’s a clear gap in the portfolio of how they do hazardous material response. That’s absolutely for the firefighter community, hazardous material response teams. We’ve seen folks like Contra Costa, California adopt, Kansas City fire marshals. We’ve seen things across international in Taiwan and beyond. We’ve seen some good opportunity there. We think it’s really just the beginning. It did grow for us 30% quarter over quarter. It’s the second record quarter of placements. We placed about 60 in the quarter.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: We did. It is a key growth opportunity, as Kevin mentioned, 60 in this quarter, but seeing good traction on the state and local international side. Marine Corps, key adoption, shipment of 17 devices in the third quarter. One of the pieces with the Red Wave acquisition and attractiveness on both sides was to be able to plug in products like the Explorer to our sales channel and to reach a broader audience. We are starting to see, I think, the fruit of some of those labors, especially on the federal defense side and some of those larger opportunities like the Marine Corps. We anticipate seeing additional wins as we turn into 2026 and beyond.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: All right. You have talked about Team Leader. I believe they provide connected services for your devices. Do you view that as a strategy to increase recurring revenues going forward?
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Yes, absolutely. We have products that are all handheld devices. They’re shipped with service and support contracts. A lot of our customers enjoy adding multi-years of service and support. In total, it’s about a third of our revenue this year on the recurring revenue side. Part of the attraction of staying on support and service is that they like the connectivity to 908, whether that’s new targets, new concerns, new panel of analytes that they’d like to stay up with the latest as we develop them and release them. Having that connectivity is important. It’s also the fact that when they’re measuring these samples, they’re often in a remote field, call it environment. They’re not in a lab with lab infrastructure. They really appreciate a partnership back to 908 to be able to share the results, share the data.
Now, if you take that a step further, we’re doing that today, but we really see an opportunity to do that in what we call Team Leader through connected services, through having it be a software application. We have a budding version of Team Leader that’s available now to customers. We wrap it within the service and support model today. We are looking to keep driving new compelling features that will start to articulate the value on its own because you can imagine, you can see trend data, fleet managing your devices. If you were the decision maker that purchased a number for an enterprise account, knowing which devices are productive, knowing what they’re seeing at a particular area, knowing who’s trained, who’s using it, is it on the latest version of software. We think there’s quite an ecosystem that can be developed there and using Team Leader.
Yes, over time, as we get those compelling features, we think it could add to that recurring revenue opportunity.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Awesome. I think you’ve noted today some consistently strong growth in state and local government this year. What are some of the key factors that you think are driving this growth, and are you expecting to see that continuing into 2026?
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah. On the state and local side, it has been across our portfolio, whether it’s on the MASSPAC or FTIR. We have really dedicated a team that’s going after the opportunity. We’ve developed capabilities to do remote demos, get units out into customers for try-and-buy type situations. The products kind of sell themselves and their unique capabilities with our experienced team. In our Q2 earnings discussion, we also talked about some of the funding environments and the opportunities that are there around our technologies supporting the state and local side that we can touch on. We feel that there’s some good market momentum. The funding is there, multi-year grants to be able to go after those unique capabilities. I don’t know if there are any you want to touch on.
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: That’s it. I mean, they’re very challenging situations that all of our state and local customers are facing, a myriad of things. The fentanyl crisis is hitting all of the communities, and law enforcement needs to have things to understand. There’s health safety concerns from the counterfeit pharmaceutical itself through to inhalation hazards that get created through it. Yeah, as Joe said, they’re really needing advanced chemical detection.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: With our group of products, it might be one year they need the MASSPAC, and the next year they’re coming back and buying the FTIR. We have seen some good cross-selling across existing accounts and even with new accounts where they’re looking at the technology and working the grants into the different opportunities. It has been a good win this year, and we anticipate continuing in the near term.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Can you just touch on top-line expectations for growth for 2026 and maybe kind of highlight your three major growth catalysts, the equipment modernization, NextGen MX908 launch, and the DOD AFCAD program, and what you’re expecting for those next year?
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Maybe I’ll touch on the numbers if you want to dive in, Kevin. We talked about getting, we see 20% product growth from an opportunity with some key catalysts that we can walk through, kind of above-market interesting growth. I mentioned we’re 16% year to date, but as we think about 2026, and it’s important that we are able to scale. Those key growth drivers will enable us to drive that 20% product growth.
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Yes. The whole entire point of our transformation is to focus on that growth acceleration by focusing our portfolio on the set of innovative products. We identified those three as the major catalysts. We think we’ve been making good proof points across those this year. The first is being able to serve a legacy base of 15,000-plus products that are out there that are ripe for an upgrade, that we really believe we’ve got a modern solution with Team Leader features or other integrations. We’ve been good demonstrating that. Last quarter, it was about 42% of our revenues were from those FTIR products. We touched on today the second catalyst as well, and that’s around innovation. Explorer, our second newest product, Viper. We talked about both of those are really coming to stride and setting us up well for 2026.
By the way, we have a flagship product that will go through a refresh cycle in 2026 as well, which we have about 3,000 out there. Each of those is today going after greenfield placements. We’re disrupting ourselves with that next-generation product, but we’re really excited for what it can do in terms of simplicity and size and weight that it can bring value further to the customer and maybe even open the aperture of who we can serve as we do that. The third one, which also we’ve been having good proof points this year, is around the AFCAD program, our collaboration with Smith’s Detection. We’re a subcontractor.
Smith’s Detection is the prime, and this is going after the AFCAD program, which is taking the components of our MX908 and placing them in a hardened military-grade package and all the logistics and communications that have to go into that. Smith’s is leading that side of the development and using our core chemical detection capability as it. We’ve gone through the low-rate initial production phase, and last year, we delivered about 100 component sets that got built up into product and have gone through testing this year. We’re now completing that testing, and Smith’s now is waiting for the word on what’s the next step, what’s the next phase, and the ramp of that. We’ve articulated that that could be a potential of about $10 million plus to 908 when we’re fully ramped.
We’re kind of at the stage where we’re really waiting for that next step to be announced and how it will scale to such a level. We’re excited about that and made good progress this year as well. We really think those three catalysts have done well to support and justify the growth rates of 20% plus on the product side next year.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: You exited 3Q with a pretty strong cash position of $112 million on the balance sheet and no debt. How are you going to be prioritizing organic versus inorganic investments going forward?
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah. It’s nice to have over $100 million on the balance sheet and really kind of cure that, call it overhang or opportunity with the divestiture of our desktop products to Repligen, which we feel made a lot of sense, and it’s in good hands. With that, it enables us to focus on the key investments. I think we’re in pretty good shape. We’ve been right-sizing, moving the operations. Ultimately, there’ll be opportunities that we’ll need to scale selling and marketing resources for 2026, but we’re in pretty good shape on the R&D and the G&A side. That opens up the door to be flexible if we see opportunities.
There’s tight filters on the inorganic side, but if we saw something that hit the filters, maybe a similar type to RedWave or in that profile, it definitely gets interesting and gives the flexibility without debt and a healthy balance sheet to consider that, which maybe we couldn’t have six months or a year ago, really.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: All right. Before I wrap it up, does anyone have any questions they’d like to ask? All right. I’ll turn it over to you all if you have any final comments you’d like to make.
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Thank you very much, Shannon, for having us today. Yes, we’re very excited for the journey we’ve made over the last, call it, eight months and what’s on the horizon for us. I really think we’ve demonstrated some good proof points to the growth story and where we can go and being very much an innovation-driven company around a set of handheld technologies serving markets that are just having amazing secular tailwinds developing. Again, thank you for having us.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: All right. Thank you for being here.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Perfect. Yeah. What’s that? Yeah. Yeah. A few good ones.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Thank you so much for coming. I’m really glad we were able to make it out still, but it worked out.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah. Thank you. There’s some stuff that was digested as well.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. I think there’s some. I don’t know how this would fit in with anything, but I’d be happy to get you in contact with the director of research or anyone that you would like to talk to and just see if it fits because it’s constantly changing too. I mean, we’ve had a lot of different things, like kind of going out of one area, moving into others. There’s been a lot of changes in the last year and a half, two years. You never know what.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Okay. Yeah. I’ll get you in contact. I’ll shoot you guys an email after this. I mean, yeah, I really appreciate you.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: No, no. Thanks for coming through over here. I’ll offer to talk about some things, but it’s good.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: It was all coming back to me in this. It’s like we’ve been so tunnel vision trying to resume coverage.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Oh, I didn’t think.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. It’s busy.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: It’s a different thing.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you all for being accommodating.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah. We got lots of questions. We know what people are interested in hearing. It’s a nice opportunity to put those out there.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. Thank you.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Do you have a long day today or?
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Not as bad today. We have one more. Yesterday was our long day. We are almost crossing the finish line. We are almost there. Yeah.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: There’s only so much you can do, right?
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah. There’s only so much you can do.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: When’s the big day?
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: It’s moving.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: January 27th.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Oh, coming up.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Coming up. Yeah.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: By the 20th of January 20th, maybe you’ll come a week early.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. I’m like, honestly, a few weeks early doesn’t sound too bad. When they keep talking about doubling in size from here, I’m like, how? What are you talking about?
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah. Have a great evening.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Are you all hanging around town for very long or just?
Out this evening.
Yeah. Before I have around 5:00 o’clock.
I got to see the town a little bit last night. Kevin came in too late, but I explored a little bit on my own.
It was good.
I needed to do some things more.
Flight’s out till 5 o’clock.
That’s the same.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go see the market.
That’s it.
Anxious to be at home.
Thanks so much for having us.
Kevin Knopp, CEO, 908 Devices: Appreciate it.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Good luck with everything.
I appreciate the hosting.
Thank you for reaching out to Dave.
Yeah. He’s in Boston like every other week.
Oh, okay.
Every other week.
Every other week.
He’s the replicant.
Oh, yeah.
He’s going to be going out often.
Yeah.
We’re starting to do that across covering the Yoko Toyota joint. Actually, we’re going to see this three times joint events.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: I haven’t really been following the joint and back there in March.
Yeah.
We’re going to have to do a transformation. We got some good traction, so.
He doesn’t play his opportunities.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. It’s been changing a lot, so I’m really hoping it’s not right now.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah. I’ll show you still.
We’ll stay in touch.
No.
Thank you.
It’s great to see you.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Thank you so much. Good to see you.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Take care.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Sorry. He’ll capture me. I was like, "How about we double the car?" He’s like, "Oh," I was like, "Come with it." Yeah. Then we were like, "No, I’m going to get a little late.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: No.
I think, yeah.
I appreciate it.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: I appreciate him. He was so friendly. I was like, "Could you come with me? We can meet you back." He’s like, "Oh, yeah. I love working with Mac and Hannah." I was like, "I’ll come." He was saying he’s learning other sectors and stuff too. I’m like, "Okay. That’s great if you want to learn industrials, whatever, but learn more healthcare first." I was a healthcare generalist, and that really got to me really well. That was good for my career. I didn’t understand the whole healthcare sector. It’s easier to do on the price-aggregated health sector.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: A lot more alpha. A lot more alpha on the.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: If you’re a generalist. Yeah. Because you’re not tied to one thing. There are just.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Especially with tools. You’re like, "Okay. Well, funding sucks. Now it’s great.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. There were several buy-side long-only healthcare services like managed care analysts who got worn out of their shops in the past year because they got blown up. Everything blew up. The sector stuck, but their bosses were like, "Well, then you should have made a call that we shouldn’t invest in anything." That’s difficult to do when you’re only in one sector.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: You have to justify your job.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. I think three really well-known managed care price-siders, like a big shop in the 10-year-old, the other one was in New Rock Spring, which is not long, but a spin out of T Rows. They all love T Rows. These are quality shops with a long-term perspective. As a price-sider, it was easier for me to do whole healthcare. There were times I only did everything with services. There were a couple of years of my life I had a partner, maybe three or four years who, and she did services. We also did everything together. She would be on all my calls. I would be on all her calls. We would discuss everything because we challenged each other and made each other better stockpickers. Still.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: That’s the way to do it.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. I still felt like I was on everything.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: I think you can’t have a team of one. I think if you have a team of one, you’re just.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: You’re an experiment.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah, you’re screaming.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: I say the same thing to potential clients. If you’re an IR, I mean, usually we’re coming in through the CEO or CFO, but sometimes there’s an IR person you don’t want to feel threatened. You’re like, "Well, I wouldn’t want to trade places as easily." The reason I created this place was five analysts, senior-level analysts who have all battles guard and lost money and cried and being yelled at and whatever is because I don’t want to be in that good shape either. The stakes are too high for these decisions. It is too dangerous. You can be the smartest person in the world, but you can’t think about everything. You can’t think of you can’t see what wasn’t in your original thesis. It is so much better to be able to toss stuff around.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: I’m being a walker. Hannah goes on the.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. Yeah. Just don’t follow any of the stock picks. That’s what I’m saying.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: She’s like, "Do you really mean to say this?" And I’m like, "What did I say?" Kind of said this. I was like, "I’m at the office.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. I was like, "What I’m hearing is this." Yeah. We have to CRN our CEOs and CFOs all the time. All these jobs that we’re all in are very high-stakes stuff. You need more exceptional brains, not fewer.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah. I think you should at least have, I don’t know, I think two seasoned associates is a good counterbalance. Am I crazy here? You get one perspective. I don’t know. Or at least another analyst in your space to kind of really challenge it.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. I guess it’s nice if Mason’s coverage is close enough that you can kind of.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah. You help someone out.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Weigh in on some stuff.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Obviously, once you launch, you get buy-side. You yell at anybody. What do you mean? Why are you saying this?
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Yeah. You get a partnership, quote-unquote. I was never that kind of buy-sider. I mean, I would ask questions, but I was never the jerk one. I was never honking my buck. I was always sincerely trying to figure out how I was wrong. I would talk to you more if you were on the other side and be like, "Well, I could be wrong." I need to, I think, because people are smart. Let me ask them why I’m wrong. Please tell me so I don’t get myself blown up.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: That’s how Silvercrest is. They’re out in Milwaukee. They’re just like the Texas Midwest. You’re like, "Okay. I get it, but I think you’re wrong.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Who’s the healthcare people there?
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Steve Lilly and Adam Thomas.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Steve Lilly.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: He’s a nice person.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: He is so amazing.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: He’s also—I thought he was a PM. Is he a PM or an analyst? I feel like he’s like a senior to me.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: Yeah. I know him too.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: I think communicate with him.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: I mean, he’s been in the business for like 25 years. I mean, his photo on Silvercrest will be a full-head hair.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: Oh, that’s hysterical. Yeah. He is great. And I really like to think of people where we’re all just trying to figure out how we could be wrong and not how the other person could be wrong. There’s just no point in that. This is hard stuff. You’ll be—and I’ll be geniuses, but some of us are going to be right and some of us will be wrong.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: You have your right to be wrong.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: If you’re a buy-sider, you’re just constantly beating yourself up. Because if you are right and it’s wrong, you should have done it more. You never feel great. You’re just miserable all the time. Your buy-sider is just an exercise in self-flagellation. If you’re doing it right.
Joe Griffith, CFO, 908 Devices: That’s true. Mine described it like playing poker. I was like, "That’s good. I play a lot of poker." I’m not very good at it.
Hannah Rayford, Life Science Tools and Pharma Services team: It’s like playing poker. What? Emotional.
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.
