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On Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 908 Devices (NASDAQ:MASS) presented at the Stifel 2025 Healthcare Conference, providing insights into its strategic transformation and future trajectory. The company highlighted its recent financial performance, strategic acquisitions, and challenges, including the impact of a government shutdown on revenue. While achieving a positive EBITDA remains a goal, sustainable profitability is expected by 2027.
Key Takeaways
- Reported Q3 revenue of $14 million, surpassing consensus estimates of $13.5 million
- Transformation includes acquisition of RedWave and divestiture of PAT business
- Government shutdown to impact Q4 revenues by $4 million
- Future growth driven by new product launches and strategic partnerships
- Aims for sustainable profitability by 2027
Financial Results
- Q3 Revenue: Achieved $14 million, exceeding the consensus of $13.5 million
- Full Year Guidance: Reaffirmed revenue guidance of $54 million to $56 million
- Cash Position: Ended Q3 with $112 million in cash, bolstered by $70 million from divesting the PAT business
- Revenue Diversification: 47% from state and local channels, 25% from international channels
- Government Shutdown Impact: Anticipates a $4 million impact on Q4 revenues due to delays in federal defense and military orders
Operational Updates
- Transformation Strategy: Acquisition of RedWave expanded handheld portfolio, while PAT business divestiture strengthened the balance sheet
- Manufacturing Consolidation: Completed consolidation to Danbury, Connecticut, as of July 1, 2024
- Avcad Program: Partnered with Smith's Detection for the Green Army program, with potential revenue starting in 2026
- State and Local Business Growth: Driven by demand for fentanyl detection and industrial chemical identification
Future Outlook
- Growth Drivers: Innovation with new products like Explorer, Viper, and the next-gen MX system
- Profitability Goals: Aiming for sustainable profitability by 2027, with a projected 20% product growth in 2026
- International Expansion: Opportunities to increase international revenue, currently 75% of sales are U.S.-based
- Partnerships: Collaborations with Smith's Detection and Thales to enhance product offerings and market reach
Q&A Highlights
- Government Shutdown Impact: $4 million revenue impact expected in Q4 due to federal delays
- State and Local Growth: Fentanyl detection is a key driver of sales
- Next-Gen MX System: Expected to be smaller, lighter, and maintain similar gross margins
- Viper Product: Initial enterprise deals anticipated in 2025, with 35 systems available for Q4
For a detailed account of the conference call, please refer to the full transcript below.
Full transcript - Stifel 2025 Healthcare Conference:
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay, welcome back to day two of the Stifel Healthcare Conference. My name is Dan Arias. I'm the Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst here at the firm. Happy to kick things off this morning with 908 Devices. We have CEO Kevin and CFO Joe with us. Guys, thanks very much for agreeing to spend some time.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, thank you very much for having us.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Yeah, my pleasure. We've been kicking these things off with a recap of the most recent quarter, which for you was 48 hours ago. Maybe we can just start there. We'll talk about some of the dynamics in a minute, but essentially $14 million of revenue on a $13.5 million consensus. You kept the guide the same. There's a conversation that we'll have there. Just talk about where the business is in 3Q, and then we'll move through some of the elements that we have.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, we were pleased with the business and how it came together in the third quarter. Some good diversification in our state and local channel, growth on our FTIR products, which was through our acquisition of RedWave, continued to launch the Viper product, Explorer record quarter. There were a lot of good things happening in the quarter. I'm excited for the step-up setup as we step up into Q4 and finish out the year where we reiterated the guide, and I know we'll dive in on some of that.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Yeah, okay. Kevin, maybe another place to start would just be sort of the overhaul that the company has undergone over the last, call it, 12-plus months. You've gotten rid of some things. You've acquired some things. Can you just talk about the transition that the business has taken that has taken place in the business and then where that leaves you focused today?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, absolutely. We're pleased with the quarter, as Joe mentioned, but really been focused on what we've been calling a transformation. We announced that earlier this year. That's really been driven by two factors. One, an acquisition of a company called RedWave that we did in April a year ago, and two, a divestiture of our PAT business to Repligen that was in March of this year. Now, both together have allowed us to really greatly expand our handheld portfolio from one to now five products. The divestiture allowed us to really solidify our balance sheet, brought in about $70 million of proceeds, so really has helped us as we finished the quarter at $112 million of cash. It also allowed us to really transform the cost structure of the business.
Through that, we've really been able to consolidate our manufacturing into Danbury, Connecticut, much lower cost footprint for us. It's allowed us to put out there and be tracking towards achieving adjusted positive EBITDA in Q4. All of this is really well aligned to some secular tailwinds that are happening out there for our handheld devices where we've been winning. We're really now doubling down and focusing in that space. That includes the drug detection areas with fentanyl and the fentanyl crisis, security concerns around the border, and also into the toxic materials and the prevalence of toxic industrial materials where some of our products are serving.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: What was it about RedWave that made you interested in what do you think you can do with it now that it's in your hands versus where it was before? It was a small company. It still is, but what drew you to it?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Drew us to it was a complementary set of products that we could bring to the same customer base. Our customers really need a toolbox of technologies and products to address unknown chemical detection and unknown gas detection and identification. RedWave really helped us broaden our portfolio. Now we have mass spec, FTIR, and to some extent now Raman with our Viper product. That is really a full complement of advanced instrumentation that can be brought out to these customers. Lots of synergies we saw are now starting to really play out by getting these into our sales channel, lots of innovation pipeline that they had with new products, Explorer now, and then now most recently in July, Viper.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. To what extent are the call points within those? It sounds like at a high level you're targeting the same folks, but what is the nuance on the selling experience, and does that create the need for additional commercial infrastructure for you guys?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, the great part is that we were able to leverage our existing sales force, and that was a big advantage, I think, as the RedWave ownership looked at the opportunity with 908 to be able to plug it into our existing channel, especially on some of the federal, but also the state and local opportunities in our international distribution channel. That was a cognizant effort when we brought to market. I think as we go forward now and we're selling those same products within the sales team, there's the opportunity to scale from here, international opportunity, continue to build out the state and local infrastructure, doing more remote in-house. There's lots of opportunities, I think, to drive the broader portfolio, and that's where post-divestiture are really focused, and the efficiencies on the channel are pretty attractive.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Yeah. Within life sciences circles, you're one of very few businesses that I follow anyways that can actually claim that there are some governmental tailwinds in place right now versus headwinds. One of the nice things about your business and dealing with the government is that when orders come in, sometimes they tend to be large and chunky. Avcad is one of those. Can you spend a minute on just Avcad and going from where you have been this year to what you hope will be next year as you move into full production?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, absolutely. We work across the federal and military space direct, but in this case, we have a program and a partnership collaboration with Smith's Detection to go after a big Green Army program. You need the whole heft and might of a group like Smith's Detection to go after that. We have been working with Smith's and partnered over about five years to take essentially components of our MX908 and build it into a product called Avcad for the Army and the broader services. It has been a great program. A lot of work's been going into that program.
The most recent phase has been called the low-rate initial production phase, LRIP they call it, where we delivered 100, approximately a little bit over that, component sets to Smith's Detection, where they build them into product, and then that product is tested and evaluated and goes through government evaluation steps. They've just completed what we believe is a final field evaluation with that product. Now we're at the stage that we're looking for the next steps, where our partner is working with the government to define what those next steps look like and what a ramp could be to additional volumes.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: As we sit here in 2025, there's really minimal impact on Avcad. Those component deliveries, Kevin mentioned, were in 2024. We do see it as an exciting growth catalyst and opportunity. Possibly, as we find out about the results of the tests and the opportunity, could we start to see some revenues in 2026 and then really ramping over a five- to seven-year period? We'll get more visibility, but it could be $10 million, $10 million plus of revenue through that partnership and the customers. Could that be an annual for several years anyways for an annual run rate on that $10 million?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: It could be, yes.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Is there upside to that? I don't want to always make it about what more could be derived, but is there?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: It could be. The truth is there's a lot of air bars on that number right now because it really comes down to the volumes that they see and where they see the placements are. We do see it ramping to levels in that neighborhood, yeah.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. To what extent is Smith sitting in between you and revenue recognition? I mean, things move through them, and I'm curious just how much of a role they play when it comes to just getting the product to the end user and then getting you able to book the revenues.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, from our perspective, we're a component supplier in the channel with Smith, so we're providing the key components to the ultimate product going to the end customer. We're paid based upon net 30, net 60 terms with Smith. Smith is our customer. They then need runtime to finish the manufacturing and delivery, but our payments and revenue recognition is not held up, so it is linked to our shipments to Smith.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Any good paranoid analyst would have to ask about whether the capabilities exist to deliver on a large order, especially now that you have a larger portfolio, more balls in the air. Is there anything that we should be mindful of when it comes to moving from not full production to full production, or do you have everything that you need? When you look out on what you'll need going forward, do you feel good about it?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: The good part is those key components very much are aligned with our handheld with the MX908 and the existing manufacturing capabilities that we just transitioned from Boston to Danbury, Connecticut. As of July 1, we're fully up and running, and all of our production activities are in Danbury. Avcad and those components and the ramp of volume, we have the space. We'd have to ramp up labor. We operate one shift there, but feel confident that we have some key skill sets, including some folks that relocated, to be able to support that ramp in Danbury.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. So no red flags, no issues that you're worried about, no things that I need to be worried about if I'm just saying, "Okay, is this going to cross the finish line the way that it should?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, no massive investment that we see is required to meet.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. The bad thing about the government is every once in a while it decides to shut itself down.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: That is true.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Which is an issue for you guys now, just in the sense that Q4, when we talked about revenues there, had some bucket that was tied up in what's going on. I think you talked about $4 million or so of that being the case. Can you just walk through where we are today and what you think you might recognize, how we should go about risk adjusting what falls into Q4 versus next year? It does just sound like a timing element in that if we don't get it in Q4, then we'll get it in Q1. Yet the stock, in my humble opinion, was down on this idea. Just maybe talk through that.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: No, you're right. The keyword is timing that you touched on. We wanted to be transparent, and we've tried to do that through the years to bring awareness around the shutdown because it's not just the fact that it's shut down, but it's when it comes back, which hopefully the vote later today and we see it come back, we have to get back up and running, right? You have to have contracting back, processing the orders, the purchase order-driven orders that we expect. We did highlight approximately $4 million that is within our guide that we reiterated of $54 million-$56 million. Within that revenue, about $3 million, it's kind of in the 60% range of federal defense and military customer opportunities. We have pipeline that goes beyond that, kind of two, three times that.
Bringing it to closure and working with the customers, we just wanted to highlight that as that pushes out. The good news is that we can go right up to the end of the year to ship product. It is cuts, off the shelf. We have the inventory. We're ready to deliver. We just need to get the orders. There's also an element around export licensing, and we have a bunch waiting approval, and those folks aren't working. There are ways to expedite it, but it seems to be slow. We have a bunch of orders right now that are hung up, international opportunities that are hung up awaiting export license. That is about $1 million-$3 million on kind of new orders, kind of mainly within our MX908 world.
We still believe that with the pipeline and the timing, we can deliver on it, but wanted to bring awareness for our investor base.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Yeah. Definitely more pleased that they'll be voting hopefully at the end of the day here, and we can get on to that work and get on to returning to normal. The other thing I'd like to point out is we've been doing a ton of work over this transformation period to really diversify those revenue streams. You may have noticed that year to date, we called out just a couple of days ago that about 47% of our revenues are coming from state and local channels. Another, call it, roughly 25% is coming from international channels. Really seeing a lot of diversification and our number of products increasing also helps that. Yeah, seeing good growth, good performance of our state and local team, that's helped that diversification.
As we go through time, we would expect, call it the lumpiness of some of these larger wins on the federal military to be less impactful and getting more to the upside. Maybe we can talk on that or touch on that for a second. The state and local business has been increasing, at least per what we've been listening to you say and do. What is driving that? Some of that seems like it could be just sort of good feelings inside the federal government that translate, but there are also plenty of things that I'm sure are not tied to that, fire departments, etc. Maybe just talk about the effort to sell to state and local and then what you think that can contribute going forward.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, maybe I'll start and pass it to Joe for the forward thoughts there. Yeah, the state and local customers are all our communities. They're state and local municipalities that need equipment. That could be a law enforcement agency, that could be a fire department or other first responder organization in the state and local enterprises that are out there. All of them are facing massive challenges, right? Whether it's fentanyl overdose crises that are happening on all our street corners and needing technology to respond to, or it's the detection of all these industrial chemicals that are out there, fires, batteries burning in your electric cars, things of that nature are just becoming more and more prevalent. They're looking to have more advanced capabilities.
We really do have what we believe is a pretty well-positioned, best of class product portfolio that's modern and can address these problems. Our Explorer is a great example. It's a product that's really designed to not only detect, but to identify 5,000 different gases. There's just nothing like that on the market in a handheld form factor that these customers normally carry. Being able to bring that to them, bring advanced capabilities is where we're seeing it because they have true needs out there. It is further backstopped by funding, and funding often can come from the state or local municipality, but it often comes from larger grants from the U.S. federal government. They're multi-year grants, so they haven't stopped in the shutdown because they continue, but a lot of that grant money comes from DHS in particular.
If you think back to our commentary last quarter, we are seeing that the administration is working to increase about 11% that bucket of grants that are eligible to our customers, about $1.7 billion. Now that's not appropriated. That was part of the one big beautiful bill, and we'll see what gets appropriated here in the upcoming budget.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Is there any difference between lead times and revenue recognition timelines when it comes to local and state versus federal?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: No. I mean, at times there may be destination versus shipment, but it is pretty short.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Nothing dramatically different about the purchasing pattern or just the timelines associated?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: The purchasing pattern can be shorter because it can be one or two or three types. They're probably generally shorter than our larger. The larger the order, the longer it usually takes, and we usually are working with the customer through a longer, prolonged period. You get visibility into it, but you're working through checking all those boxes from testing and validation all the way through.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: It can come through the pipeline sometimes in a more rapid fashion, even in some cases where they have seizure money and have an opportunity. We do see some opportunities come through there, so some of them are in pretty quick. You mentioned fentanyl detection. That is obviously a key application for you guys. Joe, when you peer into Excel or a slide deck that you have internally, what portion, and especially now that the portfolio is bigger, what portion of revenues is coming from that application specifically at this point?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: I'd say at this point, the vast majority. We have many different applications, and the beauty is it can be multipurpose. Using our handheld, as an example, you can do kind of aerosolized vapors across not only the drug and fentanyl, which I agree is the majority of it, but you can also do explosives, chemical warfare agents, other areas of interest. You can have multipurpose, but I say as far as the decision point goes, in most cases, especially with state and local, but also a lot of the international opportunities, it is the fentanyl and drug capabilities.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Yeah, and maybe just adding on to that further because we say fentanyl, but it's fentanyl, it's carfentanyl, it's remifentanyl, and then all the nicotines, and it's a bit of a whack-a-mole problem in that it keeps evolving. That's why a lot of people, like in the conversation, for sure, as Joe said, it always involves fentanyl because it could be aerosolized as a hazard intentionally. It could be an accidental exposure, but they also want devices that can be upgraded and changed and know that they're there for the next threat that may come upon them. Yeah, I agree, especially for our MX908, big driver of that conversation, I'll say. Part of the MX908 story is a next-gen system that will arrive at some point in the future. I think you've said 2026, if I'm not mistaken. What is the pitch to customers?
How much of the customer base do you think you can turn over? Joe, I don't know if you have the number at the top of your hands, but how many systems are actually out there? How many systems are functional? I know that when we go through our modeling exercise, sometimes that's a nuance that we have to check in on.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Maybe starting with the capabilities of the next gen. I mean, one of our growth pillars, our second catalyst that we call out is innovation. Explorer is part of that. Viper just launched in July as part of that. Big contributors as they get rolling for 2026 and beyond. Next Gen MX, absolutely part of that. Probably a little bit more in the later half of next year as you think financial impacts of that. Next Gen MX then kind of rolling into even 2027. Big capability there is just continued evolvement. Our first generation was in 2018. We are disrupting ourselves with the next generation. To us, it opens up the possibilities a bit because it's smaller and lighter. It's also always striving to be easier to use. Our mass spec is handheld. It's the only handheld that's out there existing.
It's very simple in its operation, but we can be better. We can always be simpler. We can expand the folks that we get to if we do so.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: We have over 3,000 MX908 deployed out there today. You're right, they're not all up and running, but we do have a pretty good attachment on the service side plan. We did unfortunately have a pause in one of our customers that will impact some of that. For all those customers, they represent an opportunity to upgrade and get the latest technology over the coming years as we launch the product. Is there a gross margin benefit at all to the new product? How does the profile compare?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: It'll be similar. I mean, if you think about, we learn a lot through the years with the next generation. So I think we can find a lower cost point. We'll take a look at the price point at the top end will probably be similar. We'll look at balancing it within the market. I think there's a period of time that we'll have both products out there in the market today because a lot of customers have initially bought the MX908. Maybe they're in pilot or just started their enterprise roll-up, and they're going to want to have the whole fleet be an MX908. In the future, get to the next-gen product.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. You mentioned the large customer that will no longer be following through. Why is that? It sounds like you have a customer base that if they buy your products, they need them, and they obviously need them to keep working. I'm curious what the genesis of that decision was and what the implications might be for 2026.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, it's a large program customer. A lot of the way these work in the military side is you have a program organization that puts together a kit of technologies, and then they procure the equipment, and they procure warranty and support for a certain period. Their job is to transition that equipment and support to the end-using entity. That end-using entity is the one that then would be purchasing and maintaining it going forward and have the budget for sustainment, as they call it. In the situation today, there were some overages on that initial, the group working on that program, some budget cuts and concerns there. There's just a gap. We still expect the opportunity to recover that as it gets transitioned out to the responsibility of the end-user.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: They're not gone forever. They're just gone for now.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, it's probably an FY27 opportunity.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Joe called it out. It's about half.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, it's about $500,000 a quarter. The net impact, when you work it out, is about $2 million headwind for 2026.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. $2 million going into next year as a headwind because this year there really isn't much for.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: No. Here in Q4, there'll be five, call it $700,000. Annualize that. It's about $2 million next year.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. Let's talk about Viper. A couple of years ago, all I had to do was ask about 908, the MX system, and we could be done with the portfolio. Now we do have more to talk about. Who is the target audience for this instrument? How do you think about growing some of the orders to the point where they are needle movers, if in fact that is the way that we should think about this product?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, yeah, you should. I mean, really, we're about launching advanced instrumentation that can be taken out to the field, be used by a common set of users. The Viper specifically is really being designed for customs agencies. It's being designed for hazardous material teams. We've seen some intel teams and interest in the intel community. Really a broad set, even into law enforcement. Very much aligned to where we serve today, with maybe a slighter more bent across to the customs organizations. What it is, is three technologies, as we call it, in one. It takes our FTIR engine, but it also brings a complementary technology called Raman, puts it in the same box, and we fuse it all together with a third technology, which is some proprietary algorithms.
The key to it and why it's so different than the competition is it's a single seamless workflow. You take a minute amount of sample, you place it on the sampling point, which is a small diamond interface, and then how it takes over and does everything automatically. It uses FTIR when it's appropriate. It uses Raman when it's appropriate. It takes a little bit more of the thinking and the guesswork because each of those have a Venn diagram of materials that they're good at, but now having them in the same box, you can give a more complete, holistic answer and approach.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. Is it fair to assume that enterprise-level deals could enter the mix next year?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, absolutely. I think as you think about it, it always starts off with ones and twos and some pilots. We even called out in our earnings script an intel organization purchased in the quarter, and that's a pilot that can turn into an enterprise account. Yes, it is true that that can ramp over time. They take a little bit to develop, usually start with pilots, and then they become these larger enterprises. True for all our products.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Would the size of an enterprise deal be akin to what you see on the MX side, or?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: I think there's the potential. I mean, putting a few numbers on it that we talked about on Monday that we have 35 in hand for Q4. That's maybe 15% of our revenues at the midpoint guidance that we gave. We see it as a key growth driver for 2026, and we're just getting going. Often on enterprise accounts, it can take multiple years to ramp. It is also, I think, a key growth driver for 2027. As we're focused on kind of state and local and probably international out of the gate, federal military, we had an Explorer win, which is akin a bit to Viper. It's a little bit earlier, maybe 24 months earlier. We had 17 to the Marine Corps in Q3. Can Viper also be in that realm? Absolutely.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: I think.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Oh, sorry.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: No, I was going to say something on the horizon from a growth drive.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Yeah, something to look forward to. Okay. And then on profitability of the product, gross margin profile, I think it is a lower gross margin product. Sometimes in the tool space, that's because in the early days when production is subscale, that's just the way that it is. But then that is no longer the case once you sort of you're in fifth gear. Is that the case here, or is the profile of the box just sort of different?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: The profile is a little different. I mean, opposite our five products, it is at a lower gross margin, maybe 1,000-1,500 basis points here in the fourth quarter. A piece of that, and we'll close the gap, is its initial launch, right? Low volume production. I think there is a way to start to close the gap. As Kevin describes, in many ways, it's two technologies within one. It's almost two products within one. There is a lot that goes into that box. As we have with our other technologies, we'll look to close that gap, bring up the gross margin, and take a look at the top line.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. Something to be mindful of next year is if you have the high-class problem of selling a bunch of systems, then we should be thinking about the profitability impact.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: True. If all of a sudden there's a huge mix shift in Viper versus Explorer and MX908, it would probably bring down the gross margin a bit.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Yeah. Okay. Anything else that you feel like the portfolio needs? I mean, to our point here, you're growing what it is that you bring to this customer base. Are there applications that you still want to target that you don't have the right tools for, or are there just areas that you think would be complementary within what you do?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: I would say both. I mean, I think with our organic innovation engine, we've got a nice roadmap of products to further out what we do amongst gas detection, identification, as well as the unknown solids and liquid side of things. Aerosol detection, big differentiator for our product technology. Yes, we've got a nice internal roadmap that can serve these customers and keep broadening out our reach and capture more dollar share from those customers. Inorganic, though, we don't have the monopoly on innovation, so we're always looking at things externally that maybe could complement, that could roll into it, not our focus. Tight filters on anything from an M&A side due to we're enjoying our cash position, our margin profile and the path that we're on.
We do not feel urgent because of the nice, strong organic portfolio that we have got and roadmap, but we are always looking out there.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. Joe, what are the investment needs for 2026? Is there an OpEx expense as these commercial rollouts progress? Is there some international element to where it is that you want to be able to cover? What should we focus on in terms of dollars spent in 26?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, I think from an OpEx and an opportunity, as we've kind of pulled back on some of our spend here, I think it is on the selling and marketing side to drive more of a commercial engine and leverage the channel, the ones that are performing. A piece of that's international. I think there is more of an opportunity international where 75% of our revenues today are here in the U.S. Getting more feet on the street alongside our distribution channel. We're in the neighborhood of 35 folks across the selling and marketing platform today. I could see that ramping a bit, but controlled with ultimately bridging to EBITDA positivity in the future. I think we've done a good job of balancing it, and now we can catalyze. I think on the R&D side, we're in pretty good shape. We're spitting out some good innovation.
We've made a lot of changes as we've transformed with the technologies that RedWave brought to the table, our mass spec core and kind of getting the best in breed across our organization. We have a very talented R&D team and can spit out a lot with what we have today. No significant investments, mainly on the commercial side to ramp with revenue growth.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: What about partnerships in support of the commercial effort? I mean, that has been a way, it's always been a way that smaller companies find a way to reach everybody that they want to reach. It feels like today that is increasingly being used as a way to do that. Do you see that as something that is important to the company and the strategy going forward?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: It is important in different ways. I mean, if you look at what we're doing in that case of Smith's Detection, that's an area that we needed a great partner to take us into. So that's a great example of it. If you look at what we're doing for integrations, we've been dabbling in the collaborations for unmanned drone vehicles, unmanned drones, robots, quadrupeds. We had one of our technologies on a quadruped at the Indy 500 looking for VOCs in the tunnels for health and safety applications. We just announced that we're collaborating with Thales, a European defense contractor, where they're looking to demonstrate it on a next-generation ground robot. We've done drones. We've done flights. So we're seeding a lot of that through such partnerships and not on the dollar roadmap today, right? But it's seeding that potential.
As we make things smaller and lighter, I think it even further opens it up. That is an element, I would say, that partnerships come in.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Okay. Two more for you, Joe, since we're winding it down here. First one is just on profitability and to your point, crossing over into profitability. At what point do you think you cross over on a quarterly basis and then stay there? I know that seasonality makes that difficult to do, but sometimes investors want to see you be positive and then stay positive. I'm curious when on your roadmap for the profitability line, you see that happening.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, as we step into Q4 of this year, we see positive adjusted EBITDA at that $16 million range or thereabout. Scaling to get to that level on a consistent quarterly basis is key. We do have some seasonality where the first half is typically a pullback. I would not be surprised as we think about 2026 specifically, a step back, and we will continue to consume some cash. As we think going forward and the opportunity to grow at 20% product growth in 2026 and then some opportunities to continue to show attractive growth in 2027 and beyond, I believe we will get there from that crossover and then sustaining. It needs to be at that kind of $16-$17 million level with seasonality played in. 2026 probably is not the year to see that crossover and then sustain.
As we go forward with some of the growth drivers, I think it is in the cards.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Yep, that's helpful. You touched on my last question, which is longer-term growth. You've put 20% out there as an idea for next year. I don't think it's a formal guide in any way, but it is the way that you're thinking about the year. You have good momentum in the portfolio. To what extent can that sort of be like a thought going beyond 2026? Is there a reason why that wouldn't be the case?
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: I think it can be an attractive growth, right? And we talked about Viper and that your first full year is 2026, but then you have enterprise and further adoption from there. Avcad, as we talked about, there might be some revenues in 2026. We'll see how that all plays out. And then scaling to $10 million. And then some of the opportunities, Kevin mentioned it isn't in there, right? But as far as drones and unmanned vehicles and partnerships, and are there other channels that we can tap in with our unique technologies? I think that's a potential as you think about 2027 and beyond. So a lot of excitement across those growth drivers, and we'll look to execute across the channels.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Yep. Okay. Great place to finish. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming to the conference.
Kevin, CEO, 908 Devices: Yeah, thanks again for having us.
Dan Arias, Life Sciences and Diagnostics Analyst, Stifel: Our pleasure.
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