REG - Tekcapital plc - Innovative Eyewear 2nd Q24 Revenue increased 82%

TekcapitalAnnouncement

13/08/2024 07:00

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RNS Number : 1626A  Tekcapital plc  13 August 2024

 

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company
(Companies House registration number 08873361) to constitute inside
information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014
("MAR"). With the publication of this announcement via a Regulatory
Information Service ("RIS"), this inside information is now considered to be
in the public domain.

 

 

13 August 2024

Tekcapital Plc

("Tekcapital", the "Company" or the "Group")

Innovative Eyewear, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2024 Financial Results

       Quarterly Revenue Increased 82% vs Q2 2023

 

Tekcapital Plc (AIM: TEK), the UK intellectual property investment group notes
that Innovative Eyewear, Inc. ("Innovative Eyewear") (NASDAQ: LUCY; LUCYW),
the developer and retailer of ChatGPT enabled smart eyewear under the Lucyd®,
Nautica®, Eddie Bauer® and Reebok® brands, announced today its Second
Quarter 2024 Financial Results which can be accessed on www.sec.gov.

 

Net revenue for the quarter ended June 30, 2024 was $308,682, an increase of
82% from the quarter ended June 30, 2023. Net revenue for the six months ended
June 30, 2024 was $692,153, an increase of 120% vs the comparable period in
2023. These year-over-year increases were primarily attributable to
significant volume growth in the ecommerce channel, driven by Innovative
Eyewear's strategic advertising and marketing initiatives implemented during
the latter portion of 2023 and through the current period, combined with
recent new product launches (including the Lyte XL, Nautica® Powered by Lucyd
and Eddie Bauer® Powered by Lucyd collections).

 

Additionally, Innovative Eyewear's gross profit margins significantly improved
from the prior year, from a deficit of -18% in the second quarter of 2023 to
18% in the second quarter of 2024, reflecting greater economies of scale
coupled with achieving management's stated goal to reduce lens fulfilment
costs.

Eddie Bauer® Horizon Model

Word's first rimless smart eyewear

Photo courtesy of Innovative Eyewear, Inc.

 

During the quarter Innovative Eyewear announced several important milestones:

 

•     Expanding Innovative Eyewear's first-to-market voice interface for
ChatGPT through the launch of a Bixby app called LUCY to enable handsfree
ChatGPT access on its glasses for Samsung users. This brings a powerful new
feature to Samsung phone users for the first time, namely the ability to
access ChatGPT via the device's native voice assistant from our eyewear.

 

•     Filed two new United States patent applications, a utility
application, No. 18/605,092, entitled, "SMART EYEWEAR HAVING ACCESSIBLE
TACTILE CONTROLS" and a design application, No. 29/930,655, entitled "SAFETY
EYEWEAR." These two new patent applications are directed towards Innovative
Eyewear's new Lucyd Armor smart safety glasses which are planned to be
introduced later this year. Innovative Eyewear developed Lucyd Armor to meet
the needs of industrial and medical safety glass users in response to multiple
customer requests. Innovative Eyewear also received notices of allowance on
three smart eyewear design patent applications (patent application Nos.
29/806,204, 29/806/207, 29/806/209).

 

•     Launch of Lucyd smart eyewear in ten select New Look stores in
Quebec and on NewLook.ca. New Look is a leading eyewear retailer with over 450
stores in the US and Canada.

 

•     Innovative Eyewear signed a new distribution agreement with
Windsor Eyes, a leading eyewear manufacturing and distribution firm. This
agreement aims to forge a robust collaboration between Innovative Eyewear's
unique, cutting-edge smart eyewear products and Windsor Eyes' well-established
distribution network within the optical retail sector. Together, Innovative
and Windsor intend to work closely to ensure extensive distribution of smart
eyewear across the United States, targeting key large optical retail outlets.

 

•     Signed Micah Richards, former Olympic athlete, premier-league
footballer and Sky News announcer, as a brand ambassador. Innovative Eyewear
believes Mr. Richards will be a well-aligned headliner to promote the upcoming
Reebok Powered by Lucyd collection, and spearhead efforts to expand sales in
UK optical stores.

 

•     PCMag.com rated Innovative Eyewear's products the "Best Smart
Eyewear for ChatGPT Super Fans," indicating a positive reception from a
trusted tech news source for our GenAI featured eyewear.

 

•     Innovative Eyewear engaged a new audio engineering team to further
enhance the music and call quality of several of its forthcoming products.

 

Commercial Outlook

 

After the recent successful launch of the Eddie Bauer® Powered by Lucyd line
in the second quarter of 2024, Innovative Eyewear anticipates launching the
Reebok® Powered by Lucyd line and the Lucyd Armor smart safety glasses in the
second half of 2024, to be followed by a Reebok® Optical Smart Eyewear
collection in the first half of 2025.

 

Meanwhile, Innovative Eyewear is focused on introducing Lucyd products in
major national retailers, which they believe could have a significant positive
impact on revenues in subsequent periods. To help achieve this, Innovative
Eyewear has engaged Windsor Eyes as a premier distributor in the optical
market, and as of July 2024, they have already helped introduce Lucyd frames
into three new eyewear retailers.

 

In continuing efforts to reduce costs and improve margins, Innovative Eyewear
has refined its product mix and anticipates reducing unit costs in the future
by focusing on high volume, market-tested styles. Innovative Eyewear has also
recently contracted with a new lower-cost lens supplier which is expected to
further reduce lens costs beginning in the third quarter of 2024. Innovative
Eyewear anticipates that gross profit margins may further improve in the
fourth quarter of 2024 as the new Lucyd Armor and Reebok® Powered by Lucyd
lines are launched, as the unit cost of these new products are estimated to be
significantly lower than current Lucyd Lyte models.

 

Innovative Eyewear has nearly completed development of several new product
lines and retail solutions to be launched in the fourth quarter of 2024 and
2025 and anticipates an end-to-end enhancement of its product offering to
consumers and retailers by the first quarter of 2025. They believe this will
bring additional improvements to product build quality and adjustability,
sound quality, size and style variety, custom lens quality, companion app
functionality, and sell-through rates of retail displays.

 

Harrison Gross, CEO of Innovative Eyewear Inc., commented:

 

"We have continued the trend of outperforming each quarter on a year-over-year
basis, which we have done every quarter for the last 12 months. I am pleased
by our continued growth and excited by the potential of further expansion
later this year with the upcoming launches of new product lines and upgraded
app releases.

 

While our ecommerce direct-to-consumer sales remain the most material portion
of our sales to date, we believe that the wholesale optical channel represents
a significant growth opportunity. We anticipate that as smart eyewear becomes
more normalized for prescription wear, national eye care providers will begin
to onboard more smart eyewear. As an innovator and value and variety leader in
the category, we believe we are well positioned to earn a portion of this
rapidly growing market."

 

About Innovative Eyewear, Inc.

 

Innovative Eyewear is a developer and retailer of cutting-edge smart eyewear,
under the Lucyd(®), Nautica(®), Eddie Bauer(®) and Reebok® brands. True to
their mission to Upgrade Your Eyewear(®), their Bluetooth audio glasses allow
users to stay safely and ergonomically connected to their digital lives, and
are offered in hundreds of frame and lens combinations to meet the needs of
the optical market. To learn more and explore our continuously evolving
collection of smart eyewear, please visit www.lucyd.co (http://www.lucyd.co) .

 

Tekcapital currently owns 259,455 shares (approximately 17%) of Innovative
Eyewear, Inc.

Tekcapital's percentage ownership has been reduced as a result of Innovative
Eyewear Inc raising approximately $6m during 2024. Tekcapital views the
enhanced balance sheet of Innovative Eyewear Inc. as a positive development
for the Company as it strengthens its competitive position.

 

For further information, please contact:

 

 Tekcapital Plc                                                                              Via Flagstaff
 Clifford M. Gross, Ph.D.

 SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP                                                              +44 (0) 20 3470 0470

 (Nominated Adviser and Broker)
 Richard Morrison/Charlie Bouverat (Corporate Finance)/Abigail Wayne / Rob Rees
 (Corporate Broking)

 Flagstaff Strategic and Investor Communications                                             +44 (0) 20 7129 1474
 Tim Thompson/Andrea Seymour/Fergus Mellon

 

About Tekcapital plc

 

Tekcapital creates value from investing in new, university-developed
discoveries that can enhance people's lives and provides a range of technology
transfer services to help organisations evaluate and commercialise new
technologies. Tekcapital is quoted on the AIM market of the London Stock
Exchange (AIM: symbol TEK) and is headquartered in the UK. For more
information, please visit www.tekcapital.com (http://www.tekcapital.com) .

 

LEI: 213800GOJTOV19FIFZ85

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release is for informational purposes only. The information herein
does not constitute investment advice nor an offer to invest and may contain
statements related to our future business and financial performance and future
events or developments involving Innovative Eyewear, Inc., Lucyd or Tekcapital
that may constitute forward-looking statements. These statements may be
identified by words such as "expect," "look forward to," "anticipate"
"intend," "plan," "believe," "seek," "estimate," "will," "project" or words of
similar meaning. We may also make forward-looking statements in other reports,
in presentations, in material delivered to customers, stakeholders and in
press releases. In addition, our representatives may from time to time make
oral forward-looking statements. Such statements may be based on the current
expectations and certain assumptions of Tekcapital, Innovative Eyewear Inc. or
Lucyd's management. Please note that these are subject to a number of risks,
uncertainties and factors, including, but not limited to those described in
various disclosures. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties
materialize, or should underlying expectations not occur or assumptions prove
incorrect, actual results, performance or achievements of Innovative Eyewear
Inc., Lucyd and/or Tekcapital may vary materially from those described
explicitly or implicitly in the relevant forward-looking statement. Other than
as required by relevant regulation or law,  neither Innovative Eyewear Inc,
Lucyd nor Tekcapital intends, nor assumes any obligation, to update or revise
these forward-looking statements in light of developments which differ from
those anticipated.

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