DroneShield Releases Record 2023 Annual Results, Surging to Profitability

The highlights include:

• FY23: record contracts and rapidly growing cash receipts
  • FY23 $73.5 million cash receipts, up 5x vs. FY22
  • FY23 $55.1 million revenue, up 3x vs. FY22 
  • 80% of revenues are from repeat customers
  • The revenue vs. cash receipt difference mostly due to advanced payments on product subscriptions (SaaS), warranties, as well as grants received
  • Largest geographical segment revenue contributions are US at 68% and Australia at 23%
• FY23 is first profitable year, with $9.3 million profit after tax

• Shareprice up 64% over 2023 (vs 9% for ASX300)
• Cash balance of $57.9 million as of 31 Dec 2023, no debt or convertibles
  • Committed supply chain payments of $30 million

• $30 million contracted backlog and pipeline of over $510 million^*
• Substantially completed expansion of the team to enable build, delivery and support of materially larger orders
  • Completed move to a larger Sydney facility (3x current floor space) in January, plus supply chain partners been rapidly expanding
  • No material cost to DRO to move, due to light capex model (heavy machinery work all outsourced) and landlord fitout incentive payments
  • Positions the company for $300-400 million annual production capacity
  • 115 team members including over 90 engineers
• Favourable environment for DroneShield with rapidly rising counter-drone, defence and security spending globally
  • The Ukraine conflict continues to highlight the use of drones on the battlefield, which will continue driving increasing C-UAS orders even after the eventual ceasefire
  • Drones increasingly used across global conflicts, including Hamas terror attack on Israel