A3D - Aurora Labs

[System]

Aurora is an industrial technology and innovation company that specialises in the development of 3D metal printers and the supply of associated consumable materials for 3D metal printing.

Aurora is also in the early stages of developing secondary business units including 3D printing related software and the manufacture of consumable materials used in 3D metal printing, which are intended to complement its printer manufacturing business.

It is anticipated that A3D will list on the ASX during August 2016.

www.auroralabs3d.com

 

[Gringotts Bank]

Receiving orders from NASA.

Float of the year so far.

 

[skc]

Receiving orders from NASA.

Float of the year so far.

What a joke of a company. I thought these are the sort of early stage company that the ASX is barring from doing IPOs?

No revenue, no business, no actual proof of the technology, no tangible assets... how does it get listed?

It has at best an aspiration to develop a 3D printer that's 100 times faster than what's currently on the market. Really? With an R&D budget of $2m?

I guess nothing is impossible... Apple (or was it HP) started in a garage. But surely the odds are against it.

You can already see that this company is about selling the sizzle... some statements in the investor deck are just plainly false. E.g.
Page 1. "Aurora Labs is a 3D metal printer manufacturer". No... it's products are in beta development.
Page 4. "Aurora's Small Format printers retail for between US $39,999 and US$42,999". No...they are not actually available for sale yet because they are still in development. Yet they managed to price it to the exact dollar.

But 3D printer... it's as perfect as personal jet packs, medical marijuana, brain chips. Punt away, greater fools!

 

[Gringotts Bank]

This thing has wings on it.

32 pre-sold printers. I don't get the feeling the beta testing is going to be some drawn out process. Management seem very cluey.

Smashing IPO records.

In the old days, if you needed a spare metal part you had to order it and wait for delivery. And you probably had to order in bulk or package it with other orders. In the near future you just download the code, and print your own. Or scan the existing part and hit "copy". Imagine the applications for business.

They're going to need to watch who gets hold of these units. A3D says they have control over who prints what, but.... ?

 

[McLovin]

There are two co-founders.

One of them is Jessica Snelling. She graduated in 2013 with a degree in computer and mathematical sciences. She then worked as a "Systems officer" at the Insurance Commission of WA for 18 months. From there, and with no obvious background in engineering, she became the co-founder and product engineer at A3D. Now there's nothing wrong with being young and running a start-up, but I would assume that something like this would require some pretty specialist knowledge/skills, especially on the shoe string R&D budget.

They originally wanted to build rocket motors, but ended up doing this. My guess is they'll be doing something else in a few years.

Most of the stuff I see on their website looks like stuff you could do with a 3d laser cutter.

 

[levin123]

You can already see that this company is about selling the sizzle...

Sure is sizzling! In TH after getting a speeding ticket. Would love to forward time and see where this one ends up.

There has been some ridiculous upwards price action over the past few months, but punting on these is like throwing darts, you may hit your 10 bagger but could very well go the other way too.

 

[skc]

Sure is sizzling! In TH after getting a speeding ticket. Would love to forward time and see where this one ends up.

There has been some ridiculous upwards price action over the past few months, but punting on these is like throwing darts, you may hit your 10 bagger but could very well go the other way too.

Yeah I haven't looked at them for a while but the speeding ticket caught my eye. Apparently the MD gave an interview with Alan Kolher (who now works for himself?) and talked up the company's aspirations... even providing numbers like X machines @ Y per machine and Z margins.

I am guessing the ASX will frown upon such lax disclosure made to a subscription only service and not the ASX platform.

My stance on them remain unchanged...

 

[Gringotts Bank]

Today's candle!

What did this float at... 30c?? Float of the decade.

 

[StewyD32]

I was watching A3D for a while and at around $4.20 I thought it wasn't going to sustain so held of to buy in at a later date. Anyway somehow I must have wiped it off my watch list and totally forgot about it.

so my question…. what the Hell happened to their price? I was actually shocked when I seen it again.

This may be good news for me as I see a lot of potential in their market when the medium and large printers are presented to the market.
Is anyone of the same opinion?
I also have one niggling thought in the back of my head and thats when the cheap chinese competition come along will A3D be able to stand their ground?

 

[greggles]

Aurora Labs has come crashing down to Earth.

Last quarter they generated $100,000 in revenue and reported an operating loss of $1.49 million. While they managed to raise another $5 million recently via a placement, at their current burn rate they will be out of money again by the end of the year or soon after. They're going to have to sell a lot of 3D printers to dig themselves out of this hole.

A3D has disaster written all over it.

 

[greggles]

A3D has disaster written all over it.

I still stand by my quoted statement above but note that A3D has today reversed its share price decline quite dramatically. It is currently up 25.30% to 52c, although it reached in intraday high of 67c.

Aurora Labs announced this morning that its 3D metal printing Large Format Technology (LFT) is capable of printing complex parts (a part that has a series of curves and internal structures that would normally be considered difficult to manufacture by traditional methods). The initial prints using the LFT achieved a speed equivalent to 662 g/h or 15.88 kg per day. The tests were carried out on the Alpha model, which is Aurora's first fully functioning LFT machine.

You can view the video here: https://auroralabs3d.com/#!media/videos/20180918_01

The news seems positive but I decided to take a look at their FY18 financial results as A3D had fallen off my radar recently.

A3D's losses are deepening and FY18 revenue isn't substantially different from FY17 (i.e. revenue is tiny compared to accumulated losses). When I took a closer look at revenue I found that in FY18 only $306,050 was receipts from customers, while $149,390 in refunds to customers was given. That's almost 50% of revenue from customers was refunded.

As at 30 June 2018 the company had $3,790,081 in cash at hand and in bank/term deposits. I couldn't find an estimated cash outflows for the current quarter but if the previous year is anything to go by A3D will be out of cash by the end of 2018, so there will certainly be another placement before then.

The share price is up 25% today, but I see it declining further in the months to come unless something can be done to increase revenue and stem the operating losses.

 

[exberliner1]

I still stand by my quoted statement above but note that A3D has today reversed its share price decline quite dramatically. It is currently up 25.30% to 52c, although it reached in intraday high of 67c.

Aurora Labs announced this morning that its 3D metal printing Large Format Technology (LFT) is capable of printing complex parts (a part that has a series of curves and internal structures that would normally be considered difficult to manufacture by traditional methods). The initial prints using the LFT achieved a speed equivalent to 662 g/h or 15.88 kg per day. The tests were carried out on the Alpha model, which is Aurora's first fully functioning LFT machine.

You can view the video here: https://auroralabs3d.com/#!media/videos/20180918_01

The news seems positive but I decided to take a look at their FY18 financial results as A3D had fallen off my radar recently.

View attachment 89368

A3D's losses are deepening and FY18 revenue isn't substantially different from FY17 (i.e. revenue is tiny compared to accumulated losses). When I took a closer look at revenue I found that in FY18 only $306,050 was receipts from customers, while $149,390 in refunds to customers was given. That's almost 50% of revenue from customers was refunded.

As at 30 June 2018 the company had $3,790,081 in cash at hand and in bank/term deposits. I couldn't find an estimated cash outflows for the current quarter but if the previous year is anything to go by A3D will be out of cash by the end of 2018, so there will certainly be another placement before then.

The share price is up 25% today, but I see it declining further in the months to come unless something can be done to increase revenue and stem the operating losses.

View attachment 89369

You have missed the main point being that the printer doesn't need any further R&D just upscaling to the target 1 tonne per day of metal printed structures.

It is 8 times faster than any competitors out there.

As to being out of cash they have $2mn due from unlisted options a $1.5mn tax rebate for R&D due and currently $3.8mn in the bank. Outflow for this quarter is estimated at $2mn so they will start the next quarter with $1.8mn in cash + $2mn from the options and a tax rebate during the quarter so call it $5.3mn in cash inflows during the October quarter.

In addition they have a JV with VEEM which includes a potential investment.

If all of that fails then issuing a few million shares will have little dilution impact as they currently have only 65mn in issue.

I suspect you have not done your homework if you claim cash is going to be a problem

 

[greggles]

I suspect you have not done your homework if you claim cash is going to be a problem

Well, it appears as though I have not done my homework as you say. Since my last post A3D has continued to make share price gains.

This morning the company announced that the speed of the current Alpha unit of Aurora's Rapid Manufacturing Technology (RMT) has been increased by 2.5 times the recently announced rates and is now printing at 1.667kg/hr, equivalent to 40kg/day. This is good news for the company and the share price is up 18.3% to 97c as a result.

I may have been wrong about A3D. Time will tell, of course, but its share price is definitely heading in the right direction.

 

[exberliner1]

Well, it appears as though I have not done my homework as you say. Since my last post A3D has continued to make share price gains.

This morning the company announced that the speed of the current Alpha unit of Aurora's Rapid Manufacturing Technology (RMT) has been increased by 2.5 times the recently announced rates and is now printing at 1.667kg/hr, equivalent to 40kg/day. This is good news for the company and the share price is up 18.3% to 97c as a result.

I may have been wrong about A3D. Time will tell, of course, but its share price is definitely heading in the right direction.

View attachment 89640

You are absolutely right to highlight A3D here as it is now 20X faster than the competition when printing titanium structures especially as cash will not be an issue for at least the next 3-6 months by which time there should be a few sales on the board plus plenty of news as the market speed multiplier continues ever upwards.

 

[Rapid Print]

This is potentially a seriously big company. Not only have they proved they have a state of the art metal printer that can print much faster than anything out there, the quality of the prints appears to be first class. Add to this the recent agreement with Fortescue to potentially supply rapid printers to mining sites and this valuation at 65c is starting to look extremely attractive. I wouldn't be too concerned about small revenues currently. In these disruptive technology companies the initial revenues are not as important as if you were analysing a bank or a steady mature business. I think A3D might see much higher prices in the next 12 months. At 65c it's a strong buy in my honest opinion. Time will determine if this is right or wrong.

 

[barney]

At 65c it's a strong buy in my honest opinion.

In the short term that Low back on the 19th September, after the gap up, will need to hold to show some price resilience.

In the longer term you may well be correct

 

[Miner]

This is potentially a seriously big company. Not only have they proved they have a state of the art metal printer that can print much faster than anything out there, the quality of the prints appears to be first class. Add to this the recent agreement with Fortescue to potentially supply rapid printers to mining sites and this valuation at 65c is starting to look extremely attractive. I wouldn't be too concerned about small revenues currently. In these disruptive technology companies the initial revenues are not as important as if you were analysing a bank or a steady mature business. I think A3D might see much higher prices in the next 12 months. At 65c it's a strong buy in my honest opinion. Time will determine if this is right or wrong.

Rapid Print
great posting and considering it was your first one. so welcome and congrats.
Now please tell more on the basis why you think A3d would be fetching higher prices and why it is a strong buy. No offence, but I do not know at this point if someone from A3D has not influenced your situation or you have a conflict of interest as you have not stated if you are a holder or not.
In the market, there are few of the 3 D printer but I am not going to give a clean sheet to this company. With such a low turnover and massive loss, there are to be much more contracts to show that the company has the capability to turn around in 12 months.
Do not Hold and watching it for a year on the sideline as I am not convinced the strength yet.

 

[Miner]

Interestingly I visited the website of A3D AND got blocked by Bitdefender. See attached. Could be a glitch on the system or could be Aurora's site has been hacked.

 

[greggles]

I think A3D might see much higher prices in the next 12 months. At 65c it's a strong buy in my honest opinion. Time will determine if this is right or wrong.

Well, at 65c A3D was most definitely not a buy considering it continued to decline to 37.5c over the following few months.

That being said, today A3D has announced that it has increased the speed of its 3D printing Rapid Manufacturing Technology (RMT) to 113kg/day which it says is approximately 55 times Market Speed. This morning announcement has boosted its share price and it is currently trading at 47c, up 17.50% from yesterday's close.

However, it still lost $1 million last quarter and $3 million in the last six months. To be fair, it did successfully raise $5 million recently so that should see it through until the end of 2019 if its current cash burn rate remains stable.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

just looking at AL3, and then I remembered this one

Oh dear. Looking rather terminal.