AI Security Company Reports Growth – President Speaks To Benzinga
Paul Allen, President of Airship AI AISP, was recently a guest on Benzinga's All-Access. Airship AI is a cutting-edge, artificial intelligence-driven video, sensor and data management surveillance platform. Customers rely on its services to provide actionable intelligence in real-time –- collected from a wide range of deployed sensors and utilizing the latest in edge and cloud-based analytics. These capabilities improve public safety and operational efficiency for both public sector and commercial clients. Mr. Allen spoke about the company's recent quarterly earnings, which showed growth.
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00:00Do you mind just giving us a brief overview of what Airship AI is?
00:08Yeah, absolutely.
00:09So we're a video data management sensor platform.
00:12So think about it as all the cameras you see out on street corners and buildings and public
00:18transportation, law enforcement, etc.
00:21We bring all of those cameras together, we fuse it into a single platform, and then we
00:25apply AI against it both at the edge and at the data center of the cloud.
00:29And we help customers make sense out of all of that data coming in.
00:33And we try to give them the ability to even be predictive about maybe some things that
00:37are happening in their environment and get ahead of them if they can.
00:41Got it.
00:42And then, Airship, you guys went public via SPAC, I feel like I remember that back in
00:46the day.
00:47Can you talk about why you decided to go that route?
00:50Yeah, absolutely.
00:51So we looked at both the IPO route and the SPAC transaction route.
00:56And ultimately, for us, we decided that the SPAC route was the better one.
01:00It was more efficient based on the timing.
01:02And really, the whole jocks of the cause to go public was working on a lot of really large
01:08government transactions and deals.
01:10And we really needed that financial transparency as a public company, so that the government
01:15could go look and see, all right, if you're competing against some of the giant defense
01:18contractors, yeah, hey, Wall Street's vetted you, Wall Street, show me your financials.
01:23I'm comfortable you're going to be here today, tomorrow, and maybe next week.
01:27So if we commit resources to you, we're comfortable that you're going to be around to go execute
01:31on what we agree on.
01:32Got it.
01:33Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
01:34So Paul, I know Airship recently reported earnings.
01:37What was it, yesterday afternoon?
01:40Stock is trading higher today by more than 13%.
01:42You want to walk me through some of those highlights from the earnings report?
01:46Yeah, absolutely.
01:47So look, it was a great quarter.
01:48And to your point, this is only the second quarter that we reported as a public company.
01:53So we're definitely very young relative to the process.
01:56But we had great earnings on the revenue side, very strong margin, 70% on our number.
02:04So just at about $4.5 million of gross profit, positive operating income.
02:09So our stated goals for the year were to be triple-digit year-over-year growth from a
02:14revenue perspective, and to be cash flow positive as a company.
02:17So we made some significant progress against that target, just over about 30% in terms
02:25of where we're at this year in the mid-cycle versus where we finished up the complete last
02:31year.
02:32Got it.
02:33And then, Paul, we're a stock market show.
02:35I know you're probably not watching the markets as closely as we are.
02:38But small caps in general have been picking up a lot of interest here as the Federal Reserve
02:42prepares to cut interest rates or is likely to cut interest rates.
02:47So a lot of people talking about the Russell 2000.
02:49I know Airship has recently been included in the Russell 2000.
02:53What does that mean for the company to be part of that index now?
02:57Look, we think it's huge.
02:59We think it's recognition of not just what we're doing fundamentally as a company, but
03:03the excitement that we obviously believe that we have in front of us with the pipeline and
03:07all the opportunities that we're working.
03:10And we think the broader market and indexes like the Russell are recognizing that as well.
03:14So we love the retail play.
03:17That's still the majority of the investors sitting in the company.
03:20But as we look to move further into the institutional space, because, again, we're only six months
03:25into this thing, ultimately, as a public company, that addition to the Russell is certainly
03:29going to give us some broader exposure to the institutional side of the market.
03:35Got it.
03:36And then what about just the broader?
03:37I mean, it's right in the name, Airship AI.
03:39AI has been undoubtedly the story of the market the past couple of years.
03:44Like what's the what are you guys seeing in terms of the increased demand for AI products
03:48and services?
03:49Look, it's huge.
03:50And, you know, I think depending upon what what segment or what vertical you're looking
03:55at, AI can mean something very different to a lot of different folks.
03:59You know, for us, we're very much focused on computer vision, edge object detection,
04:03analysis and classification.
04:05So, you know, is this a car?
04:07Is it a red car?
04:08Is it a, you know, whatever make, model, color you want it to be on things of that nature
04:13rather than generative AI where, you know, we're helping you rewrite your your term paper.
04:19You know, those folks probably aren't the ones that are going to be looking at what
04:21we're doing.
04:23But when it comes to public safety, schools, the border, law enforcement, workplace, etcetera,
04:31you know, that's really where our play is and where we're leveraging computer vision
04:34models, you know, to help customers, you know, fight some challenging scenarios that
04:38they've got.
04:39You know, you kind of you name your your scenario, whether it's seeing packages falling off of
04:45a conveyor belt, you know, how long a vehicle's parked somewhere, how long somebody's waiting
04:50in line in a queue, going back and trying to find, hey, where did that individual wear
04:54in the black backpack come from?
04:56And how long did they stay in that area?
04:58You know, those are a lot of the kind of challenges that we're working on and helping our customers
05:02solve for.
05:03Got it.
05:04Well, let's talk some recent awards and, you know, no, we're not talking Emmys or Grammys
05:09or anything like that, but some big money awards to separate six figure contracts coming
05:14in in June.
05:15Paul, give me some more details on those.
05:18Yeah.
05:19So, you know, both on the commercial side and as well on the government side, you know,
05:23what we're seeing is, you know, not only just this adoption of both at the edge and, you
05:27know, in the cloud and data center, but also this movement of taking workload and processing
05:32and taking it from on premise and putting it up into the cloud.
05:36So on the government side, you know, one of the few players in our space that supports
05:41customers operating up into the FedRAMP medium and high level, which are the highest, most
05:45secure levels of the cloud for government workload.
05:48So a couple of those awards were that transition of third party software over to Airship and
05:55moving it up to the cloud.
05:56And then as well on the commercial side, it's aggregation and it's fusion of consolidating,
06:01you know, hundreds or thousands of servers on the singular platforms that, you know,
06:06give them tremendous cost savings as an efficiency from an operating side, but also make them
06:11much more efficient from an executional side.
06:14Got it.
06:15And then, Paul, I understand a few months ago back in May, you got to ring the bell
06:20at the NASDAQ closing bell ceremony.
06:24How was that?
06:25Tell me a little bit more about that.
06:26Well, you know, it was it was fun.
06:29You know, I think it's, you know, for a handful of us, it really kind of made real, you know,
06:35all the things that we have been doing because we've been so busy just, you know, trying
06:38to get through the process and get our feet underneath us, get our first earnings report
06:42out.
06:43And then actually just to have something that was even more fun in nature and just celebrating
06:48the actual accomplishment of, you know, all that it took, all the work that it took, you
06:52know, from our team to become a public company, you know, is outstanding.
06:55And, you know, I was there with the founders and a couple of our team members, and, you
06:58know, we're certainly looking forward to going back in the near future and taking a larger
07:02group of the company because, you know, we have an amazing team behind us that, you know,
07:06we're making all these things happen.
07:08And, you know, it's fun to get that chance to just celebrate and recognize the accomplishments.
07:14It's easy to get buried in the work and not take that breath and, you know, kind of recognize
07:18how far you've come.
07:19Yeah, certainly a goal of mine to be there at some point as well.
07:22Paul, this has been great to learn more about Airship AI, again, trading on the NASDAQ under
07:27ticker AISP.
07:28Paul, thanks for joining us on Benzinga's All Access today.
07:32Thank you and have a great day.