Dennis Calvert, President & CEO of BioLargo Inc. BLGO, was recently a guest on Benzinga's All-Access.
BioLargo is a cleantech and life sciences innovator and engineering services solution provider. Its core products address Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS) contamination, achieve advanced water and wastewater treatment, provide safe, long-lasting battery energy storage, control odor and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), improve air quality and control infections and infectious diseases.
BioLargo just validated data surrounding its battery technology, Cellinity. The company reports it's one of the highest-efficiency batteries around and has extremely high energy density.
BioLargo is a cleantech and life sciences innovator and engineering services solution provider. Its core products address Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS) contamination, achieve advanced water and wastewater treatment, provide safe, long-lasting battery energy storage, control odor and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), improve air quality and control infections and infectious diseases.
BioLargo just validated data surrounding its battery technology, Cellinity. The company reports it's one of the highest-efficiency batteries around and has extremely high energy density.
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NewsTranscript
00:00All right, there he is, the man, Dennis Calvert, the CEO of BioLargo.
00:09Dennis, how are you doing today?
00:11Great to have you back on the stream.
00:12Hey, Aaron.
00:13It's really great to be back.
00:14Thanks for having me.
00:16Of course.
00:17So, you know, Dennis, I know we've spoke a couple of times before, so I'm familiar with
00:21BioLargo, but not everyone here may be.
00:24So before we get into it, do you mind just giving us a brief overview of BioLargo?
00:28Yeah, sure.
00:29So we've been innovating for, since 2007.
00:34We have multiple assets in the portfolio, and we really call ourselves an innovator,
00:38right?
00:39So we invent, prove, and partner, and we focus on sustainable innovation that we believe
00:42has a high potential for impact as a disruptor, potential change agent in each market we focus
00:48on.
00:49So we've got four operating units.
00:50Our first big commercial success is in our belt now, under our belt.
00:53Another one about to happen.
00:54A couple more in the works.
00:56And they're all way cool, way cool innovations.
01:00And the primary business thesis, of course, is to get these things situated in the commercial
01:05market, find the partner for massive distribution, and then, as we say, go change the world for
01:10good, right?
01:11That's the idea.
01:12I like, you know, you said way cool.
01:15I like way cool, and it's nice to have these kind of different arms of a business.
01:19So Dennis, why adopt a subsidiary model?
01:22What advantages does a family of companies have?
01:26Oh, it's so significant.
01:28You know, what happens as an innovator, the adoption cycle is so unpredictable.
01:32And some of our shareholders can testify that some of these things have taken a long time
01:34to get to market.
01:35And, you know, what happens is a lot of companies, they take a gamble.
01:40They super capitalize.
01:42They spend like crazy to try and take a market.
01:45You know, that's where 90% of failure occurs.
01:48And what we've experienced is this idea that with great technical acumen and really finding
01:53the spot at which you can shine for margin and for customer adoption, you have a better
01:58chance not only surviving, but then with a business model that leverages the capital
02:03resources and the distribution of our partners, it's incredibly efficient.
02:07It's an efficient deployment of capital that allows us to then, once we find the spot,
02:12to generate accelerated revenues rapidly and margin, revenues and margin.
02:18And the best example, we got a partnership with the POOF product, P-O-O-P-H, right?
02:22And that's in our O&M environmental.
02:25And you know, that's an example where we spent eight years developing a market for odor control,
02:30odor control, odor VOC.
02:32And a company came to us, POOF, and said, you know, we think it's a billion dollar brand.
02:35We said, yeah, we do too.
02:36And we made a deal.
02:38And the deal is it's kind of a hybrid.
02:40We control some supply chain.
02:41We have multiple SKUs, a whole brand block that goes into the store.
02:46In fact, they just landed Petco and PetSmart.
02:48And of course, Walmart's huge and Amazon.
02:51I think they're in over 35,000 retail outlets now.
02:54And that's a showcase of the innovation and the business model, all in one,
02:59that's now really carrying our company to profitability.
03:02We're cash flow positive for sure.
03:04Got some non-cash charges for the next run.
03:06But that's a showcase of, you know, over a decade of work is now panning out to be a really significant windfall.
03:13We also bargained for about 20% of the brand equity.
03:16That's what some of the people often forget.
03:18You know, once these companies adopt us, we've participated in the equity position that creates an exit opportunity as well.
03:25So in just that category, you know, we believe that we're building brand equity and revenue base
03:32that fully justifies our existing market cap at somewhere around 70, $75 million.
03:37And look, we got three more coming, right?
03:40And so that model allows us to concentrate on what we call core competency, right?
03:46Foundational pillars of our business, like technology and people, critical mass of people, strategy, right?
03:53Purpose, all those things kind of come together.
03:55And each one of these business units features a technical acclaim that we believe has a chance to take a market.
04:02And of course, it's a lot of work.
04:04It's easy to say it's hard to do, of course.
04:06And it always takes longer, but it's so significant.
04:09And, you know, and driven by purpose, you know, that keeps everybody motivated.
04:13All the management's long.
04:14We've been in doing this really since the spring of 2007.
04:18Wow.
04:18Now we've got critical mass and we're witnessing adoption.
04:21And it's just, it really is awesome.
04:24I thought about you the other day, Dennis, because I saw a poof commercial out in the wild with the guy, you know,
04:29he's showing off the poof and he was spraying it in his mouth and whatnot.
04:32And I was like, man, like I wouldn't do that with my, you know, the other cleaning products that I have spraying in my mouth.
04:38So that really shows, you know.
04:40Yeah, that's a clever way of showing safety, right?
04:43That's the whole point of that demonstration, not to sell a product for your mouthwash.
04:47But actually, our science can make mouthwash.
04:49I mean, that's not a problem.
04:51The point is it works.
04:52It's an oxidizer.
04:53It's super safe.
04:55No harm to the pet, no harm to the house, no vapors that create problem.
04:59And that safety feature is something that the market is really trending towards.
05:04And so we think the poof product's going to go humongous.
05:06I can't remember where I saw the commercial, if it was on like a YouTube thing or on actual, are they playing on actual TV?
05:13The commercials?
05:14Oh, yeah, no, no, no, no.
05:16It's the fastest growing pet product in the market.
05:18Yeah, I think it might have been during like a football game or something.
05:20I was watching live.
05:21It must have been on TV, but it was pretty cool.
05:23And I thought about you.
05:24So, Dennis, tell us about the contracts you've signed with the Air Force.
05:29How much of your business is with the government and at the moment?
05:33And are you hoping this becomes a larger share?
05:37Yeah, so that's a that's a nice piece of business.
05:39You know, when you work for the government, you know, you don't get rich, right?
05:43And so it works.
05:45You really don't.
05:45It's a lower margin business, but it's very important.
05:48You know why it's important?
05:49Because it shows our technical acumen.
05:51If you can work for the United States Air Force, you can work for just about anybody.
05:54And that's really critical, especially when you migrate towards what we think are higher margin products like PFAS solutions for forever chemicals, right?
06:04Our battery tech that needs adoption across the entire military.
06:08And then, of course, we have medical products that have a huge opportunity in the military.
06:12And so, again, I think the the Air Force contracts are awesome because they provide recurring revenue.
06:19So you can bank on that.
06:20And for our engineering group, that's, you know, somewhere around 120 or so thousand a month.
06:24So that's not bad.
06:25It's good business.
06:27But again, it's just it's an example of the diversity that allows us to create critical mass to then innovate and bring higher margin, higher growth opportunities into those channels.
06:37That's what the Air Force does for us.
06:40Well, you mentioned the batteries there, Dennis, and I want to congratulate you on the upcoming opening of your battery manufacturing facility.
06:49What kind of capacity will the facility have?
06:52Well, it's a small, it's a pilot unit, right?
06:54So this article is a great article.
06:56This article came out in The Economist just a couple of weeks ago, and it talks about clean energy's next trillion dollar business.
07:03And really, they're referring to long duration energy storage.
07:07So this is a macro article.
07:08And the key figure for this is it predicts the market over the next six years to go somewhere close to a billion, like 800 to 800 billion, almost a trillion, and to one to three trillion by the year 2040, by the year 2040.
07:22This is an incredibly high growth sector.
07:26And of course, the article speaks to major competition in China.
07:29People like CATL, CATL is a battery giant.
07:33But what it highlights is that they're looking for technology innovations that allow for long duration storage.
07:39Now, when we talk about long duration, we're talking about grid scale batteries to offload renewable, right, or balance the grid, including microgrid development.
07:48Microgrid's a simple word, like there's a source of energy, there's a storage of energy, there's a plus and a minus of giving and taking energy.
07:55That's a microgrid.
07:56Microgrids are decentralized energy stations, okay?
08:00That's the future.
08:01That's the future.
08:02In fact, think about it.
08:03You got Microsoft and Google just announced massive multi, you know, half a, $500 billion investments in nuclear.
08:13I'm telling you, with AI growth, with the expansion of the electrification of the world, the energy supply cannot possibly meet demand, hence this incredible opportunity for long duration storage.
08:24So anyway, we have a storage technology, the salinity liquid sodium battery.
08:28This is the prototype, and notice it's about three and a half by 13 inches, and that's a cell.
08:35Cells go into racks, racks go into packs, packs make battery storage systems.
08:41Okay, so we're talking about the kind of systems that's a 20-foot trailer.
08:45When you look at a solar farm, you're talking about a $200 million installation of battery tech.
08:51This is a humongous business, okay?
08:54And the growth trajectory in that space, there's a gap in the market that we believe we meet, and that is what?
09:01Long duration, safe, non-self-discharging batteries that can meet the demand of a long duration output for energy that's stored and energy that's accessible to the grid or to the user of the electricity.
09:17Okay, and this is a technology we've spent about a year and a half.
09:19We just made our first prototypes.
09:21We've revalidated the claims.
09:23It's a big deal.
09:25Our stats, we believe, are unmet in the market, unmatched stats.
09:30So there's a bunch to do.
09:31It's not fast.
09:32Next, we've got to scale up, which we're doing with this cell.
09:35We've got to revalidate the claims with the cell.
09:38We've got to build packs.
09:39We've got to bring in some partnerships, which we're working on, on a partner-centric model.
09:45But here's the thing.
09:46This is another example where we're leveraging our core competency of science and engineering, some entrepreneurship,
09:52a strategy that conserves capital, and in a market that's going to go to $3 trillion.
09:59Okay, $3 trillion is what we're talking about.
10:01That's a pretty big addressable market.
10:02So what, you know, you mentioned the salinity batteries and the stats here, but where, or I guess,
10:09what metrics are the salinity batteries currently outperforming the competition?
10:14Are there any key areas?
10:15So like energy density, yeah.
10:16Energy density is one.
10:17This has extraordinarily high energy density, so that's basically energy output.
10:21And we're 2.9 times out of lithium, 2.9 times greater.
10:25Wow.
10:26Voltage is over 4 volts.
10:28We've proven that.
10:29There you go.
10:29We've proven that claim.
10:30It's a non-self-discharging battery.
10:33Lithium has self-discharging, which means it loses its charge over time.
10:39It has high inefficiency.
10:41It can't go to 100% and back to zero.
10:43We can go to 100, go to zero.
10:45It's not going to destroy the battery.
10:47There's no self-degradation in the way the battery is configured.
10:51There's a phenomenon that occurs in ion exchange, like lithium ion exchange,
10:55in which there's an exchange of ions, and it creates degradation across the electrodes.
11:00That's why your cell phone battery runs out of juice eventually.
11:04You can't get it fully charged.
11:05It won't last four hours.
11:06It only goes to two hours.
11:07Hence, you need a new battery.
11:09Don't miss it.
11:10The same thing happens in EV batteries, and the same thing happens in the units
11:13that are going out in the field for grid-scale storage.
11:16They degrade over time.
11:17Ours doesn't.
11:19We believe, and we have evidence to support that this is a 20-year battery.
11:23Also, it's fully recyclable.
11:25It uses no rare earth, no lithium, no cobalt, no nickel, okay?
11:29No lithium.
11:30Lithium, what's the problem with lithium?
11:32They cause fires.
11:34Do an internet search, right?
11:36Lithium battery fires.
11:37Oh, my gosh.
11:39There's a gap in the market for this sort of sustainable strategy,
11:43high energy density, high voltage, lots of flexibilities in managing energy
11:48across the grid and that sort of scale.
11:51And so, what we decided to do, and we really quickly decided,
11:54having invested and really proving up the technical claims,
11:57that our strategy would be to sell factories, not batteries.
12:00Sell factories, not batteries.
12:01So, we're recruiting partners all over the world to build factories.
12:04And we don't have one yet, so we're doing pilot scale.
12:07But what'll happen eventually is we're going to be in a position
12:10where we say we can hire 1,000 people.
12:12We can produce a half a billion dollars in revenue.
12:15We can make money.
12:16And remember, these are the kind of ventures that the Department of Energy
12:20has highlighted for strategic incentives.
12:23Well, what are those?
12:24Well, loan program in the billions, cheap loan, land,
12:28land's available from the United States government, tax credits,
12:3110% for manufacturing, 30% for deployment of energy.
12:35Okay, now, hear what we just said.
12:37Oh, my goodness.
12:39The federal government has recognized that the current grid infrastructure
12:42is inadequate to meet the need over the next six and 16 years.
12:47And they've got, literally, in the loan program,
12:49they got 68 billion set aside.
12:51Wow. 68 billion.
12:53So, Dennis, unfortunately, we're running up on time here.
12:58But I want to leave you with this one.
13:00What is the biggest opportunity that you currently see in cleantech today?
13:06Yeah, that's a big question.
13:08Okay, so.
13:08Yeah, last one is an easy one.
13:10Who am I, right?
13:11Who am I to answer that question?
13:13I can tell you in our portfolio, right, the medical project,
13:16we've been working on some big partnerships.
13:18So, we're really getting close to that.
13:19We're very excited.
13:21Everybody's anxious to see them come together and start launching.
13:23They're huge.
13:24So, here's the way we stack it up.
13:26You know, all of our stuff is cleantech, everything.
13:29So, odor, you know, we expect an exit north of 100 million, okay?
13:34Medical, we expect an exit between 600 and a billion,
13:37just so you get order of magnitude, right?
13:39Okay, then you go to PFAS.
13:40Well, PFAS is lower margin, but strategic for the world.
13:44We're probably going to end up partnering to get to significance, okay?
13:47Battery.
13:48You know, our business plan for the battery technology
13:50is a business plan that creates billions of value, okay?
13:54And so, now, the Economist article has pointed out
13:57this is a market going into the trillions, the trillions, okay?
14:01And we have a piece of technology that's unique in the world
14:05with claims that we believe are unmatched.
14:08And so, now, it's our job to package it,
14:11prove it, partner it, monetize it, and that's what we're doing.
14:15And that's our business.
14:16That's what we do.
14:17So, we think energy is humongous.
14:20Yeah, there you go.
14:21We know the world we are living in today.
14:23Everything is slowly but surely shifting
14:26toward that clean technology.
14:28You're seeing companies, like you mentioned,
14:29you know, Microsoft, Google, et cetera,
14:31investing in nuclear because everyone's trying
14:33to get to this zero emission.
14:34So, you know, it's great to see that you guys
14:38have your hands in this industry
14:40and a path toward making a lot of money in that industry.
14:43I think we're doing really well.
14:44And so, you know, as we say, you know,
14:46we make life better, right?
14:47So, impact starts with impact.
14:49And doing impact and making money is a great combination.
14:52That's what's kept us going for all this time.
14:54You know, we're sitting on about a 70 million market cap.
14:56We almost no debt.
14:57We got cash in the bank.
14:59We're generating positive cash flow.
15:01We're nearing profitability.
15:03It's a great time to look at BioLargo
15:05and take a deep dive because once you understand it,
15:07you'll go, holy shmoly, you know, the future is so bright.
15:10So.
15:11There you go.
15:12Well, we've been on the line, of course,
15:14with Dennis Calvert, the CEO of BioLargo,
15:17trading on the OTC under ticker B-L-G-O.
15:20Dennis, man, it's always great to have you on the stream.
15:22Always great to catch up with you.
15:23We got to have you on here soon to get some updates
15:26on that new battery and some other things.
15:29And yeah, I mean, until then, man, I hope you take care
15:32and I'll shoot you a message next time I see
15:34that poof commercial come up on my TV.
15:36Oh, everybody, right.
15:37And try, if you haven't tried it, try it.
15:38It's incredible.
15:39It really works.
15:40Super safe.
15:41Does the job.
15:42Awesome.
15:43Thanks, Aaron.