ABOUT: Knightscope was launched in April 2013 by William Santana Li and Stacy Dean Stephens. The Company was formed in response to the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook, the Boston bombings, and the attacks of 9/11. Knightscope is an advanced security technology company based in Silicon Valley that builds fully autonomous security robots that deter, detect and report. Its mission is to make America the safest country in the world.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS:
WSA: Good day from Wall Street. This is Juan Costello, Senior Analyst with the Wall Street Analyzer. Joining us today is Bill Li, the CEO for Knightscope, Inc. The company trades on NASDAQ ticker symbol is KSCP. Thanks for joining us today Bill.
Bill Li: Good day from Silicon Valley. Thanks for having us.
WSA: Yeah, for sure. So can you please start off by providing us with the intro of the company?
Bill Li: Sure. Knightscope is a developer of autonomous security robots. It’s a unique combination of self-driving autonomous technology like self-driving car, robotics, artificial intelligence, and electric vehicles. And these robots are patrolling across the country from Hawaii to Rhode Island 24/7, 365—without human intervention—so they’re not remote controlled. And they’re intended to provide security guards and law enforcement officers, eyes, ears, and voice on the ground for them to do their jobs much, much more effectively. We’ve got a recurring revenue business model for a recurring societal problem which is crime. And so your listeners might want to know that crime has a $2 trillion negative economic impact on the US every single year. It’s a hidden tax, we all pay in blood, tears, and treasure. And we’re honored to have a chance to take the company public earlier this year. And now we’re heads down focused on growing the company, and I’ll say, changing the world one robot at a time.
WSA: Surely. And can you bring us up to speed on some of the most recent news, as you announced some recent new contracts and partnerships?
Bill Li: Yes, I think one thing that we’re really focused on is long-term growth in a methodical pace. So we try to announce a new contract every once or twice a week, and we’re looking forward to continuing that pace. And these cover anything from residential properties to utility companies, airports, numerous casinos, hospitals, basically anywhere outdoors or indoors you might see a security officer or a law enforcement officer patrolling is an opportunity for Knightscope, and we’ve been continually placing new contracts and deploying the machines. We are at the leading edge of technology and it’s rather complicated set of technologies to execute. Now that we’ve operated well over a million hours out in the field, we’re confident that we’ll continue to grow the business.
WSA: Right. Well, perhaps you can explain a little bit more about what your machines do, as they do more than just security, for example of a few that can take temperature, and maybe it’s a good time to also talk about your patent portfolio?
Bill Li: So yeah, we hold nine patents. You can check those out in our SEC filings, just go to Knightscope.com to the Investors page. There’s a bunch of updates there as well and the investor presentation under Presentations if folks want to dig in a little bit more. So the machines are intended to do the monotonous computational heavy stuff that a human typically wouldn’t be able to do. So today they can live stream and provide high-definition recorded video 360 degrees at eye level in that the CCTV camera kind of staring at the top of everyone’s head. They can run a thermal scan of an environment, they can read 100 license plates a minute, they can detect a person in an area, or can detect the person meaning facial recognition. And the officers or guards can speak through the machine as if it’s a mobile PA system. So that all in all, provides a 911 dispatch or security operations center and ability to have eyes, ears, and voice on the ground 24/7 from the comfort of their home or their security operations center, and be at multiple locations literally at the same time. And if you would have told me that we were taking the company public at a time when we’re in the middle of pandemic, the robots are immune and the entire nation would be focused on reimagining public safety. I would have said, you know, that’s probably a little bit of a science fiction but here we are right in the middle of it with the right technology that’s been proven to work in the marketplace to reduce crime. If you want to learn more just go to Knightscope.com/crime, and there’s a whole long list of things where the machines have been very helpful to society and we’re just getting going.
WSA: So yeah, what are the key goals that you’re hoping to accomplish here over the course of the next six months?
Bill Li: Blocking and tackling, part of the use of proceeds or majority of the use of proceeds was to scale the company up, so we’re heavily, heavily recruiting. We just announced a bunch of new open positions. So if you’re marketing sales front, engineering, accounting, operations, robotics, all kinds of open positions. So we’re heavily recruiting as we scale up company and as well as building out the sales team in regional parts of the — we’re setting up territories basically across the country. So it’s primarily focused on sales and on engineering. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us to continue to grow the company again methodically and systematically.
WSA: And perhaps you can talk about your background experience Bill and you know, who the key management is?
Bill Li: Sure. So, by way of background, I’m a former automotive executive, spent a decade over at Ford Motor Company and almost every functional area I held 12 different positions across four continents in every functional area. Second to last job I was Director of Mergers and Acquisitions and we were running around buying everything. My last job I was the Founder and Chief Operating Officer for a subsidiary I built for Ford. The board had released a quarter billion dollars to me to do a roll-up in the used partsindustry. And that unit still today operates as part of LKQ, which is under ticker symbol, I think it’s LKQ, a multi-billion-dollar company. And management team are well-seasoned award winning technologist for example Mercedes Soria, an ex-Deloitte, she is our Chief Intelligence Officer. My Co-founder is a former law enforcement officer, Stacy Stephens. Our finance and accounting team led by our awesome CFO Mallorie Burak is done, I think now seven IPOs and 22 secondaries collectively over their careers. And we have an awesome general counsel who has been on both public and private sector, and my Chief Design Officer is ex-Ford Motor company as well. And if you want to peruse our board of directors, we’ve got six independent directors plus me. And it’s 85% female board, 45% minority and 100% diverse. So I think that puts us in a very unique category on NASDAQ or NYSE in terms of overall diversity of very capable set of directors that are helping guide the company over the next couple of decades.
WSA: And as far as investors and the financial community, what are the main drivers that you want them to understand about what makes you guys unique and be able to grab market share? And what do you wish perhaps they better understood about the company?
Bill Li: I think it’s two things. You know, first is just some basic questions. Do you believe that autonomous technology, robotics, and AI, and electric vehicles are going to make a massive impact on society over the next decade or two, it is binary question yes or no? If the answer is yes, then you should know we’re literally at the cross section of that. And then probably the second thing that’s the most important that’s less obvious, is a lot of investors always worrying like is the market going to collapse for x item, are our station wagons coming back, are flip phones coming back, is the minivans for real or not, you know, those kinds of things. I can assure your listeners that the market for “crime” is not ever going to go away or collapse. It’s not like 7 billion people are going to wake up tomorrow morning and all start behaving. And we’ve got a recurring revenue business model that’s been proven in the marketplace with effective crime fighting technology for recurring societal problem. And our long-term mission is to see if we can make the US the safest country in the world. And I think a lot of folks need to understand that the company is nearly nine years old, we’ll celebrate our ninth anniversary next month, and we’ve proven the naysayers wrong every single time. And so we hope you join us and be a force for good, and put technology to work to make our communities and our country much, much safer and much more secure.
WSA: So, once again, joining us today is Bill Li, the CEO at Knightscope Incorporated, which, as mentioned, trades on NASDAQ ticker symbol KSCP, currently trading at $5.49 a share, market cap is about 77 million. So before we conclude here, Bill, why do you believe investors should consider the company as a good investment opportunity at this point today?
Bill Li: It’s a proven technology where the country is not set up to fix the problem. Our country is over 200 years old, we’re under 46 presidents, no one has addressed this issue. The Department of Defense has a very strong network and process to build a soldier everything and anything she or he might ever need in a theater of war. And so those 2 million soldiers are supported by a Northrop Grumman, a Lockheed Martin and a Raytheon. That doesn’t exist on our own soil. Well, there’s no massive $30 billion company that builds stuff for the 2 million officers and guards. The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security have no federal jurisdiction over the 19,000 agencies and 8,000 private security firms. And that’s why in the year 2022, you’ve got security guards and officers out there securing your community and trying to keep your family safe with the technological equivalent of a number two pencil and a notepad. And we’ve got some groundbreaking technology that has proven to work and we’re excited about the future.
WSA: Well, we certainly look forward to continuing to track the company’s growth and report on your upcoming progress. And we’d like to thank you for taking the time to join us today Bill and introduce our investor audience to Knightscope. It was great having you on.
Bill Li: Awesome. And I like to say, don’t forget long Knightscope and short the criminals. We will see you on the other side.
