Tantalus Systems Holding Inc
TSX:GRID
Earnings Call Analysis
Q4-2023 Analysis
Tantalus Systems Holding Inc
The recent earnings call brought to light some significant progressions for the company, particularly in its revenue model and profitability margins. There's a momentum building up with an increasing share of recurring revenue, implying a shift towards a more stable and predictable financial structure. This shift is also positively contributing to gross profit margins which have shown a substantial improvement. Specifically, the company has seen its connected devices segment margins bolster from 33% to 41% in Q4 of 2023, enduring despite inflation and supply disruptions, while maintaining a healthy 70% gross profit margin in its Software and Services segment.
A historic moment was achieved with the company reporting an all-time high annual revenue of $42.1 million, marking a 6% increase over the previous year. Furthermore, the gross profit margin crossed the 50% threshold for the first time on an annual basis, settling at 52% for 2023. This illustrates not only successful revenue generation but also an increased efficiency in operations that could result in better operating leverage as the company continues to grow.
A remarkable improvement was seen in the company's adjusted EBITDA, approaching a neutral position at a negative $29,000 for 2023 compared to a negative $2.4 million the previous year. This has been a result of conscientious investments, particularly in the TRUSense Gateway, indicating a dedicated focus on innovation despite these investments impacting short-term profitability. The company's net loss stood at $1.7 million for the year, affected by various noncash expenses worth approximately $2.5 million. However, there's a positive outlook for moving into net income profitability going forward, fueled by promises of increasing annual performance.
In a detailed look at revenue sources, connected devices brought in $27.3 million and comprised a majority of 65% of total revenue. The software and services sector also showed strong performance, constituting 35% of total revenue at $14.9 million – a record contribution. Recurring revenue notably increased by 18% over 2022 to $10.2 million, indicating a strengthening in predictable earnings. Annualized recurring revenue (ARR) was up by 17%, promising future revenue strength. The gross profit margins in these segments reflect the company's ability to manage product mix, supply chain, and pricing effectively, with connected devices seeing a margin increase to 40% in 2023 from 34% the previous year, and Software & Services segment maintaining a robust 74% margin.
Financial stability was another highlight, with the company closing the quarter with a $5.2 million cash balance, excluding a $673,000 restricted cash returned post-period, thus reinforcing its balance sheet. The company has been generating positive working capital, reflected in an increase of $3 million in adjusted working capital. There's an assurance of financial flexibility to support anticipated launches and scaling efforts, backed by $34.8 million in total assets and a manageable total debt balance of $11.5 million.
The company's enthusiasm is palpable when discussing the progression of its TRUSense Gateway product. Recognized as a versatile tool for utilities, it appears to position the company with a first-mover advantage. The focus now intensifies on sales and marketing strategies to leverage this product in the utilities sector. The Gateway is seen as a multifaceted solution for modernizing grid infrastructures, resonating well with utilities that are dealing with legacy systems, seeking to enhance their metering capabilities, or integrating with smart utility devices. Given the increased interest, especially from utilities investing in fiber for broadband services, the Gateway is poised to be a key enabler in grid modernization efforts, cementing the company's innovative edge in a competitive market.
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Good day, and welcome to the Tantalus Systems Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please note, today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Deborah Honig of Adelaide Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Thank you for joining us to discuss Tantalus Systems financial results and operating performance for the 3 and 12 months ended December 31, 2023. Tantalus issued these results in a press release yesterday, which is posted on the company's website. Joining me today on the call from Tantalus System here and referred to as Tantalus's or the company are Peter Londa, President and Chief Executive Officer; and George Reznik, Chief Financial Officer. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements about Tantalus's business. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially. Tantalus refers conference call participants either today or in the future to the company's forward-looking statements contained in the presentation and also available on our website at www.tantalus.com. Statements made on this call reflect management's analysis as of today, March 27, 2024. Management does not assume any responsibility or obligation to update forward-looking statements made during this conference call unless required by law. Please note that the financial information referenced on today's call is stated in United States dollars and in accordance with IFRS, unless otherwise stated. The company is also presenting selected non-IFRS financial measures, including gross profit, gross profit margin, adjusted EBITDA, recurring revenue, annual recurring revenue referred to as ARR and adjusted working capital. Tantalus believes these non-IFRS measures provide meaningful information to investors. However, they do not have a standardized meaning and are not likely comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. I now turn the call over to Peter Londa, President and CEO. Please go ahead, Peter.
Thank you, Deborah. On behalf of the entire team at Tantalus, George and I are pleased to provide an update on our business through the fourth quarter and 12 months of 2023. We'll aim to work through our presentation and provide ample time for questions during today's call. Based on our filings yesterday, I'm pleased to report that we achieved a series of new milestones during 2023. And before getting into the details, I'd really like to thank team Tantalus for all their hard work and continued dedication to our company and to the utilities we serve. As George will outline in detail, we set a number of new company milestones in 2023, specifically for total revenue generated in the calendar year, revenue contributions from our Software & Services segment, revenue contributions from recurring revenue, and we set an all-time high for our gross profit margin percentage delivered through the year. While we are extremely pleased with the overall outcome for 2023, we'll note that approximately USD 1 million of revenue slipped out of Q4 and into future periods due to capacity constraints from our metering partners and the timing of converting certain orders from our pipeline during the second half of the year. As lead times from meter vendors are once again extending converting orders into revenue during the back half of a quarter is becoming a bit more challenging. As a result of the capacity constraints and the timing of converting certain orders from our pipeline, our overall revenue profile did fall short of consensus. With that said, we still achieved significant milestones by exceeding 50% for our gross profit margin, which has been a long-term objective of our management team. The improvement in our gross profit margin has enabled us to deliver a third consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, and the results in Q4 helped Tantalus revert back to neutral adjusted EBITDA for the full calendar year. We accomplished these improvements in our profitability while simultaneously investing heavily in the commercialization of the TRUSense Gateway and our TRUSync Grid Data Management software, both of which are critical to supporting grid modernization efforts for the utilities we serve. Beyond our financial results, we converted another 17 utilities from our sales pipeline during 2023, increasing our user community to 288 utilities. Additionally, we converted over $31 million in total orders from the pipeline. Since the end of 2023, a few things to highlight within the commercial activity of our business. As many of you hopefully saw, we announced a new strategic partnership with GE Appliances earlier this year, 2024. Given the importance of this partnership, I wanted to spend a few minutes before we really dive into the financial results from 2023. In establishing a partnership with GE Appliances, Tantalus is now part of their eco-balance program that is focused on delivering net zero home initiatives. GE Appliances is the market leader for home appliances, not only in the United States but globally. They were the organization that helped Electrify America long ago, and they are now centering their attention with panelists to modernize the distribution grid and deliver net 0 efforts. As part of this partnership, GE appliances and Tantalus will utilize the new Flex capacity electric water heater from GE appliances as a source of both thermal storage to reduce carbon footprints as well as a very granular controllable load that will deliver up to 5 kilowatts of power to support demand-side flexibility programs that are surfacing across the United States. We believe the combination of both thermal storage and very precise demand-side flexibility behind the meter are a powerful combination for grid modernization efforts. As part of this partnership with GE Appliances, I'd also note that we are actively engaged and incorporating Savant's energy capabilities as part of the Eco Balance program. Savant's companion modules that can retrofit into any existing electric circuit panel will further the effort with GE appliances by targeting very specific load behind the meter for utilities to control. We'll ultimately incorporate Savant bidirectional chargers for electric vehicles, their inverters for rooftop solar and power walls as well as other home energy automation capabilities that Savant is bringing into market. The collaboration across these 3 organizations, Tantalus, GE Appliances and Savant are powerful. I'd also like to highlight that earlier this year from a commercial perspective, we completed a substantial effort to rebrand Tantalus as we focus on helping utilities harness the power of the data we collect and analyze to ultimately accelerate their grid modernization efforts. As you can find on our updated and new website, we've overhauled the naming convention of our solutions to help align everything, including the Congruitive software capabilities that we acquired a few years ago. We believe the alignment of our brand plays well with GE Appliances and Savant and certainly is an instrumental component of our go-to-market strategy with the TRUSense Gateway. I'll cover the progress that we have made on the TRUSense Gateway later in the presentation. And I'd also highlight that we have recently launched our new Transformer Data Analytics tool, which we believe is a key point of differentiation for Tantalus as we continue to scale our organization. With that in mind, I'll turn it over to George and have him dive into the financial results for 2023. Go ahead, George.
Thank you, Pete, and good morning, everyone. Before diving into the financial results, I would remind everyone that we report in U.S. dollars. As reflected on Slide 4, we delivered $10.4 million in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2023, representing a decline from the prior year quarter of $12.2 million. As Pete mentioned, our Q4 revenue results were impacted by capacity constraints with metering partners and the timing of order fulfillment. This resulted in approximately $1 million of revenue shifting out of the quarter and into future periods. Gross profit margin increased to 51% for the fourth quarter of 2023, representing strong growth over the prior year, 45%. This increase in gross profit margin helped us offset the decrease in revenue from the prior year. As such, we delivered continued positive adjusted EBITDA of $348,000 during the fourth quarter of 2023. This represents the third consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, demonstrating our commitment to prudent financial management while making significant investments in our TRUSense Gateway, TRUSync Grid Data Management software and SaaS analytics offerings. We delivered positive net income during the quarter. Net income was favorably impacted by the release of an accrual for the contingent consideration or the earn-out that was included in the initial transaction consideration associated with the Congrutive acquisition. I would like to highlight the composition of our revenue and related gross profit margin delivered during the quarter on Slide 5. We Revenue from our connected devices was $6.8 million in Q4 of 2023, which decreased from the prior year period and contributed 65% of total revenue. As referenced, the decline was heavily influenced by the capacity contents of metering partners and the timing of order fulfillment during the year. While revenue from the connected devices was down, we increased the revenue contribution from software and services, which represented 35% of total revenue during the quarter and grew from 31% in the prior year period. Within our software and services revenue segment, we include recognized recurring revenue in each period. As a reminder, our recurring revenue is comprised of Software as a Service or SaaS subscriptions, term-based software licenses, software maintenance, technical support and hosting services. Recurring revenue recognized during the fourth quarter of 2023 increased by 12% over the prior year period to $2.5 million. Recurring revenue represented 24% of total revenue in Q4 of 2023. As we continue to secure new utilities through our sales pipeline and deploy more connected devices in the field, we will continue to experience increasing recurring revenue contribution to our overall revenue profile. This aggregating the gross profit margin further, the gross profit margin for connected devices increased to 41% in Q4 of 2023 from 33% in the prior year period, despite continuing to navigate through inflationary pressures and ongoing supply chain disruptions. Gross profit margin for our Software and Services segment remained strong at 70% in the quarter. We witnessed higher contribution from installation service revenue in Q4 of 2023, which has a lower gross profit margin contribution relative to the prior year quarter. And looking at the annual performance of 2023 on Slide 6, we are pleased to report that we generated the highest annual revenue in our history at $42.1 million, which increased by 6% over the prior year. Gross profit margin increased to 52% during 2023 marking the first time in the company's history, the gross profit margin percentage exceeded 50% for an entire calendar year. This is an important milestone to drive operating leverage as the business continues to scale. We believe that the increase in gross profit margin reflects the value of our solutions and proactive management as we navigate through capacity constraints with our media partners, some continued inflationary pressures and occasional supply chain disruptions through our suppliers. We approached neutral adjusted EBITDA during 2023, a negative $29,000, representing strong improvement over the prior year, which was negative $2.4 million. We made this improvement while continuing to make significant investments in our innovative solutions and, in particular, the TRUSense Gateway. The company invested approximately $5 million during 2023 in the development of the TRUSense Gateway, inclusive of over $1.5 million of external costs. Said another way, had we not made these investments in the external cost to support the development of the TRUSense gateway during 2023, it's fair to assume there would be a dollar-for-dollar improvement in our adjusted EBITDA result. The company experienced a net loss of $1.7 million during 2023. Our net loss is expressed net of significant noncash expenses such as depreciation and amortization, stock-based compensation and unrealized foreign exchange. Noncash items impacted by the net loss were approximately $2.5 million during 2023, which exceeded the aggregate net loss amount. We anticipate migrating to positive net income in future by continuing to drive increasing year-over-year performance. Across the board, we believe Tantalus delivered favorable financial results for 2023 and have already turned attention to scaling in 2024. The composition of our revenue related gross profit margin experienced during 2023 is provided on Slide 7. Revenue from our connected devices increased $27.3 million in 2023 and contributed 65% of total revenue. We continue to experience strong contributions from software and services, which represented 35% of total revenue during 2023, an increase to $14.9 million. This represents the highest historical annual contribution experienced. Revenue from software and services also increased by 14% over the prior year. Recurring revenue recognized during the year increased to $10.2 million in 2023, representing 24% of total revenue. On a comparative basis, recurring revenue recognized during 2023 increased by 18% over 2022. While not reflected on this slide, I'll note that our annualized recurring revenue, or ARR, as of December 31, 2023, increased to approximately $11.5 million, reflecting approximately 17% growth from the ARR at the end of '22. As a reminder, ARR represents a forward-looking forecast that reflects the anticipated total recurring revenue to be generated over the future 12-month period at a point in time. Disaggregating the gross margin further, the gross profit margin from our connected devices increased to 40% in 2023 from 34% in the prior year. This increase is tied to product mix, prudent management of supply chain and previously implemented price increases. Gross profit margin for our Software & Services segment was 74% 2023, which is relatively consistent with the prior year. As reflected on Slide 8, we closed the quarter with a cash balance of $5.2 million. The closing cash balance does not include $673,000 of restricted cash pertaining to a surety performance insurance bond pertaining to a customer deployment. The restricted cash has been subsequently returned to treasury due to the customer deployment performance criteria being satisfied after December 31, 2023, and the aforementioned Surety performance bond being released. The release of this restricted cash adds additional balance sheet flexibility to support our efforts in 2024. Our cash balance increased from September 30, 2023, to year-end December 31, 2023, by approximately $1 million. The increase in cash was due to several factors, including generating positive working capital through the year-end, a decrease in inventory levels through prudent management of our supply chain and related accounts payable and accrued liabilities in addition to the positive adjusted EBITDA experienced. The counting of deferred revenue also impacts our cash position as we invoice most of our customers annually for the beginning of each year, resulting in partial customer payments received as of December 31, 2023. Overall, adjusted working capital increased $3 million as of December 31, 2023, from the prior quarter ended September 30, 2023. With respect to our management of working capital, I think it is important to highlight a few attributes within our model, particularly in light of questions we received about our balance sheet and our ability to support the anticipated launch of the TRUSense Gateway. In terms of our working capital management, we maintained favorable terms with our suppliers to manage accounts payables relative to the terms that we have been routinely able to negotiate with our customers for accounts receivable. The net difference between our terms on accounts receivables compared to the terms on our accounts payable afford us with flexibility to scale the business. Beyond adjusted working capital, the company ended 2023 with $34.8 million in total assets and an outstanding total debt balance of $11.5 million. Our debt facilities are comprised of a working capital line of credit facility with Comerica Bank up to a maximum of $8.5 million and a term loan facility with EDC up to $7 million. Total debt increased to $11.5 million as of December 31, 2023, from $10.4 million as of September 30, 2023, due to the increased working capital line of credit facility principal balance. As of the date of this earnings call, we've borrowed $3 million of the EDC loan facility with access to an additional $4 million available. As a reminder, the EDC term loan is a 6-year debt facility with interest-only payments for the initial 18 months ending December 31, 2024, followed by straight-line amortization principal repayments with interest for the remainder of the term. As outlined in this slide, we believe that the company continues to have ample balance sheet flexibility to support our ongoing operations and the anticipated ramp for the TRUSense Gateway as a result of our prudent working capital management and related payment terms with our customers and vendors, the $4 million of availability under the EDC debt facility, the collection of our 2024 ARR, the bulk of which is received during Q1 of every year and our visibility into our 2024 revenue profile. Additional information regarding the year-end cash balance is available in our presentation on Slide 12 as an appendix. I'll now turn over the call back to Pete to provide an update on the TRUSense Gateway and key initiatives for 2024.
Thanks, George. We're extremely excited with the progress being made across all 3 versions of the TRUSense Gateway. Based on attending our 2 largest industry trade shows earlier this year, DistribuTECH and TechAdvantage, we continue to validate the near- and long-term opportunity for the TRUSense Gateway and the TRUSync Grid Data Management software. As reflected on Slide 9, we continue to believe Tantalus has a first-mover advantage. At this point, we are ramping up our sales and marketing efforts to pursue an increasing number of opportunities with public power, electric cooperative and investor-owned utilities that continue to request information about the capabilities of the TRUSense Gateway. What we're learning is that the TRUSense Gateway is a bit like a Swiss Army knife for grid modernization as it delivers multiple use cases that are applicable for an increasing number of utilities. Weather utilities are focused on seeking to embrace AMI 2.0 but are stuck with legacy metering systems that are either not yet fully depreciated or with regulators that will not support ripping and replacing that legacy metering infrastructure, or whether utilities are focused on protecting transformers through advanced power quality measurements at the meter socket and/or weather utilities are focused on extending the edge of the grid to go behind the meter to access smart appliances, circuit breakers, EV chargers and distributed energy resources. We believe the TRUSense Gateway has those utilities covered. We're also witnessing an increased level of interest from utilities deploying fiber to address the broadband divide across the United States. We continue to believe there are an increasing number of utilities, thanks in large part to available stimulus dollars in the United States where utilities have already or are actively deploying fiber to support their communities and memberships by delivering equitable access to broadband services, particularly in rural areas or underserved communities. The TRUSense Gateway is the device that can enable utilities to not only maximize the value of their investment in fiber, but also quickly enable those utilities to accelerate grid modernization efforts. In total, we believe the TRUSense Gateway presents a transformative opportunity for Tantalus, particularly when we layer in the TRUSyn Grid Data Management software that is intended to not only help utilities access the data they need to accelerate grid modernization, but also enables utilities to truly leverage interoperable data that can improve every aspect of their operations. In terms of timing, which we know is a significant question from investors; we are extremely close to obtaining UL certification for the TRUSense Fiber Gateway, which will be the first version of this product to market. As of March 13, 2 weeks ago, we received confirmation from UL that the device cleared through all tests and achieved our target ratings. The only remaining item for the TRUSense Gateway is to officially receive formal certification from UL. This is a documentation process at this point. And we are anxiously awaiting this formal letter of certification, which we expect to receive in the coming days based on updates that we get at this point daily from UL. As for the TRUSense Ethernet and cellular versions, we remain on track to deliver both products during the first half of 2024, and we'll look forward to converting orders over the coming weeks and months. As a brief reminder, the UL certification for the TRUSense Fiber Gateway is applicable for the TRUSense Cellular Gateway. So we believe the timing to launch the Cellular Gateway will move fairly quickly once we commence the required FCC testing of the cellular radio. A material portion of the TRUSense Fiber Gateway UL testing is also applicable for the TRUSense Ethernet Gateway. So we truly believe the long pull in our tent here to bring all 3 versions to market is the receipt of the formal UL certification letter for the fiber version. Based on our current visibility and timing, we anticipate converting initial orders for the TRUSense Gateway during the first half of this year and are ramping up production efforts to ensure we can generate initial revenue from the TRUSense Gateway during the second half of 2024. In the interest of time, I won't go through all the points outlined on Slide 10, but we'll just reference a few items. First and foremost, we stand in a very good place to deliver another year of growth in 2024 for our shareholders, and we do expect to generate positive adjusted EBITDA for the full calendar year. Please note that we are still making investments to get the TRUSense Gateway to market during the first 6 months, and we anticipate witnessing some negative adjusted EBITDA to start the year. As George outlined, our balance sheet fully supports these ongoing investments, and we firmly believe the near-term impact to our income statement will yield very favorable results over the medium and long term for Tantalus. Lastly, I'll note that since commercializing our Transformer Analytics tool that I had referenced at the outset of this call, we already have witnessed 18 utilities activate subscriptions under our SaaS offering. On a full year calendar basis, these initial 18 licenses represent approximately an additional $300,000 of annual recurring revenue. And the best part is we're just getting started. With that in mind, operator, if you can open up the line for questions see if we can allocate the balance of this call to our research analysts. Thank you.
[Operator Instructions]. Today's first question comes from Jesse Pytlak with Cormark Securities.
Just wondering if you could maybe talk a little bit about how many customers are you talking to regarding TRUSense? Maybe how many could convert this year?
Jess, I don't know if we can answer how many will convert this year, but to give you some more granularity. You may recall, we have 8 utilities that are part of our advisory committee. We anticipate all 8 of those utilities, quickly migrating and expanding field trials and pilots through 2024. I would expect some of them before year-end will provide us with deployment orders, full scale. Beyond those 8 utilities that are part of our advisory committee, we are, I think, in excess of 25 utilities where we are actively engaged with sales pursuits. And we look forward to providing a bit more clarity on some of those pursuits with utilities outside of our advisory committee during our Investor and Analyst Day on April 8 in Fort Worth, Texas. The order of magnitude substantial, Jesse. And we'll look forward to, I think, mapping out what we anticipate seeing in terms of the size and the scale of those opportunities. But as you know, we've referenced and we think the advisory committee represents in the aggregate up to $150 million of additional revenue for Tantalus over the next 5 to 7 years. And we think now the active pursuits with 25 other utilities is north of $350 million in the aggregate. I don't want to say that none of that's backlog. But over $0.5 billion of opportunity that we are, I'd say, currently engaged on right now.
Maybe just shifting over to the GE appliance partnership. Can you maybe talk a little bit about how you plan to go to market together?
So we're actively pursuing today. GE, the best way to describe is it's a bit of a humbling experience for Tantalus. And what I mean by that, Jesse, is in normal course, I'm sure investors on this call can appreciate as the balance of our covering analysts, normally, the smaller company is the one promoting the partnership, not the other way around. In this circumstance, GE appliances as a $15 billion revenue company is promoting the relationship with us. And in attending the International Builder Show and the Kitchen and Bath Show, which were combined this year in Las Vegas, order of magnitude, second largest conference behind CES each year, GE plants has graciously included panelists in their booth with Savant. They had me interviewed as part of that process, and they publicized quite a bit through their social media. The intent is Tantalus becomes the face to the utility industry for GE Appliances and Savant in terms of how we're going to go to market. And while GE Appliances and Savant are truly focused on the consumer, selling through Home Depot and Best Buy and appliance stores, they'll look to Tantalus to identify opportunities tied to demand-side flexibility programs for net 0 initiatives, state by state, utility by utility, where the point of focus and through our channel and through our sales team, offering a very comprehensive demand-side flexibility program. And so what we mean by that is for utilities that are really seeing constraint as an example, in Texas, where they've had horrendous winter storms that froze their grid, and they are seeing back-to-back summers of where electricity demand is really pushing the thresholds of what that state can generate. We anticipate pretty aggressive and pretty substantial efforts by ERCOT, who will be speaking at our user's conference in 1.5 weeks to help utilities or regulate utilities to begin activating very comprehensive programs to be able to take off noncritical load electricity when Mother Nature strikes or when substations fail. And where we see the benefit of working with GE appliances and Savant is with the push of a button on a keyboard, we can take 5 kilowatts of load off the grid immediately through GE Appliances electric heater and 40 kilowatts is it a lot, what we'll see and what we anticipate seeing is that utilities will get economic incentives to provide consumers with a new electric water heater in some circumstances for free or a substantial discount. And then deploy those or install those water heaters behind the meter with our technology through the TRUSense Gateway, integrated to GE Appliances and Savant, giving the utility and ability to aggregate that electric water heating load. We're talking megawatts of load that is not disruptive to the consumer. So that's the power of what we're working towards. As that extends to Savant. There's an organization out of Silicon Valley that is focused on ripping and replacing the legacy electric circuit breaker panels that we're all used to that manually have to flip that circuit breaker when there's a little surge in your house. We think that's very expensive and disruptive. What Savant is bringing to market is a smart companion module that fits directly into existing electric panels and through smart technology and wiring can control circuit breaker by circuit breaker. So it becomes a very surgical deployment for utilities and whether that targets the EV charger, not on critical load or potentially pre-charging a car, preheating water, precooling a home. Those are all things that we can do through this ecobalance partnership. It really redefines what the edge of the grid means for the utility through the TRUSense Gateway. So I got a little long winded there, Jesse. We're passionate about it. As you can see, and it is a substantial opportunity to really, I think, add incremental opportunity for the TRUSense Gateway for the utilities that deployed.
One last question, just on housekeeping. Can you just confirm the amount of cash that flowed in through the first quarter on customer annual subscription renewals?
Jess, we invoiced on an annual basis at the beginning of Q4. And the end the ARR is $11.5 million. We did receive probably about 25% of that in the prior quarter ended December 31. So customers start paying us, which makes sense prior to the commencement of the term. The majority of that balance is going to be received primarily in Q1 and with some trailing customer payments into Q2. So that just gives you the composition on a quarter-by-quarter basis.
And our next question today comes from Gabriel Leung with Beacon Securities.
Congrats on the progress. Pete, I know every customer is different, but based on your experience with TRUConnect, how do you expect the deployment of TRUSense will look for a typical customer? And I'm talking specifically around timing of the initial pilot field trial and then ultimately the timing of deployment. And additionally, the customers that you're talking to are they looking to do a full deployment right off of that? Or do you think you'll get them in batches over the course of the deployment?
So I don't want to punt all of that to the Investor and Analyst Day, maybe motivation for some folks to register and attend. And obviously, we'll share accordingly. But the honest answer is it depends. And I'll give you a few scenarios that I think are probably best to address your question on what the deployment looks like. And then I'll address secondly, what do we anticipate in terms of orders because that also depends a little bit. And the reason why I referenced it depends is because it depends, is probably because of the types of utilities. So what investor-owned utilities are going to do is a little bit different than what we think an electric co-op would do, and that will be a little bit different than what a public power utility will do. In terms of deployments through our experience of TRUConnect, the history of what this organization has done and continues to do, mind you, we're not eliminating or walking away from what has otherwise been the backbone of our company for some time is that utilities, on average, the deployment schedule has a bell curve of, I'd say, 18 to 24 months. That's average. There are some utilities that operate much faster, and there are some utilities that operate much slower. What I would say, paramount to all of that is Tantalus provides the flexibility to support whatever the utility is capable of doing and meeting them where they are. We're always trying to motivate utilities to move faster. But to the extent utilities are constrained and cannot, we support them. With that in mind, what I think we've seen with utilities is when there's a rip and replace, that tends to move a little bit faster. Utilities will traditionally, once they select technology, whether it's TRUConnect or in a specific circumstance to your question, to TRUSense Gateway, it's not uncommon for utilities to sort of do a Phase I or Phase 0 depending on how they describe it. We would refer to that as a field trial, but they've already selected the technology. And what they're doing is they may roll out a few hundred up to 1,000 devices, and most of that is geared towards training their own team, making sure they understand what the installation looks like, making sure that their customer service team can understand the impact they may have to customers. And then from an operational perspective, making sure that their operations team knows what to do with all the data and where that data needs to integrate into existing systems. So we see some utilities do that in 3 months, some utilities can take 6 months to do that. And so I think that's what we'll see with the TRUSense Gateway from our experience. And then those utilities that are the rip and replace mentality they'll run quick. And so it's not uncommon to see initial order of a few hundred. We refer to that sometimes as first articles in the metering space. And then from there, it's a defined deployment schedule. With that said, there are also some utilities, and so the utility is deploying fiber to the home as an example, they're not ripping and replacing. But I would think for every home that a utility is deploying fiber, our expectation is they are going to deploy a TRUSense Fiber Gateway or TRUSense Ethernet Gateway. And so I think those will move pretty quickly as their fiber deployments are moving or as they've already delivered fiber and broadband services to homes. We refer to this Gabriel as sometimes an alternative to that is an overlay. It's indicative of our ability to read legacy ERTs coated receiver transmitters for electric water and gas, legacy stuff that ties to drive by systems. We're seeing some utilities inquire about placing one TRUSense Gateway, fiber, cellular, Ethernet for every pull-top transformer. And so on average, a pull-up transform equates to like somewhere between 7 to 10 homes for most utilities in the United States. And I think of that as an overlay project where the utility will put a TRUSense Gateway to really understand what's happening with the pull-top transformers, which is so critical given extended lead times and astronomical pricing of transformers in general. And so through power quality measurement and advancements that we're able to deliver to the TruSense Gateway, I think those utilities may move over a longer period of time as they're trying to protect the assets on the power lines. Our goal is to get a bell curve of those that move a little bit slower, overlay those that are the traditional concept of ripping replace fiber deployments and figure out how that blends across from a working capital management perspective. But I could see how you quantify that. Not a lot of revenue contribution in 2024. And I think our target is to try to build somewhere around 5,000 units, assuming our contract manufacturer can ramp and we can get through all of our production hurdles that still we need to work through. We're in the process of working through. And then I could see that number significantly scaling in 2025 and then significant scale on top of that 2026 as utilities really grow into it. In terms of contracting or orders, I think we'll see some combination of 1 of 2 scenarios. The first is a contract that selects the TRUSense Gateway and locks in terms and conditions and pricing. And then what we see from our experience on TRUConnect and supporting utilities the way we have is utilities will have a quasi blanket purchase order and then each year as they confirm budget dollars that are allocated to the TRUSense Gateway or Tantalus that issue us. They give us a sense of what they can spend, purchase order, we invoice and we're shipping in the calendar year. So I think we'll see some of that. I also think, Gabriel, there are going to be a few utilities that just say and try to lock in probably improved pricing for a period of time is here's a full order for the full deployment. And in conjunction with that, give us a little bit more visibility where we have flexibility to provide some more favorable pricing or terms without impacting our financials. And so I think we're going to see some combination of both, it's just really a function of the types of utilities. And what I would say is on the investor and utility side, a little bit outside of our traditional wheelhouse, what we're seeing is with regulatory support is this notion of a sandbox or a pilot project, mind you pilot projects for investor-owned utilities can be in the thousands. So pretty sizable.And then assuming that our project, the pilot with an IOU meets the defined returns on investments, meats and checks of boxes for a defined set of requirements around demand-side flexibility or carbon credit tracking or power quality measurement as an example. Regulators utilities will apply regulators will approve an upgrade to the distribution grid through the TRUSense Gateway and included in the rate case for the utility. And in that circumstance, it's a signed contract for 100% of whatever the tool is going to deploy. And that's where I think real scale is going to come quickly for canals.
And maybe just as a follow up. I know it's still early in the sales cycle, but in your engagement with the advisory committee and the additional utility customers, have you received much in the way of pushback on TRUSense, whether it be related to pricing functionality or maybe some utilities waiting for some competing products. Anything to note there?
So we're doing our best to stay grounded on this one, Gabriel, but we have not seen any of it. We have, to the contrary, I think, seen through certainly distribute and TechAdvantage, an increasing number of utilities that walked into our booth, some investor and utilities that we have never spoken to that would have walked past our booth because that's not been our traditional area of focus in terms of the industry and plop down and sit for an extended period of time to learn about the technology. And I'd say through the 2 conferences that our teams attended myself included, I'd say 2 things of note. In sort of part of Tantalus now for almost 10 years, BPO Global privately held before that where I was CEO, so a combination of over 15 years here in this market. I've never seen this type of response to a new offering. And I'd say, again, we're trying to stay grounded, but we got pretty good validation that we are way ahead of any competition in terms of functionality, capability and time to market. So we're all anxiously waiting for that UL letter so we can announce and get some of the advisory committee members moving to drive financial contributions from what otherwise has been a significant investment over the last 2 years. I believe that it's all coming, and where our team is really trying to figure out how do we prepare for the ramp that I think is going to unfold here. But it's been pretty in a good way, overwhelming based on what we learned from TechAdvantage and DistribuTECH.
And I just have one last question for George. So in terms of your cash operating expenses, I think you hit a multiyear low in the quarter. How should we think about that expenses evolving over the course of the year? Obviously, you've dropped compared to R&D, but should we expect sales and marketing start ramping with the product launch?
We are $5 million, which is lower than we had. That's part of timing of some of the costs. I think as Pete alluded to, there's a lot of really finalization of the development, the certification and the launch of the products for that, particularly with the TRUSense Gateway, but also for grid data management software as well as some of our offerings. So we see that really trailing into Q1 and Q2, the first half of the year as we start to ramp up the commercialization side to capitalize on the TRUSense Gateway opportunity. And then on top, we have significant trade to marketing activities just normally. Q1, Pete referenced DistribuTECH and TechAdvantage. Those are significant investments as well as partnering with GE. And then we have our annual user conference in Q2, [indiscernible]. So really, we anticipate operating expenses to increase in the first half of the year. That's part of the reason why we anticipate negative adjusted EBITDA first half. And then really, as the R&D activities come towards finalization and really commercialization trees, that will normalize towards the back half of the year. And so they'll trend down really in Q3 and Q4. And overall year-on-year, $21.5 million, roughly $22 million in '23. We'll probably have a little bit of increase over that year-on-year, just to give you the overall impact.
And our next question today has from Daniel Rosenberg with Paradigm Capital.
My first question is just around the potential to bundle software or cross sales software with the TRUSense rollout. Can you speak to the opportunity you have there?
So I'm going to point to something really specific. Within the TRUSense Gateway, there's a little silver square. You can see the imprint of our Hexagon logo I'm going to use the mouse if that comes across through the system. That ASIC, that's our custom system on chip. It is the same chip that we use and have used at Tantalus for some time. And so the full intent, Daniel, is to load our system on chip with a full bundle of software, including an instance of our TRUSync Grid Data Management capabilities that are appropriate for an end point with the intent that as we get the TRUSense Gateway deployed, depending on the use case, the utility is really prioritizing the volume of data that we will be collecting is substantial. And our view is that quickly, we will be able to educate the utility on not only how to use that data through an analytics tool like our transformer monitoring capabilities but also how to leverage this data across all their operations. And that's where the TRUSync Grid Data Management software comes into play. And just for clarity, this Congrutive C.IQ Connect software is the TRUSync Grid Data Management software is just rebranded and renamed to conform to one comprehensive offering. So I think through our sales organization, through our customer operations team, through advisory committee members, through industry consultants, through execs myself included, I think we can start to educate utilities on actually harnessing the power of all the data that the TRUSense Gateway will deliver. And in conjunction with that, then be able to quickly upsell is probably the wrong word, but right then add in incremental software licenses and software revenue device by device with a quick activation key because the instance of software is already sitting on the device to begin with. So I think we can activate that really quickly. And as I said, I used the word transformative carefully. It just changes the dynamic on what we're going to be able to do and drive the software and services element of our business because of the volume of data that we're going to be able to capture for the utility.
I also wanted to just follow up on that it was $1 million of revenue that slipped on some constraints from suppliers. Just wondering what that looks like today. Are you seeing a persisting resolving? Just what does that look like? Should we expect to catch up?
I'll address that, George; can clean up whatever mess I make. So not all of that $1 million is going to surface in Q1. That's why we referenced future periods. Notwithstanding some commentary of the larger meter manufacturers, not for us to talk about what they're doing, I just tell you what we're seeing. We are seeing extending lead times across the 3 meter manufacturers that we partner with today. And so the lead times vary between residential meters and commercial and industrial meters. The C&I are commercial and industrial meters. That's where we're seeing, I think, the most significant extension of lead times, Daniel, and that happened to be higher revenue and higher margin for us on a device basis in terms of when we're integrating our module under the glass of third-party meter partners. So I unfortunately think that's going to extend through 2024. Some of that is just the changes in supply chain that we're seeing where that works extrapolating in terms of our meter partners, and some of that is inherent within their strategies and the orders that they're converting. So we're, I'd say, managing to the best of our ability relative to the existing partnerships, and we're evaluating some strategic initiatives that allow us to have a bit more control across the entire revenue profile for Tantalus moving forward.
And Pete, maybe I can just put out a little bit finer point, Daniel. As we indicated in our MD&A, specifically, we had roughly $400,000 of targeted orders that were scheduled to be delivered the last week of December. That just slid into beginning of Q1. So that's been realized. The other composition, especially the industrial and commercial meters that you alluded to of the $1 million, we're working to determine the timing of when those ultimately get fulfilled through after December 31, 2023. So that gives you a little bit more granularity.
Maybe just one last one for me. It sounds like quite the opportunity and you're approaching the finish line to commercialization here with TRUSense. But in terms of the biggest challenges that you see over the next 12 months, what's keeping you up at night? What are you trying to plan for and mitigate risks on? Just curious how you're thinking about the opportunity and how you can best execute against it.
Daniel, I assume you mean beyond my 17-year-old daughter keeping me up at night. In terms of the TRUSense Gateway and our broader operations for our team, managing scale is exciting and create some challenges. So we are relative to the resources we have available and certainly very mindful of our balance sheet with no intent of really raising capital in the near term or for that matter, at this point, to scale. The things we need to nail in 2024, I'm not worried about the UL certification or the ETL certification or the FCC stuff any longer for the Gateway. And I'm not really concerned about market adoption for the TRUSense Gateway. I think it's the ability of our sales organization to educate and build market awareness, the ability of our supply chain and production team to ramp quickly with our contract manufacturer and component providers. And as an aside to that end, we've hired our first employee or we have the first person in the factory in the Philippines who is Six Sigma background seem to be certified as a black belt. So that best type of investment we're making to ensure production is ready to roll. And then the third is going to be from a customer operations perspective is not only the physical deployment of the device, but then managing the amount of data, educating the utility how to manage that data. It's a change within the utility industry. And this is not just about the meter any longer; it goes so far beyond that. So as a smaller organization with the resources that we have and the resources we can bring to bear it's really trying to make sure we execute flawlessly and control what we can control with respect to certainly the ramp of the TRUSense Gateway and the rollout that we think comes with that through the TRUSync software. Those are really the things that keep me up. I'm sure George is always thinking balance sheet and income statement as our broader executive team is as well. But I'd say from an operational perspective, that's where the attention lies right now. It's not on the engineering side any longer for the TRUSense Gateway in my opinion or the TRUSync software data management software. I think we got those really well in hand.
And this concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to the management team for any closing remarks.
Thank you all for the patience, the allocation of time and the support of Tantalus. We are truly appreciative not only of our employees and our customers, but certainly shareholders who have been very patient and continue to be supportive as we really try to change the dynamics of what Tantalus is and what it can be. So we look forward to providing an update after Q1, and we'll be excited to issue some forthcoming press releases on the progress we're making with the TRUSense Gateway. I hope everybody has a productive day, and I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.