authID (AUID) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Date

Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET

Call participants

• Chief Executive Officer — Rhoniel Daguro
• Chief Financial Officer — Ed Sellitto

Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email pr@fool.com

Takeaways

• Revenue -- $480,000, a 62% year-over-year increase, driven by increased adoption from both existing and new enterprise customers.
• Annualized cost savings -- $3.5 million identified through targeted operating expense reductions launched in Q2, expected to benefit results for the remainder of 2026 and into 2027.
• Bridge loan financing -- $4.2 million secured in late April 2026, providing operational runway to pursue large enterprise contracts and convert pipeline opportunities into revenue.
• Quantum-resistant authentication platform -- Launched the industry’s first quantum-resistant biometric authentication, addressing current security threats and targeting near-term enterprise deployment, including testing with a major global bank.
• Enterprise pipeline -- Over a dozen active proof-of-concept projects underway with large prospects in retail, banking, fintech, crypto, industrial, chip manufacturing, and healthcare, including multiple top-three companies in their sectors.
• Annual recurring revenue (ARR) -- $1.9 million as of quarter-end, up from $1.8 million in the previous quarter and $1.2 million the prior year.
• Booked annual recurring revenue (bARR) -- $80,000 in gross bARR signed, with 38% from committed ARR (cARR), and 62% projected above-commitment usage (UAC), versus $10,000 in bARR for the same period last year.
• Remaining performance obligation (RPO) -- $2.0 million at quarter-end, a slight decline from $2.2 million the previous quarter due to higher recognized revenue relative to new contract commitments.
• Operating expenses -- $5.0 million, up from $4.7 million, attributed to a $0.5 million increase in stock-based compensation.
• Net loss -- $4.5 million, of which $1.0 million was non-cash expenses, compared to $4.3 million and $0.5 million non-cash in the prior year period; net loss per share improved to $0.28 from $0.40 last year, and matched sequentially from Q4.
• Cash position -- $1.2 million in cash at quarter-end, with $3.4 million used in operating activities, showing significant improvement over $5.4 million used in the prior year’s comparable period.
• Digital IDs and verifiable credentials -- Platform now supports biometric-secured digital IDs, including mobile driver’s licenses and verifiable credentials, targeting compliance with EU and global standards.
• Channel partnerships -- Nearly half of the largest pipeline accounts originated through channel partners such as Formula5 and MajorKey, expanding reach and reducing acquisition costs.
• Current proof-of-concept volume -- CEO Daguro said, "These POCs, there's roughly about 20 of them that we have on target. These represent, I would say, top 3 of every single vertical that they're in, which is super exciting. These are the biggest and the best household names of the bunch. I think the thing that we have to navigate through and which are what we're really good at is that these organizations are very thorough, and they have a very specific onboarding process for the vendors, and we've gone through all of that, which is exciting. And then we get to go head-to-head with the other competitors, which again, is very exciting for us because we know we're going to do well. So we're in that process today. This is the most amount of POCs we've ever been with this highest caliber of clients. And we're looking forward to being able to knock those down here in the next couple of quarters."

Summary

authID (NASDAQ:AUID) delivered accelerated revenue growth and expanded its recurring revenue base through both new and existing enterprise deployments. The company launched the PrivacyKey platform, a quantum-resistant authentication solution, which management states is unique in the biometric identity market. Management highlighted the closure of $4.2 million in bridge loan financing and the execution of cost-reduction initiatives expected to improve operational leverage throughout 2026 and beyond. Channel partnerships are now contributing to nearly half of top pipeline opportunities, while the pipeline includes approximately 20 simultaneous POCs with major global enterprises. authID's technology roadmap now incorporates support for regulatory-compliant digital IDs and rapid onboarding with verifiable credentials, aiming to address broad cross-industry demand.

• Management stated, "The compounding effect of these actions is expected to materially improve our business performance across the remaining 3 quarters of fiscal 2026 and position the company for a substantially stronger entry into fiscal year 2027."
• CFO Sellitto noted a decrease in cash outflows for operating activities, "Cash used in operating activities was approximately $3.4 million for the quarter compared with approximately $5.4 million in Q1 2025,"
• Quantum computing security risk was directly addressed, with CEO Daguro stating, "There's nobody in the space that we know of right now that has a purpose-built quantum-resistant biometric authentication solution."
• The pipeline's breadth demonstrates an explicit strategy to target not only single verticals, but a horizontal infrastructure for enterprise identity assurance.

Industry glossary

• IDaaS (Identity as a Service): Cloud-based platform delivering identity verification and authentication solutions for enterprise use cases.
• POC (Proof of Concept): Formal process through which a prospective customer evaluates a solution’s technical and business fit prior to production deployment.
• RPO (Remaining Performance Obligation): The total contractual revenue committed but not yet recognized from existing customer agreements.
• ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue): Projected annualized revenue from recurring elements of software contracts as of quarter-end.
• bARR (Booked Annual Recurring Revenue): Forecasted annualized revenue measured at contract signing, including both committed contract value and estimated overages (usage above commitment, or UAC).
• cARR (Committed Annual Recurring Revenue): Portion of bARR that is contractually committed for annual recurring billing.
• UAC (Usage Above Commitment): Estimated revenue from customer usage beyond contractually committed baseline.
• Verifiable credentials (VCs): Digitally signed credentials, anchored in user-controlled data, that provide secure, standardized proof of identity or other claims in digital interactions.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Rhoniel Daguro: Thank you, Graham, and thank you all for joining us today. Q1 2026 represents an inflection point for authID. Rather than simply reporting incremental progress, the company executed a deliberate and multidimensional strategy, simultaneously strengthening the balance sheet, restructuring the cost base, advancing its technology and deepening its enterprise pipeline. The compounding effect of these actions is expected to materially improve our business performance across the remaining 3 quarters of fiscal 2026 and position the company for a substantially stronger entry into fiscal year 2027. The compounding effect of these actions is expected to materially improve our business performance across the remaining 3 quarters of fiscal 2026 and position the company for a substantially stronger entry into fiscal year 2027.

In late April 2026, authID secured $4.2 million in Bridge Loan Financing, enabling the company to continue advancing its engagements with some of the largest enterprises in the world, organizations that operate on long procurement cycles and rigorous vendor evaluation. These are not sprint to close engagements. They are structured, deliberate evaluations with high-value outcomes. The Bridge Financing ensures that authID continues to work with these organizations for the duration of their evaluation and decision-making. It also allows the company to work on converting its pipeline into contracted revenue.

Additionally, as communicated in our recent financing press release, our financial advisers continue to actively evaluate a broader range of strategic opportunities, including capital markets initiatives, partnership structures and other alternatives aimed at enhancing shareholder value and supporting long-term growth. Starting in Q2 2026, the company made a targeted reduction in operating expenses, yielding approximately $3.5 million in annualized savings and the company will realize this benefit during the remainder of 2026 and into 2027. This was a strategic reallocation of capital designed to concentrate resources on the highest value activities and preserve full operational and technical capacity from organizational efficiency achieved through the use of AI automation tools. Next, I'll provide an update on our technology and sales pipeline.

Let me start with the recent technology milestone that customers have been asking for, and I truly believe it is one of the most significant announcements in our company's history. Last month, we launched the industry's first quantum resistant biometric authentication platform, which is a technology milestone with significant commercial implications. Quantum computing is no longer a theoretical future risk. There is now commercially available quantum technology that is already capable of compromising conventional encryption. The window for enterprises to harden their identity infrastructure against quantum threats is dramatically shrinking every day. authID's PrivacyKey platform addresses this threat through a dual layer approach.

Layer 1, missed standard quantum-resistant encryption algorithms and Layer 2, cryptographic key sharding which distributes key segments across separate storage locations, eliminating single point of failure vulnerabilities. Importantly, unlike other biometric systems, the authID platform generates and immediately destroys cryptographic keys and biometric data upon the transaction completion, meaning there is no stored biometric data to steal. Between these 2 approaches, we are ensuring defense against any single breach or insider attack. That is the heart of PrivacyKey. We believe we now offer the only biometric identity platform purpose built to withstand quantum era threats, and we are ready to provide this solution to the market.

It's incredibly powerful and the deployment of this tech is completely transparent to the customer. The company is already in discussion with one of the world's largest banks regarding testing and deployment of this capability. Given the scale of potential enterprise contracts in the financial services sector, a single production win could represent transformative revenue to authID. I am pleased to report on another significant engineering achievement. Build to service not just domestic banking and other industries, but also to address regulatory requirements in the EU and around the world. We have added support for biometrically secured digital IDs, including mobile drivers licenses. Per Juniper research, the digital ID marketplace was $51 billion last year and will continue to grow.

At the same time, there will be close to 150 million mobile driver licenses issued by 2030. authID can secure these digital IDs with biometric assurance while protecting user privacy. We have also included an even more powerful feature, verifiable credentials or VCs. These allow consumers to establish a biometric route of trust that helps them onboard to critical platforms, such as banking, retail and health care services in just 2 clicks. This is a game-changing onboarding process long awaited by the market, which is used to seeing 15 clicks to achieve the same result. Digital IDs with verifiable credentials represents the current demand by consumers wanting to control and secure their own online journey.

We are already working with our partners to bring our solution to the market to address their customers streamline onboarding and verifiable credential demand. Looking at our sales. The forward revenue story for authID is anchored in its proof-of-concept pipeline. As of Q1 2026, the company is actively engaged with more than a dozen prospective customers spanning retail, banking, fintech, crypto, industrial and chip manufacturing and health care. These are not exploratory conversations. They are structured evaluations being conducted by household name enterprises that manage assets, transactions and user bases comparable in scale to sovereign economies. There are 4 key dynamics worth highlighting.

First, top-tier enterprise concentration, the pipeline includes top 3 companies in retailing, banking and technology hardware, winning even one of these represents a potentially company-defining contract. Second, rigorous evaluation process. The fact that these organizations are conducting thorough technical evaluations is a signal of commercial seriousness, not hesitation. When organizations of this scale engage in a proof of concept testing, we are evaluating vendors for long-term, high-value partnerships. Third, successful channel leverage. Nearly half of the largest pipeline accounts have been sourced through channel partners including Formula5 and MajorKey, both Microsoft ecosystem specialists. This channel infrastructure dramatically reduces customer acquisition costs and accelerate access to regulated industry verticals.

And fourth, cross-industry validation, the breadth of industries represented in the pipeline demonstrates that authID's biometric identity platform is not a single vertical solution. It is a horizontal infrastructure for enterprise identity assurance. The conversion of even a modest portion of this pipeline into production contracts during Q2 through Q4 2026 would represent a step change in future revenue. Given the recurring transactional based nature of authID's revenue model, each new production customer adds to the company's compounding monthly revenue base. Now let me address our Q1 2026 financials. Q1 2026 continues to reflect meaningful progress in our revenue trajectory.

We generated approximately $480,000 in revenue during the quarter compared to approximately $296,000 in the same period last year, representing a year-over-year growth of approximately 62%. This growth reflects continued adoption by our existing enterprise customers and the ramp of new customer deployments we brought live over the past year. At the same time, we took specific steps to reduce our operating expenses while maintaining the full operational and technical capacity needed to serve our customers and advance our pipeline. I'd like to leave you with the following. Looking at the full year of 2026 and into fiscal year 2027, the financial structure of authID is materially more favorable than it was entering 2026.

This is based on 6 key structural improvements now in place. First, our revenue base grew 62% year-over-year, with production customers expanding transaction volumes. Second, we reduced our annualized cost structure by $3.5 million, improving burn efficiency moving forward. Third, $4.2 million in Bridge Financing is securing the runway to close active pipeline engagements. Fourth, a new release of quantum-resistant biometric authentication, in digital ID enabled platform that is technologically ahead of the entire market. Fifth, a channel partner ecosystem generating nearly half of the top pipeline accounts. And six, conducting more than a dozen active enterprise POCs, with the potential for multiple production conversions in the second half of 2026.

The combination of accelerating revenue, structural cost savings and expanding enterprise pipeline creates the conditions for authID to reach cash flow sustainability and long-term financial independence. I'll now hand it over to Ed to walk us through the first quarter financials.

Ed Sellitto: Thank you, Ron, and thank you all for joining us today. I'll now review the financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026. Looking at our GAAP results, total revenue for Q1 was approximately $480,000 compared with $296,000 in Q1 of last year and representing year-over-year growth of 62%. This increase reflects revenue from new enterprise customer contracts that have gone live over the past year. Operating expenses for the quarter were $5.0 million compared to $4.7 million in Q1 of last year. This is driven by $0.5 million in increased year-over-year stock-based compensation expense and also reflects the continued stabilization of our employee and vendor expenses.

Going forward, we expect to realize more significant operating expense reductions as we start to see the benefits of the Q2 cost savings initiative that Ron mentioned earlier. Net loss for Q1 2026 was $4.5 million, of which noncash charges were approximately $1.0 million, primarily comprised of stock-based compensation. This compares to a net loss of $4.3 million in Q1 2025, of which noncash charges were $0.5 million. Net loss per share for Q1 improved to $0.28 and compared to $0.40 per share in Q1 of last year and remaining flat compared with a net loss of $0.28 per share we reported in Q4. Turning to RPO.

Remaining performance obligation, or RPO, represents the minimum revenue expected to be recognized from our signed contracts based on our customers' contractual commitments. As of March 31, 2026, our total RPO was $2.0 million down slightly from $2.2 million in Q4 due to the recognition of contracted revenue in Q1, which was greater than the new customer contract commitments signed in the quarter. We expect to resume RPO growth in the second half of 2026 as we work to complete proof-of-concept tests and close our key enterprise deals in the coming months. On to our non-GAAP results. Adjusted EBITDA loss for Q1 2026 was $3.4 million compared to $3.9 million in Q1 2025, an improvement of $0.5 million year-over-year.

This improvement reflects our continued focus on operating efficiency while maintaining the core capabilities needed to serve our customers and advance our pipeline. Next is annual recurring revenue, or ARR, which is defined as the amount of recurring revenue recognized during the last 3 months of the relevant period multiplied by 4. ARR as of Q1 is $1.9 million compared to $1.8 million of ARR as of Q4 and $1.2 million for the same period last year. The year-over-year growth represents our continued efforts to sign and go live with established market leaders including proved identity and the major global retailers signed last year.

Turning to bARR or booked annual recurring revenue, which is the projected amount of annual recurring revenue we believe will be earned under contracted orders looking at 18 months from the date of signing of each customer contract. The gross amount of bARR signed in Q1 was $0.08 million compared with $0.01 million of bARR signed in Q1 of last year. As previously explained during our quarterly earnings calls, bARR comprises 2 components, which we refer to as cARR and UAC. The Q1 2026 cARR, or committed annual recurring revenue, represents 38% of reported bARR. UAC, our estimated usage above commitment, is an estimate of the annual customer usage that will exceed contractual commitments.

UAC represents the remaining 62% on of reported Q1 bARR. Next, I'll revisit our progress aligned to the revenue growth stages we report each quarter. The first milestone we monitor is bookings, as measured by bARR. As I just noted, Q1 2026 gross bARR was $0.08 million. We continue to see our pipeline progress through proof-of-concept evaluations and subsequent contract discussions. While the time line for these larger enterprise deals continues to extend, the demand for our privacy-preserving biometric solutions is strong with these major enterprise prospects and we remain committed to bringing these larger deals over the finish line in the remainder of 2026. The next milestone is our remaining performance obligation or RPO.

Our Q1 2026 RPO of $2.0 million reflects its contracted customer commitments, and we expect this to grow in line with the additional enterprise deals that are signed later this year. Our third milestone is revenue recognized in accordance with GAAP. Our Q1 2026 revenue of approximately $480,000 represents 62% growth versus Q1 2025, continuing the trajectory of meaningful revenue expansion we've been building. And as we called out in prior earnings calls, customer retention and expansion remains an important focus of ours, particularly in establishing that our customers get value from using our solutions. We're also pursuing multiple expansion opportunities with our customer base to explore new use cases and grow their scope of usage within their organizations.

I'll conclude by noting that we ended Q1 with approximately $1.2 million in cash on hand. Cash used in operating activities was approximately $3.4 million for the quarter compared with approximately $5.4 million in Q1 2025, a meaningful year-over-year improvement, reflecting our initial efforts to reduce our expense base, and we expect to see continued benefits from our recent Q2 expense reduction initiative. As Ron noted, we also secured over $4 million in Bridge Financing in early Q2, which extends our runway as we continue to work towards closing the late-stage enterprise deals in our pipeline as well as pursuing strategic opportunities that will enhance shareholder value and support long-term growth. With that, I'll turn it back to the operator.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Ricky Solomon with Wilmot.

Ricky Solomon: Ron, can you possibly give any more detail you're comfortable with about the POCs you're working on now?

Rhoniel Daguro: Yes. Ricky, thank you for the question. This is probably the more exciting part of what's been happening here at authID. These POCs, there's roughly about 20 of them. that we have on target. These represent, I would say, top 3 of every single vertical that they're in, which is super exciting. These are the biggest and the best household names of the bunch. I think the thing that we have to navigate through and which are what we're really good at is that these organizations are very thorough, and they have a very specific onboarding process for the vendors, and we've gone through all of that, which is exciting.

And then we get to go head-to-head with the other competitors, which again, is very exciting for us because we know we're going to do well. So we're in that process today. This is the most amount of POCs we've ever been with this highest caliber of clients. And we're looking forward to being able to knock those down here in the next couple of quarters.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question is the follow-up from Ricky Solomon.

Ricky Solomon: Just 1 more question. Can you describe the state of our technology. I know we have the quantum resistant -- quantum resistant press release and all that. But can you just compare like where we stand in terms of our technology stack compared to, say, who are your couple of competitors are in going -- going for these POCs you're talking to?

Rhoniel Daguro: Yes. Thanks again for that question as well. I'm actually glad you brought up the quantum because I wanted to expand on that. Over the last 2 years, and you've known this over actually the last 3 years, as authID has been trying to get into the enterprise and to kind of prove our enterprise worthiness and be world-class, each of these RFPs and each of these organizations have always asked us about quantum. They knew that it was around that it's coming, but it wasn't necessarily here yet. So this is not a new thing for us.

When we had built our technology and retooled it with PrivacyKey, we knew that PrivacyKey was geared up and ready for -- was ready to be quantum resistant. And then again, actually, last couple of weeks ago when we actually made that release and quantum resisted biometrics with PrivacyKey. We're super excited about this. Now why is this super important in the space? Right now, there's 2 major trends that are converging. One is obviously AI and that's actually been bringing authID to the forefront in terms of fraud and attacks and identity. But the second one is the actual increase in compute and quantum. Why is quantum such a big deal?

Because that is the technology that's to be able to break encryption. So all modern day encryption that we know today will be at risk to quantum computing. There was a release just 3 weeks ago, how open publicly available quantum was able to break a 15-bit encryption. And so with that being said, it is actually right around the corner for us. And so authID super excited to be able to notify our customers and then also notify the public that we just have -- we just really start quantum-resistant biometrics.

And that's going to absolutely -- we're already in the forefront around privacy, but now we're going to be on the forefront of being future-proofed against all quantum compute threats in the future. So that definitely has enhanced our platform. There's nobody in the space that we know of right now that has a purpose-built quantum-resistant biometric authentication solution. I assume they're going to start to put that in place because they saw the news of the threats just 3 weeks ago. But we've had it built in and we're activating and we're releasing to the marketplace for our customers. So we're super excited about that. Thank you for the question.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. And I'm not showing any further questions. I'd like to turn the call back over to Ron.

Rhoniel Daguro: Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. If you have any further questions about our progress, please reach out to the investor handle, investor-relations@authid.ai, and look forward to speaking to you again.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's presentation. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect, and have a wonderful day.

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. Parts of this article were created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool's insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.