MVIS
Microvision Inc
stock NASDAQ

Another instalment [today](https://zebergportfolio.substack.com/p/strong-risk-assets-weak-usd-and-rotation?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=6253290&post_id=210598929&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_content=watch_now_gif&r=at1hh&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email) from Henrik Zeberg. Still calling MVIS to run soon.

Well, this is interesting. The journey has been long and wild. I sold minutes after getting the reverse split email recently, cementing huge losses from years of DCA. On Friday I bought back in and have 650 shares again. No more swing trades, I don't even know what my true average is but I know I'm down a toooooon, I'm just going to let it go and try my best to forget about checking MVIS for a while. I'll also forget about selling me PLTR for gains when it hit about $16, or whatever it was.
I think of the DJ Khaled meme, "congrats, you just played yourself." That's me and this stock. Originally I told myself I would give this company until 2030, then instantly deviated from that plan and tried to get fancy swing trading and going hard on options. Of course I got burned multiple times. No more, I'm going clear, baby!

Yes. The acquisitions gave us capex and opex and the combination changed the math on what had been Microvision’s sort of develop-hype-hope-dilute cycle. It’s critical to understand that current shareholders are in a very dangerous and new position relative to years past. It hasn’t triggered yet, but with the R/S the pieces are in place and the timer has started.
That said, if the stated goal is to turn Microvision into a “real” company:
IMO you make the Luminar purchase 10/10 times, and probably also the Ibeo one. We’ll see if that latter finally turns around with the S. Scantinel is less obvious to me, but given that it was pre Luminar, relatively cheap cap and op and in retrospect that it probably gives the company some runway for bringing Luminar and possibly Mavin tech forward, worth the nibble.
Iris being prior gen tech and a bit strange to push the chips in on is true, but then it’s also true that the major market targets are all prior gen. Microvision may have next gen capability, but I don’t think they have the financial capacity to bring it to market without bridging with prior gen tech.
Sumit’s bet seems to have been to leapfrog technology, but the cutting edge of the target markets were only ever far behind the sector itself, regardless of anything they said. Like when in a group of super basic people the “plugged in” one cops some new music or style that’s been circulating for a long time in its respective circles, that plugged in one still gets credit for being ahead and plugged in. When that person talks about what’s advanced or new is way different than when someone in said arena does. In retrospect it’s pretty clear that Sumit didn’t get that, or got it too late.
I think Glen has the company in the best position that it’s ever been in from a “become a real business” perspective. Unfortunately that also comes with being in the most precarious position, at least from a longstanding shareholder perspective.
Meeting guidance best case only serves to minimize dilution. If the market decides that MVIS is actually on track, then they’ll sell fewer shares into a rising price until they’re actually paying the bills and out from under HTC. If the market doesn’t agree and shareholders are footing the full bill until revenue actually covers costs, then that revenue is going to have to continue growing on a similar trajectory as current year guidance moving forward for shareholders to not get wiped out just keeping the lights on.

The post-split share count is 23.79M. By all appearances, they've not tapped the existing/new authorizations yet so all options are still on the table—though they have logged a going concern in the 10-Q.
**Question:** Can they execute a "Hybrid Recapitalization" path to avoid a much more dilutive straight equity raise? What would it take?
**Answer:** Several things look to be doable. An OSC loan. A Strategic Customer Equity Investment. Customer-funded NRE/development.
**An OSC Loan**
Becoming a recognized part of the US manufacturing base makes government funding/low cost \[conditional\] government loans doable. \[J.A. Green's wheelhouse.\] It requires a positioning shift from a 'small public lidar company seeking customers' into a **U.S. critical-technology manufacturer supporting the defense and advanced-mobility industrial base**. They need to prove it but it's plausible—especially with a ban on Chinese LiDAR in play.
The target program: **the Department of Defense Office of Strategic Capital (OSC).** Best example: [OSC commits $820M to PDW. ](https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4561771/the-office-of-strategic-capital-signs-820-million-conditional-loan-commitment-w/)The defense \[drone\] money is flowing now.
OSC exists specifically to finance domestic production of critical tech. Priorities include: **sensor hardware, autonomous mobile robots, advanced manufacturing, and microelectronics**—all areas MVIS can realistically pitch...
“MicroVision is establishing domestic production capacity for defense-grade perception sensors, autonomous-system electronics and custom microelectronics that are currently exposed to foreign supply-chain dependency.”
The catch: OSC isn't rescue financing. Credible repayment ability must be shown. LOI's, paid pilots, purchase commitments, and/or cash flow/production expansion—Movia Air, Movia S, and Iris could provide this in the next few months. Getting Movia/Iris onto an actual defense platform, designating Orlando as a defense manufacturing operation, or getting private equity contributions could all do it as well.
Also, if they can make MVIS Semiconductor part of the national security story with strategic capabilities to execute ASICs, sensor interfaces, photonics, custom defense silicon—they'd crossover into mission critical microelectronics design, not just LiDAR.
Having relationships with domestic foundries like GFS and Tower (Israeli with US fabs) ups credibility: GFS is already a DMEA Category 1A Trusted Supplier with a secure supply chain and a previous DOD award of $117M. If MVIS can plug into the ecosystem to fabricate through a DMEA-trusted domestic foundry \[supporting autonomous defense systems/ISR\], they substantially improve their "Critical Domestic Technology" \[sovereign\] production designation. Skywater is also a possibility. Additionally, If MVIS can add an anchor-type customer like Anduril or a defense prime, the OSC would have everything it wants to see.
**Strategic-Customer Equity Investment**
Several previous announcements suggest this may be possible. The Hyperscaler, the presumed-to-be-CAT industrial agreement, or possibility a defense prime—all potential anchor customers, seemingly in evaluation mode now. While Glen noted 130 engagements, in this scenario, all that matters is one. One relationship does three things simultaneously with an additional hidden benefit...
1.) It fixes the equity problem—unrestricted capital at better terms than the ATM. 2.) It fixes the revenue problem—NRE begins flowing immediately and guidance can be raised. 3.) Government financing is now more credible—OSC et al see a sophisticated commercial customer risking its own capital and committing to purchase.
The hidden benefit: A strategic investment at $4.50 rather than dumping ATM shares around $3–$4 creates an implicit valuation signal. If a Caterpillar-scale customer says, "We're investing $25M at $4.50..." the market hears, "A sophisticated industrial company performed technical due diligence and decided MicroVision was worth owning."
This could potentially change the equity-market valuation before MicroVision ever uses its ATM again. If the stock subsequently rises to, say, $7 or $8, the company could opportunistically sell a relatively small amount through the ATM with dramatically less dilution... **or this would be the opportunity to issue a rights offering or warrants in order to make long time existing shareholders a priority.**
To compare the numbers:
The hybrid path: Strategic Customer $20-25M — Funded NRE/purchase agreement $15-20M approx. — OSC Financing $40-55M > Higher Market Valuation — ATM only if needed.
Vastly preferable to: Reverse-split — $50M ATM > Stock falls in value — Another financing — more dilution.
The existing debt adds some complexity, but if a hybrid path can be executed over the next several months, HTC is likely to work with us to modify or retire the notes.
A well-structured $75M–$100M recapitalization could leave existing shareholders owning roughly **80%–84% of MVIS**, compared with only **45%–55% under a straight equity financing at the current valuation**. A substantial difference.
For me, this is probably the most shareholder-friendly realistic path available: **anchor customer + strategic equity + funded NRE + government-backed U.S. industrialization financing + aggressive burn reduction.** Without that combination, the math increasingly pushes MicroVision toward conventional equity issuance and much heavier dilution.
Posting this with the intent that it may provide management some further nuance to consider in the current situation.

“*The report of my*(MVIS) *death was an exaggeration*”

T_Delo, Are you a MVIS shareholder ?

The PR explicitly says that the fusion here is done on the ground computer. I'm not sure what to tell you.
The MVIS solution requires a separate camera provided by some other vendor, an Orin mounted on the drone, and a ground system capable of doing the real time fusion. All of these things will add to the overall cost.
I would assume that a similar ouster solution would still be more expensive (sensor plus sufficient external compute to do the SLAM/mapping), but maybe by a factor of two or something, not a factor of more than 10 like Glen keeps making it sound by throwing these $200 numbers around. Also, the ouster solution will give you higher point density, greater range, and better ranging precision, meaning the drone can fly higher and faster and accomplish a mapping mission much faster.
One advanage of the mvis approach *could* be the fact that the map is prepared on the drone and beamed down, but this seems to be neutralized by the fact that the RGB/lidar fusion has to be processed on a ground computer anyways. It's likely that ouster data stream may be too high-bandwidth to be downlinked like the mvis data stream, but subsampling down to the movia resolution may neutralized this advantage as well. Hard to say without more numbers.

Morning everyone!
Economic report(s) scheduled for the day is(are) | at^[i](https://fidelityfiplus.econoday.com/byweek): None. Media platforms are discussing: AI Capex compared to Revenues, Inflation concerns, Gold’s breakout, Jobs report analysis, Expectations for AI Agents, FOMO traders, US-Iran talks, AI price competition, Housing markets. Once again, hopes are being peddled for the markets as rationalization of capital expenses by companies is poured on to the claims of sales growth in certain areas, even if those may be lacking customers actually using AI products the companies have been creating; The search for practical applications continues, though some companies are using it for a few things that are less sensitive to mistakes (like early concepts). Premarket futures were mixed this morning, with the S&P up very slightly, the Nasdaq up modestly, the Dow and Russell 2k were down, VIX futures were also down.
MVIS ended the last trading session at 3.39, on lower volume traded compared to the split adjusted daily average over the past month. Stock price action saw the Short related volumes by percentage of the total _reported_ volumes came in well above the average of the last 30 days. There was a time when MicroVision could point at their controlled spending as a point of better performance than their competitors, where others might have seen massive Sales and Marketing costs or exorbitant Research and Development associated with their meager sales. While those things have remained true to some degree, the unfortunate reality is that MicroVision has spent large on acquisitions that have hit the books in such a way that removes the argument of being particularly prudent. The expenses on those acquisitions have to be put into the context of improving sales, though that improvement is balanced against the costs associated, and the bottom line remains negative.
## Daily Data
***
|H: 3.52 — L: 3.11 — C: 3.39 ^[i](https://chartexchange.com/symbol/nasdaq-mvis/historical/) |[Calendar](https://fidelityfiplus.econoday.com/byweek.asp)|
|:- |:-|
|**Pivots ↗︎ : 3.57, 3.75, 3.98** ^([i](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pivotpoint.asp)) |**Pivots ↘︎ : 3.16, 2.93, 2.75**|
|Total Options Vol: 122 ^([i](https://researchtools.fidelity.com/ftgw/mloptions/goto/underlyingStatistics?cusip=&symbol=MVIS&Search=Search)) |Avg 90d Options: 1,277|
|Calls: 102 ~ 60% at Market ⊟ |Puts: 20 ~ 60% at Ask or ↗︎|
|Open Exchanges: 295k ~ 55% ^[i](https://chartexchange.com/symbol/nasdaq-mvis/exchange-volume/) |Off Exchanges: 238k ~ 45% ^[i](https://chartexchange.com/symbol/nasdaq-mvis/exchange-volume/)|
|IBKR: 100k Rate: 13.26%^[i](https://chartexchange.com/symbol/nasdaq-mvis/borrow-fee/) |Fidelity: 12k Rate: 8.25%
|**R Vol: 73% of Avg Vol: 1,054k** ^([i](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/averagedailytradingvolume.asp)) |**Short Vol: 358k of 453k ~ 79%** ^[i](https://chartexchange.com/symbol/nasdaq-mvis/short-volume/?tblshortvolix=0)|

^(Follow links for sources. Bold text represents key points or larger data, Italics are slightly unusual or lower than normal.)

Good morning fellow MVIS’ers.
Post your thoughts for the day.
\_\_\_\_\_
If you're new to the board, check out our DD thread which consolidates more important threads in the past year.
[**The Best of r/MVIS Meta Thread v2**](https://old.reddit.com/r/MVIS/comments/lbeila/the_best_of_rmvis_meta_thread_v2/)

MVIS has exclusivity for 3 years?

MVIS is not the stock price

Thanks for the health update, VOR. I am glad to hear your optimism.
I am in the middle of similar radical life changes and challenges. It is amazing what lifestyle modifications and health improvements you can materialize when properly motivated. My body is all pumped up and healthy for the fight, but lets see how I feel after they finally call it done with the ray beams and chemicals. I get my first tattoos in about two weeks.
I'll just bulldoze a path through. It will probably be uphill all the way like it always is, but this isn't going to be what kills me. Nah, I'm determined that my end will be dying of shock when I read an earnings release where MVIS announces it is cash flow positive.
Any time now would be helpful.
NV

Does MVIS not own or at least have a licence for the technology in Iris and Halo?

Ben, enormous thanks for the hard work in producing these very insightful podcasts. It is heartening to see the potentials here and the progress being made by the company. I saw an article this week about a bomb loaded drone at an airport in Germany close to a Ukrainian freight plane supposedly carrying ammunition. Another potential opportunity for MVIS security mapping technology. Every other day it seems new avenues are arising and hopefully we can grab these with both hands outstretched. Thanks again.

It’s def heart breaking. I did so much research on them, compared all the other companies at the time when LAZR was the top dog. It was interesting how obvious it was to me that OUST had the best product and business. To now see LAZR sold off to the good awful MVIS was definitely not in my bingo cards. Still patiently waiting on MVIS to go under as well. 

It really is bizarre when one steps back. Lately I've been wondering if the whole thing hasn't revolved around Luminar hand in hand with the reality of mems' utter failure in the lidar arena. As it has turned out the only thing MVIS had going for it pre-GD was Ibeo flash lidar, but even Movia L fell flat on its face under SS. So I feel in retrospect that before GD came along, MVIS was long overdue for bk.
You asked:
So just because so many of us were bamboozled on mems, does that mean all the lidar and automotive industry insiders of the world were bamboozled too? Very, very doubtful. Somebody like GD might have seen it plain as a year before we did. SS probably came around to seeing it as well along about the time his projections vaporized.
Something smart people on this board did see for I'd say several years was how Luminar was running itself into the ground. According to the [Luminar Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminar_Technologies), LAZR was carrying a $1.3 billion deficit at the end of 2022. That's even *before* they built the 2023 Mexico plant in anticipation of Volvo biz.
Here again, people like GD had to see that too. As the Volvo/Luminar process developed, or failed to properly develop, did industry insiders monitor that situation and come to the conclusion that it was very likely Volvo would drop Luminar like a sack of potatoes if the process didn't improve? If so the logical question would become, who will buy Luminar when and if they go bankrupt? After all, other than running themselves into the ground they had a lot going for them.
So who would be the most likely candidate to buy Luminar: a company that is gaining, or is at least confident in gaining market share by using the products they've developed already or a company that is failing to gain and has no confidence that they ever will gain market share with the ineffective products they've developed? The former is busy and spending enough that they aren't really looking to take on something like buying Luminar while the latter could be said to be utterly failing and desperate to take on something exactly like buying Luminar. Wouldn't that add up to maybe getting Luminar really cheap since nobody else wants it?
Was a plan hatched somehow by some very astute group of business people to bring in a willing GD early 2025 as CTO to hide and watch what happens with Luminar that year? If the opportunity presents, yes, throw MVIS into debt, fire SS, and buy Luminar. Oh look, Scantinal's a very cheap target of opportunity along that road and we need that. If the opportunity doesn't present, well Microvision was doomed anyway; let them crash and burn like Luminar did. But it's worth a try.
They would have known the whole r/s scenario was inevitable with the execution of such a plan. The dilution will be painful as we know all too well. If all this is right, then I have to apologize for all the nasty things I said, but how was I supposed to know? Hell, it's all a big fiction anyway.

It took 9 years after the 2012 reverse split before hitting the high in 2021.
The history of putting time limits on harvesting your investment in this stock has factually created more *realized losses* than any other single factor in the equation during those 9 years.
I myself lost $20,000 buying "gotta have deals by then" expiration dated call options.
What worked marvelously during that time was to dca a fixed amount at a fixed interval and have the patience of Job.
Could there be another harvest in store for MVIS stalwarts following that recipe that appears equally unimaginaible *right now* as it did in March of 2020?
Time Will Tell.
IMO. DDD.
Not investing advice, and I'm not an investment professional.

Ben, thanks for a great podcast.   I was really looking forward to watching your take on the ER & was not disappointed.   You summed up nicely how MVIS certainly has a lot in the pipeline right now & actually almost hard to keep up with it all.  Our CEO seems to be streamlining things very nicely for the future success of the company.  Also, it was only this morning that I read the article from Next Gen Def (courtesy of Zenboy) & you already managed to include it in your podcast.   It seems like you don’t miss a thing:)    Overall, just a fantastic job!   

Ben's MicroVision Podcast - MVIS Q2 2026 Review

Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) event coming soon 10-14 August. I wish MVIS team all the best!