Hi, welcome to today's presentation, where we have the pleasure to present Audientes. To help us through today's presentation, we are joined by CEO, Steen Thygesen. Our focus on today's event, the Q1 report, fresh from the press, and also the announcement, sorry, from yesterday, and fresh from the press, the announcement today of the short-term financing. I'm sure you will get more into that as we dig into it through the questions. As always, ask questions down in the box down below. Do it in Danish, in English, due to your, you being on the Swedish stock market also listed, we do this in English. Do not fear, just ask the questions in Danish, and I will try and translate them to the best of my ability. For now, Steen, I will hand the call over to you. Thank you very much, and welcome for this event, the Q1 financial report from Audientes A/S. It's a pleasure having you here, and look forward to the interactive dialogue after my presentation. What we have on the agenda today is basically the sort of walkthrough of where are we now with the business? What happened in the first quarter? What are we looking for the coming kind of part of the year? I would really focus on the sort of key strategy we have now with earKART in India, what this means, how we go to market, and of course, look at what else do we have in our business portfolio. First of all, I think many people who are following us knows that we have been through this funding exercise that kind of started last in December with a rights issue that was fully subscribed to the tune of DKK 14 million. We had planned and basically a following associated series of warrants utilization in running in late March until mid-April, that should have yielded significantly more than we ended up with. We ended up with around DKK 0.9 million in gross proceeds and after costs, around DKK 650,000 to the company. Of course, this was significantly less than we had expected due to the quite low share price at the time. We had actually a quite nice utilization rate of around 70%, but we had sort of to go back to the drawing board and look at what else are we now able to sort of put together as a comprehensive plan for reaching the objectives that we have set us. We've been working on that for the last couple of months, actually, and we have been, together with our finance partner, evaluating and putting together, sort of a really a plan where we have today announced the first part of, you can say the first step, which is a convertible loan of around DKK 750,000 from our existing lenders, which really is part of enabling our key focus on succeeding in the Indian market together with our new partner, earKART. We made some changes, of course, to the board as well during the process. People will know that. We set a new board to really focus on the journey from then on going forward and realizing the potential we think that are in Audientes. The kind of operational highlights that I would like to emphasize for the first quarter then, is really that we managed to generate sales to two new customers, in particular of the Ven hearing aid in India, with one of the customers actually being in Nepal. We were quite excited about expanding our market reach into an adjacent country. Nepal has got many things in comparison with India, I would say, from a kind of demographics point of view, and also the fact that it's a country really in the need of the type of solutions that we are able to provide. We are really excited about that. We generated around DKK 0.2 million in revenue, so it's not a lot. We call it a modest revenue. We are really looking forward to growing that in the coming months. Of course, we know that with the deal with earKART, we are on a trajectory now to grow that significantly further. For us, this was really also a period where we were waiting for the completion of our new version 2.0 software platform that will really strongly enhance the value proposition of Ven in the market in India, and of course, also, power the Companion product in other markets. I think people who are following us will know that we did manage to complete that release. Maybe some are actually enjoying it, but just want to emphasize how important this is for us, because we were really in the fourth quarter last year, in a situation where, due to the kind of lack of the amplification in the product Ven, we were unable to really drive a lot more sales through the channels, and we also had essentially to make this provision for sales revenue, meaning that we took back unsold products from the channel in order to upgrade them to the 2.0 release. Now we're putting them in the market again with earKART. Of course, that had an effect on the results from last year. At this point in time, we are really looking forward now. We have a new execution platform in India, and we're really looking forward to see the benefits of that. While doing all of this, we also managed to launch the Companion product in the Nordics. Basically it's on sale in Denmark and Sweden now through some online retail partners who began marketing and selling the product, and you can say seeing the initial interest, and we are sort of trying to figure out how to grow that further by entering other markets and other channels. It is also available today, the Companion product from Audientes.eu, our own online store. If you look at the financial situation, I mentioned revenue-wise, generated in the first quarter, around DKK 211,000, and we continued to use the funding from the December rights issue to pay off existing vendor debt. Also, of course, we invested that in R&D, the completion of our v2.0 release, and so forth. We are in a situation at the end of the quarter where, of course, we have been looking for where can we say, do we raise the coming funding from? The announcement that I made this morning from a kind of loan point of view that you mentioned, Michael, is essentially part of that plan, is the first step, and of course, there is more to come on that account. The outlook for the year, of course, is really, you can say in India, it's really focused on making the earKART collaboration successful. It's going to mean a lot to us, this new way of working. Changing the distribution and retailer setup is of a key thing to achieve from us, and we're good on way. We're doing training, we're doing kind of education of both staff and channel partners. I think what we're expecting now from this agreement is around the next 12 months will generate around DKK 5 million in revenue from this partnership alone. We have decided not to- Steen, if we can take a question. Yeah. I think it fits here. We have a question. Is it a soft or hard commitment you have from earKART, you know, legally speaking, you know? Yeah. Are they committed to take products, or is it a marketing plan, what they expect to? It's a minimum sales commitment, but it's in the sense of should they not manage to sell that amount, of course, there's no recourse for actually coming and claiming that amount. It is really part of an order that has a commitment associated with it the overall agreement. We have a similar thing the coming year, so of course, we are fully incentivized to make, you can say, that happen together with earKART. That's clear. Yes, perfect. Now we've also decided not to announce any specific target for this year. We want to really get moving and understanding the actual progression of the business and so on, before we go back to doing that. We have, of course, done that in the past. Now, I think a couple of weeks ago, I managed to give a business update. You know, we moved this Q1 presentation a couple of weeks, I did go through and actually gave an update on what is this partnership about. Of course, earKART as an organization, has got a quite significant reach in from a dealer point of view, but they also have many interesting elements around lead generation to these dealers and many other plans for new channels and so forth. I think this is really a partnership that builds on all the things that we have thought was important to do, and that's what earKART is also in the business of doing. We are really looking forward to working with them in the coming years. Maybe, Steen, can you explain me, you know, you also had a lot of, you had your own partners- Yeah I think they could take them over. As I looked at the problems in 2022, was actually getting it from, you know, pushed out to the consumer. Yes. You know, can you explain a little bit, about what changes may be from the dealer out to the consumer by joining up by earKART? I know that, of course, there's a cost saving. Yeah. You put your distribution out, will there also be a stronger side where earKART is more able to push from the dealers and out to the consumer? Yeah. I think it is somewhat of a coincidence that as we are launching the new and improved Ven software platform, the version 2.0 product and so forth, that is coincides with us actually striking this agreement with earKART. What it means is that now we are having the product that we believe is the ready product ready for that channel. The professional kind of hearing clinics is what we talk about here. earKART, of course, has got a reach like we had also, but we're gonna integrate those two. Our dealers, of course, will be doing business through earKART in the future. We have been communicating that to all the dealers and have been in discussions with them on how to do that going forward. Essentially, there is some overlap, of course, in terms of who is earKART already was dealing with and who was in our partner network. All of that is kind of being integrated. Going forward, new customer leads and so on, we are guiding them to earKART from the outset. There will be some amalgamation of the two different kind of partner networks into one, and I think that'll grow also earKART's base as it stands. I'm also thinking in maybe in the consumer marketing, you know, feet on the ground, helping the shops to start selling it. Is that still? Will you get more of that by earKART? Do they have the better experience with the market on that, or, how to understand that maybe? earKART is particularly well-versed in doing the online marketing and advertisement and basically driving customer leads to their channel partners. They're investing quite significantly in that. As they are also now rolling out, you can say our product, we are benefiting from that existing platform they have created and which they are basically making a, you can say their unique sales, effort from. Yeah. We have, of course, also been dabbling into that, and I think they have a stronger play doing that already today. Our existing staff will continue to support and educate the channel partners. That's sort of where we are trying to have continuity and not changing everything in that sense. They will know the people, and they will know what they are, why they're coming and talking to them. The whole sort of upfront sales effort and the marketing is being done by earKART now. earKART. Yeah. Perfect. Of course, what is in the sense of all of this is the Ven product in India, and that's the one we have been, of course, marketing now since about a year ago, for, you know, with a serious effort put behind it. It has been improving in terms of quality, sound wise, noise cancellation, and then this increased amplification and therefore fitting range. That is the product now we are going out now together with earKART and what else they have in their portfolio. From a go-to-market point of view, I think we have been sharing this model before, but now for us, it really is earKART who are fronting our engagements from a sales and marketing point of view with the channels, the online channels, and the kind of retail offline channels. Of course, we are also involved in supporting them post-sale and also pre-sale in some ways with the training that we are carrying out. One thing we have been doing in the last couple of months is also by looking at the actual target audience. You know, who is it that we are marketing our product to with earKART, and who are the customers? Since now that we have got two products in the portfolio, we have one for real kind of people needing hearing aid with good amplification, and then we have some that are maybe more in this OTC market, where they're looking for hearing enhancement. For example, in the U.S. market or in markets in Europe, for instance. We, we're trying to sort of look at kind of the first-time hearing aid user, the second device user who may already have a device, and they're looking for a device that might help them listening better to media and television and so on. We have the classic segments that we have been looking into, the pensioner, the geriatric, basically the older person, and with stronger hearing loss, and the group of underserved people, as we call them. Kind of the less affluent people who are really struggling to invest in quality hearing solutions. These are the ones that we, together with earKART, of course, are going out to address in the Indian market. It's also very relevant we are going out now, for example, with a Companion device and looking at who are the customers in these new markets, and who are we going to kind of market this to? This is, of course, there's a go-to-market plan behind each of the product, but this is just to say that this is actually a multitude of different end user customers we are dealing with, and let alone who is actually buying the device, because it's not always the end user who are actually purchasing and paying for the product. Again, earKART helps us navigate this environment, partly through the online advertisement, but also directly in the channels. I just wanted to emphasize also the product portfolio aspect. You know, we did this, you can say, doubling of our portfolio last year as we introduced Companion. Companion is really a product that is aiming at markets that are not regulated, and that's the main difference, I would say. Markets in Europe and markets elsewhere, where it's more a consumer electronics device, is where we have made this product for, and we are, we're putting it in the market as we are encountering opportunities and basically partnering with companies on that. Behind that, of course, there's always a specific marketing plan for how to handle that in a given country. We are not going to go into each country just to launch Companion. We are looking for channel partners, distributors, and importers to do that. I've shared this comparison in the past, and I think the most noticeable difference is where a hearing aid really is for people with sort of disabling hearing loss. The Companion product are for people who are in the need of enhancement of their hearing in certain situations. Could be people who are earlier, you can say, than actually getting a hearing aid, or could be some that are maybe also finding less use of classic hearing aids and are looking for something else. Maybe you can say the geriatrics, who may be needing a solutions that are sort of easy to access and sits well on the body and doesn't fall off and get lost. This is kind of what we are continuously exploring. Just really, you can say, to make the sort of point around Companion, we are trying to position that differently than, the hearing device, Ven. It's because these are different markets, they're different value propositions. We think more of this product in the direction of reading glasses, that you can use them on a needs basis. You can plug them in when watching television or on the phone or listening to music and so on, but this is kind of some of the key use cases for this type of offering. While it's using the same hardware platform, we have also made some changes to the software, so the hearing test and how it's being visualized is simpler. It's not clinical in that sense. It's talking into a different audience. And of course, the app has got many of the same hallmarks. It's the same kind of physical app, if I can put it like that. It's the same app, but it's, it displays, a different experience when it's running on the Companion product. Just again, in a nutshell, why is Audientes an interesting investment? I think it still comes back to this key promise of addressing this untapped potential in growing markets. There is this need for accessible and affordable hearing solutions, and we are with continuing to focus on delivering quality hearing solutions into exactly that segment. Whether these are regulated products, like with the Ven product in India or Companion outside India, is what we have in focus. I think there's many companies now looking at how can you grow this industry? We are part of that group, looking at how do we extend existing markets of a traditional industry by introducing new solutions. Today we are standing with, you can say, validation of the basic product and overall concept in India, and we are now bringing that out into other markets, of course, but India is really where we are placing, you can say, the bulk of our focus and attention in this year. I think we are benefiting from having more than one product in the market, and I think we are looking at, of course, driving that home in the coming months as well as we do on an opportunity basis. That's sort of what I had prepared today. What will happen f rom a calendar point of view, I just want to mention that is that, in a couple of weeks, we are releasing the annual report, and later in June, we have the annual general meeting for 2023. That's what I had put together today. Thank you very much for listening in. Perfect. Yeah, let's run through some question, you know. How long will the funding round from today last? You mentioned it as a step one. Yeah. Um- Well, it is part of a larger plan, we will continue to add to that as we are, you can say, exhausting the funds. There will be new funds coming in, we have a number of things in the works around that. Of course, it's a step, I'm not gonna comment on how long it lasts, but it's just like, this is the first step on a sort of a ladder, there will be more steps to come. Perfect. I don't know whether you wanna share that, about the 200,000, how much is coming from markets outside India? It's sort of like, it's roughly half. It is the, you can say the Nepal order and also some initial revenue that we derived here in the late Q1 from Europe. Okay. Will you be ready to go into the U.S. with the current capital plan? Well, I think honestly, the U.S. is on our roadmap, it is part of, you can say, the steps that needs to be funded, beyond what we have in mind at this point in time. Yeah. The final question: How large is your quarterly cost after you cut costs? You have mentioned that you have been bringing down, changing models and everything, and I guess the Q1 cost base we can see in your P&L that must be, very backward-looking. I know you're not going to give me the exact number, that you are going to hit, but, roughly how will the cost base be maybe compared to the Q1. It'll be significantly less, and it is because we have been really sort of trying to, you can say, partly introduce some more flexible models for how we staff up on the different tasks. We have also been reducing quite a lot of costs in both the fixed and variable areas. With the earKART partnership, of course, we are having certain, you can say, tasks being assumed by them, which means we don't have to invest in so much marketing and certain sales efforts as well. We've really been trying to sort of, I won't say cut into the bone, but this is kind of how we think about it. We've really been going for a lean approach now going forward with the right staffing in Denmark and the right staffing in India to really focus on getting to a point where we are breaking even as quickly as we can. This is kind of what we have heard from the market, our investors, what they are looking for. They would like to see a stable business, of course, with high potential and growing, but really at a point where it's the business case is starting to become really, you can say, clear and well understood, and that's what we're working towards. The model, outside India and Nepal, you're going in Denmark, and in Sweden, you mentioned. How is the model there? Is it you driving that sales, or is it also? Like? A model like earKART in India, where you can go in with maybe less capital requirements? Yeah. It is the, it is in the direction of the earKART model. Some of these things, when we are presented with opportunities, people who are wanting to work with us, of course, we don't like saying no, we're trying to figure out, how do we do this? We are not talking about going in, setting up, you can say, a large enterprise in a given country, unless there is adequate funding to do that coming from, you can say, that source, maybe as a partnership or a dedicated investment focused on enabling that opportunity. We're sort of going at it a bit, you can say, we have the offering. We're talking to people. We are assessing opportunities, and then we are executing on what would make sense at a given time. Perfect, Steen. I think we went through all the question coming in, and you went through our quarterly result, and I will speak to you again when you deliver your full year report, and maybe that's not the most interesting part to look into the, whether you have gotten steps further on. Yes, absolutely. -on the funding plan there. See you in a fortnight. Is that the correct around that? Around that time. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Perfect. All right. Thank you, Steen. Thank you very much for listening in. Thanks.