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The
information contained within this announcement is deemed by the
Company (Companies House registration number 08873361) to
constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse
Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 ("MAR"). With the publication of this
announcement via a Regulatory Information Service ("RIS"), this
inside information is now considered to be in the public
domain.
13 August
2024
Tekcapital
Plc
("Tekcapital", the "Company"
or the "Group")
Innovative Eyewear, Inc.
Reports Second Quarter 2024 Financial
Results
Quarterly Revenue
Increased 82% vs Q2
2023
Tekcapital Plc (AIM: TEK), the UK
intellectual property investment group notes that Innovative
Eyewear, Inc. ("Innovative Eyewear") (NASDAQ: LUCY; LUCYW), the
developer and retailer of ChatGPT enabled smart eyewear under the
Lucyd®, Nautica®, Eddie Bauer® and Reebok® brands, announced today
its Second Quarter 2024 Financial Results which can be accessed on
www.sec.gov.
Net revenue for the quarter ended
June 30, 2024 was $308,682, an increase of 82% from the quarter
ended June 30, 2023. Net revenue for the six months ended June 30,
2024 was $692,153, an increase of 120% vs the comparable period in
2023. These year-over-year increases were primarily attributable to
significant volume growth in the ecommerce channel, driven by
Innovative Eyewear's strategic advertising and marketing
initiatives implemented during the latter portion of 2023 and
through the current period, combined with recent new product
launches (including the Lyte XL, Nautica® Powered by Lucyd and
Eddie Bauer® Powered by Lucyd collections).
Additionally, Innovative Eyewear's
gross profit margins significantly improved from the prior year,
from a deficit of -18% in the second quarter of 2023 to 18% in the
second quarter of 2024, reflecting greater economies of scale
coupled with achieving management's stated goal to reduce lens
fulfilment costs.
![](https://dw6uz0omxro53.cloudfront.net/3139552/6e51ac8d-1523-4e81-8206-6eed9086cd08.png)
Eddie Bauer® Horizon
Model
Word's first rimless smart
eyewear
Photo
courtesy of Innovative Eyewear, Inc.
During the quarter Innovative Eyewear announced several
important milestones:
•
Expanding Innovative Eyewear's first-to-market
voice interface for ChatGPT through the launch of a Bixby app
called LUCY to enable handsfree ChatGPT access on its glasses for
Samsung users. This brings a powerful new feature to Samsung phone
users for the first time, namely the ability to access ChatGPT via
the device's native voice assistant from our eyewear.
•
Filed two new United States patent applications, a
utility application, No. 18/605,092, entitled, "SMART EYEWEAR
HAVING ACCESSIBLE TACTILE CONTROLS" and a design application, No.
29/930,655, entitled "SAFETY EYEWEAR." These two new patent
applications are directed towards Innovative Eyewear's new Lucyd
Armor smart safety glasses which are planned to be introduced later
this year. Innovative Eyewear developed Lucyd Armor to meet the
needs of industrial and medical safety glass users in response to
multiple customer requests. Innovative Eyewear also received
notices of allowance on three smart eyewear design patent
applications (patent application Nos. 29/806,204, 29/806/207,
29/806/209).
•
Launch of Lucyd smart eyewear in ten select New
Look stores in Quebec and on NewLook.ca. New Look is a leading
eyewear retailer with over 450 stores in the US and
Canada.
•
Innovative Eyewear signed a new distribution
agreement with Windsor Eyes, a leading eyewear manufacturing and
distribution firm. This agreement aims to forge a robust
collaboration between Innovative Eyewear's unique, cutting-edge
smart eyewear products and Windsor Eyes' well-established
distribution network within the optical retail sector. Together,
Innovative and Windsor intend to work closely to ensure extensive
distribution of smart eyewear across the United States, targeting
key large optical retail outlets.
•
Signed Micah Richards, former Olympic athlete,
premier-league footballer and Sky News announcer, as a brand
ambassador. Innovative Eyewear believes Mr. Richards will be a
well-aligned headliner to promote the upcoming Reebok Powered by
Lucyd collection, and spearhead efforts to expand sales in UK
optical stores.
•
PCMag.com rated Innovative Eyewear's products the
"Best Smart Eyewear for ChatGPT Super Fans," indicating a positive
reception from a trusted tech news source for our GenAI featured
eyewear.
•
Innovative Eyewear engaged a new audio engineering
team to further enhance the music and call quality of several of
its forthcoming products.
Commercial Outlook
After the recent successful launch
of the Eddie Bauer® Powered by Lucyd line in the second quarter of
2024, Innovative Eyewear anticipates launching the Reebok® Powered
by Lucyd line and the Lucyd Armor smart safety glasses in the
second half of 2024, to be followed by a Reebok® Optical Smart
Eyewear collection in the first half of 2025.
Meanwhile, Innovative Eyewear is
focused on introducing Lucyd products in major national retailers,
which they believe could have a significant positive impact on
revenues in subsequent periods. To help achieve this, Innovative
Eyewear has engaged Windsor Eyes as a premier distributor in the
optical market, and as of July 2024, they have already helped
introduce Lucyd frames into three new eyewear retailers.
In continuing efforts to reduce
costs and improve margins, Innovative Eyewear has refined its
product mix and anticipates reducing unit costs in the future by
focusing on high volume, market-tested styles. Innovative Eyewear
has also recently contracted with a new lower-cost lens supplier
which is expected to further reduce lens costs beginning in the
third quarter of 2024. Innovative Eyewear anticipates that gross
profit margins may further improve in the fourth quarter of 2024 as
the new Lucyd Armor and Reebok® Powered by Lucyd lines are
launched, as the unit cost of these new products are estimated to
be significantly lower than current Lucyd Lyte models.
Innovative Eyewear has nearly
completed development of several new product lines and retail
solutions to be launched in the fourth quarter of 2024 and 2025 and
anticipates an end-to-end enhancement of its product offering to
consumers and retailers by the first quarter of 2025. They believe
this will bring additional improvements to product build quality
and adjustability, sound quality, size and style variety, custom
lens quality, companion app functionality, and sell-through rates
of retail displays.
Harrison Gross, CEO of Innovative Eyewear Inc.,
commented:
"We have continued the trend of
outperforming each quarter on a year-over-year basis, which we have
done every quarter for the last 12 months. I am pleased by our
continued growth and excited by the potential of further expansion
later this year with the upcoming launches of new product lines and
upgraded app releases.
While our ecommerce
direct-to-consumer sales remain the most material portion of our
sales to date, we believe that the wholesale optical channel
represents a significant growth opportunity. We anticipate that as
smart eyewear becomes more normalized for prescription wear,
national eye care providers will begin to onboard more smart
eyewear. As an innovator and value and variety leader in the
category, we believe we are well positioned to earn a portion of
this rapidly growing market."
About Innovative Eyewear, Inc.
Innovative Eyewear is a developer
and retailer of cutting-edge smart eyewear, under the
Lucyd®, Nautica®, Eddie Bauer® and
Reebok® brands. True to their mission to Upgrade Your Eyewear®,
their Bluetooth audio glasses allow users to stay safely and
ergonomically connected to their digital lives, and are offered in
hundreds of frame and lens combinations to meet the needs of the
optical market. To learn more and explore our continuously evolving
collection of smart eyewear, please visit www.lucyd.co.
Tekcapital currently owns 259,455
shares (approximately 17%) of Innovative Eyewear, Inc.
Tekcapital's percentage ownership
has been reduced as a result of Innovative Eyewear Inc raising
approximately $6m during 2024. Tekcapital views the enhanced
balance sheet of Innovative Eyewear Inc. as a positive development
for the Company as it strengthens its competitive
position.
For
further information, please contact:
Tekcapital Plc
|
|
Via Flagstaff
|
Clifford M. Gross,
Ph.D.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SP Angel Corporate Finance
LLP
(Nominated Adviser and
Broker)
|
|
+44 (0) 20 3470
0470
|
Richard Morrison/Charlie Bouverat
(Corporate Finance)/Abigail Wayne / Rob Rees (Corporate
Broking)
|
|
|
Flagstaff Strategic and Investor
Communications
|
|
+44
(0) 20 7129 1474
|
Tim Thompson/Andrea Seymour/Fergus
Mellon
|
|
|
About Tekcapital plc
Tekcapital creates value from
investing in new, university-developed discoveries that can enhance
people's lives and provides a range of technology transfer services
to help organisations evaluate and commercialise new technologies.
Tekcapital is quoted on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange
(AIM: symbol TEK) and is headquartered in the UK. For more
information, please visit www.tekcapital.com.
LEI: 213800GOJTOV19FIFZ85
Forward-Looking
Statements
This press release is for
informational purposes only. The information herein does not
constitute investment advice nor an offer to invest and may contain
statements related to our future business and financial performance
and future events or developments involving Innovative Eyewear,
Inc., Lucyd or Tekcapital that may constitute forward-looking
statements. These statements may be identified by words such as
"expect," "look forward to," "anticipate" "intend," "plan,"
"believe," "seek," "estimate," "will," "project" or words of
similar meaning. We may also make forward-looking statements in
other reports, in presentations, in material delivered to
customers, stakeholders and in press releases. In addition, our
representatives may from time to time make oral forward-looking
statements. Such statements may be based on the current
expectations and certain assumptions of Tekcapital, Innovative
Eyewear Inc. or Lucyd's management. Please note that these are
subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and factors, including,
but not limited to those described in various disclosures. Should
one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should
underlying expectations not occur or assumptions prove incorrect,
actual results, performance or achievements of Innovative Eyewear
Inc., Lucyd and/or Tekcapital may vary materially from those
described explicitly or implicitly in the relevant forward-looking
statement. Other than as required by relevant regulation or law,
neither Innovative Eyewear Inc, Lucyd nor Tekcapital intends,
nor assumes any obligation, to update or revise these
forward-looking statements in light of developments which differ
from those anticipated.