01:16:08 · Soren Monroe-Anderson
[01:16:08] S0: So I'd say fiber optic has been one of the bigger development step changes in FPV over the last two years. In many ways, like you look at a an FPV drone from two years ago to one today, a lot of them look really similar. There's small differences, there's things that are tweaks, drones are generally getting a little bit bigger, you know, there's shifted frequencies, but a lot of the technologies also stayed the same. Fiber has been one of those sort of actual significant shifts. So what it enables is operation when you would not be able to sustain a radio link, so that's either in a highly contested jammed environment, or beyond radio line of sight or even, you know, in a tunnel or something like that. So it's still, you know, it's not... It's been a huge factor in Ukraine, but it's not like the majority of missions are being flown with fiber. Fiber's really finicky use and and much more expensive, and it reduces your payload and you need bigger drones. There's a lot of drawbacks, but we saw how important it is as one of the tools in the tool belt, one of the pieces of the complete FPV ecosystem, and what we've been building is a complete FPV ecosystem. So to to do that, we need to have a fiber optic solution, and just like everything else, there is no alternative or no option that doesn't have Chinese components. So we we started working on it, and then we actually found a partner on it to to help move quickly, and so we've, you know, now validated our ultra fiber. It's it's going into production shortly and will be, you know, very important. It will not be the majority of drones that we ship, but it would be, an important percentage of drones that we ship.
01:17:54 · Ty Morse
[01:17:54] S1: One of the things that you really want to work on and scale up is this idea of being able to supply other OEMs and other drone manufacturers with components. How are you kind of thinking about that over the next like year or two?
01:18:10 · Soren Monroe-Anderson, Ty Morse
[01:18:10] S0: So I personally care the most about making a drone industrial base that's competitive with China, and making, you know, an American and an allied drone industrial base that's extremely strong. There's two things to balance here for us, like, Neros needs to be in control of our own destiny, which means we need to do a lot of stuff ourselves, and then make a lot of great partnerships. And then there's how can we lift up the entire drone industrial base? That is... That ties in well to needing to build our own components to hit our scale, because then we get to be able to provide those components to other people. So I think, you know, we care a lot about making like the best FPV system and scaling the componentry that goes into those systems, but then there's a lot of shared componentry between FPVs and other types of drones, and eventually we should be doing this high rate manufacturing of sort of all the critical technology that goes into a drone, and being able to to provide that to to other companies as well. Because, you know, we're not gonna go out and make every single type of of platform, and we want to be we want to be lifting, you know, lifts all boats. Right? So if we can, like, both unblock our own supply chain and help other drone companies at the same time, that's that's the win win scenario for, you know, for the country and and for everyone. [01:19:40] S1: How fast do you think you're gonna be able to scale that up?
01:19:40 · Ty Morse, Soren Monroe-Anderson
[01:19:40] S1: How fast do you think you're gonna be able to scale that up? [01:19:43] S0: 2026 is when we start actually doing component manufacturing. So that's the the clearest thing in my mind is that we will be producing components in 2026. I'm not sure if we'll really start providing them to other people in 2026, because we we need to start filling our own demand first, but beyond the immediate year, I think it's it's very reasonable that we'll be doing that. And, you know, we're also we're trying to do this in a way that's very collaborative with the rest of the industry. It is not our intention to come in and try to do everything ourself and, know, including all the other efforts that are... Like, there's a lot of companies working on drone components in America now, and, you know, more and more every day as as the trend continues. There's gonna be a lot of opportunity for us to partner with those people to build out, you know, this factory behind me and to either license their technology or they're licensing our technology. Just overall very big believer in collaboration in the ecosystem. So it shouldn't be seen like we're we're going out to try to take over the entire market, like that would that would not be a successful [01:20:56] S1: path. Neros makes a 100,000,000 drones a year. [01:20:59] S0: Yeah. But first and foremost, we have to unblock our own production. We have to be in control of our own destiny and build the strategic deterrence. So that means, you know, unblocking the things that we can't get right now.
01:20:59 · Soren Monroe-Anderson, Ty Morse
[01:20:59] S0: Yeah. But first and foremost, we have to unblock our own production. We have to be in control of our own destiny and build the strategic deterrence. So that means, you know, unblocking the things that we can't get right now. [01:21:13] S1: And while you're both trying to scale up this factory here, you also want to be building drones in other places around the world. What's kind of the logic behind that and how are you going to kind of both focus on this mainly while also doing that in parallel?
01:21:28 · Soren Monroe-Anderson
[01:21:28] S0: Yeah. Good question. That is gonna be leveraging partners very heavily because we will not be able to, you know, focus on building out this factory and and, you know, deploy like Neros teams to also build out factories other places. It's not realistic, but or not realistic in the short term. It's it's definitely doable in the longer term. But what what we wanna do essentially is take our knowledge on how to make a really effective drone system and partner with folks in other regions to to bring that technology there, and also build out more regional, like region specific supply chains. So, you know, area of interest is into into paycom. It's pretty obvious if you look at the problem set that you need to have domestic production and, like, capability that will be sustained if logistics is cut off from Continental US. So I see that, like, this facility being the sort of backbone of the American supply chain and the countries that are within logistical reach. Eventually, we'll have multiple of these factories in America, but then we'll also have them across the world. Sort of along my mindset that this whole thing is a is a collaborate... Like collaborative effort, you know, we should be getting all of the best people and partners aligned in the same direction. We should be thinking about the manufacturing problem as a, you know, as an allied joint effort, because no one country alone in, you know, the next three years is gonna have full domestic ground up everything drone. It's just an impossible task. It's just an impossible task. And, you know, strong strong allies are strength in America, and so we should be we should be working with them and and trying to give... You know, going back to the idea of credible deterrence, if building a factory in America is what brings it to America, it's probably, you know, very similar, like, production matters in other places too.