Aeluma Closes Fiscal 2026 With $582,000 of Fourth-Quarter Revenue, $56.0 Million of Cash and a CHIPS Letter of Intent That Would Hand Commerce Stock Worth the Whole Award

by Karl Lindström · September 25, 2026

Semiconductors & Hardware Reporter, Frontier Tech Wire

Aeluma, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALMU) reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $582,000 for the three months to June 30, 2026, down from $1,317,000 in the same quarter a year earlier and from $1,222,000 in the March quarter, according to the income statement attached to its Sept. 16 results release. The net loss for the quarter was $4,013,000, or $0.22 per share, against $859,000, or $0.05, a year earlier. The company ended the year with $56,006,000 of cash and cash equivalents, up from $37.8 million at the end of March, after selling 830,484 shares through its at-the-market programme for net proceeds of $20.1 million.

The headline the company put on the release was not the quarter. It led with a letter of intent, signed with the Department of Commerce's CHIPS R&D Office in July, "for up to $30 million" to fund photonics for AI and advanced computing, and with a new agreement with Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies to increase wafer capacity. The release states the CHIPS money is "subject to definitive agreement negotiations," and the annual report on Form 10-K filed the same day goes further, listing among its risk factors that the company "cannot be certain" it and the Department will execute "definitive award documents for the proposed funding on acceptable terms, or at all."

For the full fiscal year, revenue was $4,461,000 against $4,665,000 in fiscal 2025. The 10-K's management discussion breaks that down: $4.3 million "was derived from government contracts and $183 thousand from other products and services." The net loss for the year was $9,159,000, or $0.52 per share, compared with $3,022,000, or $0.23, the year before. Operating expenses rose 115 percent to $14.6 million, on the 10-K's own figures, with research and development up from $1,295,000 to $4,668,000 and general and administrative expenses up from $3,628,000 to $7,090,000. Stock-based compensation, which the company adds back in its non-GAAP measures, was $4,519,000 for the year, up from $1,893,000.

Adjusted EBITDA, which Aeluma defines as non-GAAP net loss plus depreciation and amortisation less interest income, was a loss of $2,938,000 for the quarter and $5,216,000 for the year; the prior-year figures were a loss of $113,000 and a gain of $186,000 respectively. Interest income on the enlarged cash pile contributed $1,027,000 for the year, against $113,000 in fiscal 2025.

The cash flow statement shows where the money came from. Net cash used in operating activities was $3,266,000 for the year. Financing activities provided $44,178,000, of which $43,478,000 was proceeds from public offerings net of costs. The 10-K records an underwritten offering of 1,955,000 shares on Sept. 19, 2025 for gross proceeds of $25.4 million and net proceeds of $23.4 million, followed by the ATM sales in May and June 2026, which the results release says were made at an average price of $24.87 for gross proceeds the 10-K puts at $20.7 million. The ATM programme, entered on March 20, 2026, allows sales of up to $50 million; the 10-K says $29.3 million of capacity remains. As of Sept. 11, 2026 there were 19,265,671 shares outstanding, according to the 10-K's cover page.

Aeluma is a compound-semiconductor company that synthesises its materials on large-diameter substrates such as silicon and gallium arsenide rather than on the relatively small indium phosphide substrates, "commonly in the two- to four-inch range," on which the 10-K says conventional InGaAs photodetectors are made. The release describes its markets as AI, mobile and consumer, defence and aerospace, and quantum. The 10-K describes the business as "transitioning from a predominantly R&D-stage business toward commercialization," with revenue that "currently consists of government development contracts, with emerging commercial development and product revenue." It reported $56.0 million of cash, $3,732,000 of total liabilities and stockholders' equity of $56,932,000 at June 30, 2026; the release puts book value at $3.06 per share.

Customer concentration is high and, on the company's own description, entirely governmental. The 10-K's Note 2 states that for fiscal 2026, "59% and 14% of the Company's revenue was derived from two customers," that in fiscal 2025 71 percent came from one customer, and that "All customers have been government agencies." The release says the company executed six new contracts during the year "totaling $5.3 million in value, including awards from NASA, the U.S. Navy, and others."

The CHIPS letter of intent is the largest single number in the release and the least settled. NIST's July 29, 2026 announcement of seven compute-supply-chain letters of intent said Aeluma "will receive up to $30 million to develop large diameter, indium-phosphide-free substrate technology used to fabricate photodetectors and lasers for AI photonic interconnects," and that "there will be further diligence and approval by the Department before final awards are made." The same release attached the condition the Department had already put on its May quantum letters of intent: "The Department will receive a minority, non-controlling equity stake in each company as a condition for receiving the funds to enhance the return for the U.S. taxpayer."

Aeluma's 10-K spells out what that means for its shareholders more precisely than the government has. "The letter of intent contemplates a portion of the award being funded up front and the remainder funded on a milestone-based award structure tied to eligible project costs and technical progress," it says. "In connection with executing final award documents, We would issue equity securities to the U.S. Department of Commerce with an aggregate value equal to the award amount." The filing does not say at what price the shares would be valued, and the release's forward-looking statements list "the perceived and actual dilutive effects of the proposed issuance of common stock" among the risks. Against 19.3 million shares outstanding and a June 30 book value of $56.9 million, an equity issuance sized to a $30 million award would be large relative to the company's current equity, though its actual size depends on a price that has not been disclosed.

One figure in the release does not match the annual report. The release says the company "Grew team from 14 to more than 30 people." The 10-K states: "At June 30, 2026, Aeluma had 27 employees, of whom 24 were full-time employees." The 10-K adds that the company "on occasion" engages independent contractors, which may account for the difference, but the release does not say so and the two documents were filed on the same day.

Founder and chief executive Jonathan Klamkin said in the release that "scalable high-speed photodetectors and quantum dot lasers have become the focus of the Company's near-term product development," and that the company is "in discussions with several important prospective customers in the AI datacom industry, negotiating NRE agreements that could support our go-to-market strategy." NRE, non-recurring engineering, is paid development work rather than product orders. The release describes these as "multi-million-dollar" negotiations but names no counterparty and gives no timetable; the 10-K notes that many customer discussions are under confidentiality agreements and that a design win "does not obligate a customer to place purchase orders."

The 10-K does not contain going-concern language. With $56.0 million of cash against $3.3 million of operating cash outflow in the year just ended, the balance sheet is not the near-term constraint; whether the spending, which more than doubled, converts into commercial revenue is. The company said it is buying additional MOCVD tools to expand wafer capacity on its non-indium-phosphide platforms and that it expects fiscal 2027 to "focus on technology and product development, and expanding our customer engagements." No revenue guidance was given.

What is next is mostly paperwork with money attached. The definitive CHIPS award documents, if executed, would fix the size and price of the government's stake and the milestone schedule; neither Aeluma nor Commerce has said when that might happen. The company has set its annual meeting for Nov. 19, 2026, with a Sept. 26 deadline for shareholder proposals. And the Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies agreement, described in the release as increasing wafer capacity, carries no disclosed volumes, prices or dates.