Knightscope Puts $27 Million of 'Estimated' Bookings in a Headline. About $17 Million of It Is the Company's Own Estimate of Orders Under a Contract With No Minimum Purchase, and the Release Landed a Day After a $35 Million ATM Top-Up Filed With the Last Sale at $1.14

by Thandi Mbeki · September 25, 2026

AI Companies Reporter, Frontier Tech Wire

Knightscope, Inc. (Nasdaq: KSCP) said on Sept. 22 that it reported approximately $27 million in what it calls estimated renewals, bookings and client awards between May 20 and Sept. 18, 2026, spread over 109 contracts and awards in seven vertical markets, according to a press release furnished to the SEC as Exhibit 99.1 to a Form 8-K the same day. The release itself explains that roughly $22.8 million of that total, by our arithmetic ($17 million plus $5.8 million), sits in two categories the company defines as either an internal estimate of future ordering or an award for which no definitive agreement or ordering document had yet been issued.

The timing matters because the release came one day after Knightscope filed a prospectus supplement, dated Sept. 21, increasing the capacity of its at-the-market equity program with H.C. Wainwright & Co. to up to $35,000,000. That supplement states that the company had, through its date, sold an aggregate of $47,495,466.64 of shares under the program, and that the new $35 million ceiling is made up of $2,504,533.36 that was previously authorized plus $32,495,466.64 added by the supplement. The last reported sale price cited in the document is $1.14 per share on Sept. 18, 2026.

Knightscope's own breakdown of the $27 million is more revealing than the headline. Renewals account for approximately $19.6 million, or 72 percent, and new business for approximately $7.5 million, or 28 percent, according to the release. The largest single item is a three-year master services agreement with a multinational industrial client, and the release says: 'The Company estimates the value of services under that agreement at approximately $17 million over the initial term based on current service levels; the agreement does not obligate the client to purchase a minimum volume of services.' The largest new engagement is described as 'a written client award from a national retailer with a stated award value of approximately $5.8 million.'

The release defines the metric in three clauses. The first is 'the total contract value of new and renewal agreements entered into during the period, including the full term of multi-year agreements where applicable.' The second is the company's 'estimate of the value of services to be ordered under master services agreements over their initial terms based on current service levels, where the client orders services periodically and is not obligated to purchase a minimum volume.' The third is 'written client awards for which definitive agreements or ordering documents had not yet been issued as of the measurement date.'

The company then allocates the total across those clauses: 'Approximately $17 million of the total is attributable to the estimate described in clause (ii) and approximately $5.8 million to the award described in clause (iii).' In other words, the single largest renewal in the release is a contract under which the client is not obliged to buy a minimum volume, and the single largest new win is an award for which no definitive agreement or ordering document had yet been issued when the company measured it.

Knightscope is explicit about the limits of the number. The release says the metric 'is not a measure of revenue, backlog, remaining performance obligations, or any other financial measure under generally accepted accounting principles,' that revenue is recognised only as services are ordered and delivered, and that the figures are preliminary, unaudited and subject to change. It adds that the release 'does not address the Company's financial results or expected financial results for the third quarter of 2026 or any other period, and the Company is not providing, updating, or reaffirming any financial guidance.'

By vertical, the release attributes $18.7 million across 43 contracts, or 69 percent of the total, to industrial, energy and security-services clients; $6.5 million across 11 contracts, or 24 percent, to retail and consumer; $1.0 million across 14 contracts to higher education; and $0.5 million across 34 contracts to critical infrastructure, with the balance in healthcare, life sciences, technology and federal healthcare. The critical-infrastructure line is worth a second look: 34 contracts averaging well under $20,000 each, by our arithmetic ($0.5 million divided by 34), is a very different business from a single $17 million industrial estimate.

For context, Knightscope's most recent reported quarter was a record by revenue, and the loss widened. In its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, filed Aug. 12, the company reported revenue of $9,024 thousand against $2,749 thousand a year earlier, a gross margin of $664 thousand against a gross loss of $918 thousand, and a net loss of $14,090 thousand against $6,329 thousand. Cash and cash equivalents stood at $8,160 thousand at June 30. The accompanying Aug. 12 results release attributed the revenue jump to 'the full-quarter contribution from the Security Force,' a reference to Event Risk, LLC, the Indiana security-services business whose acquisition closed on Feb. 27, 2026, according to an amended 8-K filed May 15. The 10-Q puts total purchase consideration for that deal at approximately $18.0 million.

The 10-Q also contains going-concern language. It states: 'These factors raise substantial doubt about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern for the twelve months from the date of this report.' In the first six months of 2026 the company issued 5,530,922 shares through the ATM for net proceeds of $18,338 thousand after issuance costs, and from July 1 through Aug. 7 it issued a further 3,832,515 shares for net proceeds of approximately $6.1 million, according to the same filing. It reported 23,328,262 Class A shares outstanding as of Aug. 7, 2026, and approximately $5.6 million of capacity remaining under the July 2025 ATM supplement as of that date; by the Sept. 21 supplement that remaining amount had fallen to $2,504,533.36.

The 10-Q also contains going-concern language. It states: 'These factors raise substantial doubt about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern for the twelve months from the date of this report.' In the first six months of 2026 the company issued 5,530,922 shares through the ATM for net proceeds of $18,338 thousand after issuance costs, and it reported 23,328,262 Class A shares outstanding as of Aug. 7, 2026.

Set those figures against the new ATM ceiling. At the $1.14 reference price in the supplement, selling the full $35 million would require about 30.7 million shares, by our arithmetic ($35,000,000 divided by $1.14), which is more than the 23.3 million Class A shares outstanding at Aug. 7. That is a ceiling, not a plan; the supplement does not commit the company to sell any amount, and the price at which any shares are sold will be whatever the market offers on the day. But the scale of possible dilution relative to the existing share count is the material fact for holders, and it is disclosed only in the arithmetic, not in the release about bookings.

The bookings release also does not reconcile to the company's 10-Q disclosures. Nothing in the Sept. 22 document says how much of the $27 million, if any, would fall into GAAP remaining performance obligations, nor how much of the $19.6 million of renewals represents contracts that were already producing revenue in the second quarter. Renewal of an existing $17 million-a-term client is not incremental to a run rate that already included that client.

The release's own cautionary language lists the ways the number can shrink: clients may order fewer services than estimated, awards may not convert to agreements, and the company depends on a limited number of significant clients. That last point is consistent with the composition of the metric, where one industrial client accounts for about 63 percent of the headline figure, by our arithmetic ($17 million divided by $27 million).

What comes next is the third-quarter report, which will show whether the Security Force revenue held at the second-quarter level and how much of the ATM capacity has been used. The Aug. 12 release listed initial deployments of the company's K7 robot beginning in the third quarter and the launch of a software platform it calls Signals as second-half priorities. Not yet known: the identity of the multinational industrial client, whether the $5.8 million retail award has since become a signed agreement, the commission rate and any shares sold under the enlarged ATM since Sept. 21, and whether the going-concern language will be repeated in the next quarterly filing.