Warmly welcome to the CEO interview regarding the first six-month earnings report of Betolar. My name is Tommi Saarinen, analyst at Inderes covering Betolar, and we have the very fresh CEO of Betolar here in our interview. Welcome to you as well before we get to the interview.

Thank you, and thank you for having me.

So you have been the CEO of Betolar like eight days. So let's not deep dive too deep into the business today, but focus on you and your background and what you bring to the table. So maybe we could start from your relevant working history. You have worked in various blue-chip companies. Management consulting, and then very relevant working history in material technology, especially in the early-stage companies, so could you talk a bit through your path to becoming the CEO of Betolar?

Absolutely, and again. Thank you for the opportunity. I joined Betolar last week, but having obviously spent some time reading up and understanding both where we come from, which is a very strong technology base, and if I were to sum up what I've done over the last 20 years, I'd say I build companies often from scratch, often through rapid commercialization, often with a strong idea or a technology, and then creating the market and going out to customers. I grew up in Lenoir, which is a telecom company, the new-age incumbent, but with, at that point, operations in very many markets. Thirty markets, including lots of Asian markets, I spent my ten years. There growing companies, building companies starting from scratch, from greenfield. I worked and lived in Burma, where we built fintech from scratch.

I lived and worked in Malaysia, in Thailand, where we started the door journey through acquiring many assets and then built very much growth, and I think a key term in the way I work, to put a label on my career, would be commercialization, right.

A person with your CV would have had, for sure, other alternatives, so why did you choose. Betolar right now.

I think it. Betolar is really interesting. Betolar comes from a very strong base in materials and technology development, and I think that is really the starting point to commercialize anything. Do you have a technology that works? Second question: is that technology possible. To commercialize, is it possible to find industrial use for that technology. Three is, can we solve a customer problem. If we are not solving a customer problem. We shouldn't be doing it. What are the customer pain points, how do we go about them, and how do we create solutions that we know meet needs in the market. I think that's probably my count. Learning in Asian business, which is super fast, you go to market very quickly, you learn from customer feedback, you understand and you optimize, you build go-to-market and pricing models based on actual, near customer relations and dialogs.

So it is quite a different way than perhaps what we sometimes do in Scandinavia, where we spend a lot of time in the base of technology, we spend a lot of time in R&D and conceptual development, and that is good too, but I think combining the two, and I think for Betolar that base is there, we are ready to start solving customer problems. I think it's also fascinating to see that you start, perhaps often you see that with scale-ups and start-ups, you start trying to solve one problem, which in Betolar's case was an alternative to cement, which is a high-emission material in an age. And we all remember when we're all excited about materials. I was in that same space, and we're all looking and we thought we would grow quickly, and uptake would be quickly. Customer willingness was enthusiastic, and then the market kind of was there, but less fast, but I think it is still a square that Betolar has brought with it into, so yes, we started from a green alternative to cement, but has kind of with that base then turned into new business areas, and I think the nearest shift was probably to metal extraction, which I'm hoping we can talk lots about today because I'm super excited about the opportunity, and also now with the scaling rails calling opportunity that we have there with our Skull Wolf partner, but also on the CIP side, so I think I kind of share the base. I kind of recognize this, having worked in materials companies before, both as CEO of Arar Textiles, but also as executive chair in Fine Fiber. I kind of recognize that base, and I think we need to protect that, and then we obviously need to grow, and the next steps would be finding ways to commercialize rapidly.

Maybe you already addressed the answer to this question, but you have seen how technology is taken from technology to commercial product, and Betolar has been building the technology through the way 20 years now. So is there any common denominator.

Is there a recipe by heart.

Technology is taken to products.

I think there are books written about this, and we could talk about 66 hours about this topic, and I do not have the full answer, having done it for 20 years. I say, but I think there's three things I can recognize in products that come from a deep technology core, and first, and I think we touched a little bit, but I think it's good to repeat this, it is important. First is, is the technology good enough, and what I mean about that is, does it work on industrial scale, because what works in lab may not work. At industrial scale, and I think that is massively important, and I think we, interestingly, this morning at the board meeting, and I was meeting our new board member that comes from defense, and he taught me a new term, and I'm getting it wrong now I'm sure, but is it battle. Ready, is it battle-ready, can we actualize our reproduction solutions or can we use whatever product you're developing, is it ready for first industrial scale.

I think that's the first question, and then the second question is. Can you, do you have commercial proof? Do you solve an actual customer problem? What are the customer pain points, and how are we solving it, and are we solving it better, because very often we go out with a technology and it's going to solve everything, and we don't actually know, we don't know what the customer problem is, and I think spending time. I think that's the first step of commercialization, is being close to the customer, identifying early, paying ideally customers, but any customer that gives you feedback, and that dare to iterate really quickly on that feedback and really take it in so that we don't end up developing a solution, spending a lot of R&D, and figuring out that it was not working.

So that's the second proof point, that commercial proof point, and the last one is, in my world, what I sometimes call scaling or delivery model, and how do you scale, and I know that many of us investors and analysts out there have been puzzled a little bit, like how does this company scale, because perhaps they have the technology, but would you scale, and I think this is where we're really starting to crack the nut, because we have seen great examples of great technologies that haven't scaled, and why is that, and I think from many companies we put too much focus on the technology and the first point, but less on the last point, and my thesis. Perhaps, is when we want to commercialize, we always scale faster with partners, so finding commercial partners. We are small, ideally larger partners that we can scale with, and that's what we've gone out and done with Undersands, and that is also what we're doing with Skull Wolf.

There was this business book wrapped up in three points, perfect. You also. Earlier about Betolar's journey from the cement replacement company to its current, maybe, direction and strategy. There have been this Skull Wolf partnership, focus on critical infrastructure protection, and the metal extraction technology. It may be a bit complex, at least at a glance. So what would you like investors or other stakeholders to take away from this, what are the key things to remember.

Thank you. I think the first is what I just said, we scale faster together, and I think I'd just like to talk a little bit about Skull Wolf, and we have an LOI in place and obviously hopefully coming towards a definitive agreement towards end of the year, and lots of work needs to be happening between now and that, and I'll talk to that as well. At first glance, why do we scale faster. Well, I think we scale faster because one company, especially being a small company like Betolar. It's hard, it is a big ask if you both should develop the technology, intellectual property, the digital know-how, the go-to-market, so I think having a partner that has kind of done that before helps a lot, and as we are in the lucky position that over time we've got to know Skull Wolf. Skull Wolf is a growth. We call it a growth. VC, European and US focused, has a very interesting track record both in defense and dual use, very much investing heavily there, and we are obviously very excited about that, and we believe that there is more in having a partner that can scale with us.

It really lowers, so what an investor is interested in. It is the risk, is the capital requirement. What does it take in terms of execution, and I think already, just initial conversations. I see that we're scaling faster, so that's on the partnership. And the second is, I guess, what we're trying to do, which is the more challenging side, if we look at Betolar, we own technology, we come with deep knowledge, we have IP, and we want to call it, and that we have identified metal extraction and tailings opportunity is broad. We are starting in Finland, but there are many opportunities out there globally, there is quite a few in the US and elsewhere as well, and we identified these, and also in the structure with Skull Wolf. We think that the way to scale that is probably then having a mid-layer between Betolar and perhaps a special purpose vehicle, which is a very difficult word, but we look at that as the operating company, but there could be a mid-layer, which is technically a separate company in the Betolar structure. Currently we have Skull Wolf coming in with an initial three million investment in that layer, and then we own, we'd be the majority owner, but then they come as well. The reason for that structure, I think, is that then the mid-layer can attract, we bring quite a bit of knowledge into that. They will be the master license holder of the Betolar IP, but we can also bring in partners, we can bring in partners, we can bring in investors on that mid-level, and then with that mid-level. We keep investing in new operating companies, and when I say operating companies. It's the company that operates by a mine tailings site to really start extracting.

So what we're doing between now and Christmas is designing this whole structure, both conceptually, but also legally and in roles, so designing the blueprint, how do we actually go about getting a tailings out, and I'm not gonna bore you with all the details, it's quite a long list of activities and things that need to happen, but in short we need to validate obviously the overall value of the tailings, their concentration of metals, et cetera, et cetera, agree licensing, et cetera, through the structure, and then eventually have an investment-ready case, and what amazes me is the first blueprint will look at, and if we can get it right. There are many more, so that's kind of the scaling path.

Right, by the wrap-up, but before that you are arranging a capital markets day later this year, and based on this answer. It will probably be focused on this structure and getting the details there, so there's not probably some completely new business. Openings should be expected. So what are the things you can say currently about the upcoming capital markets day.

First, I think there is a need for a good capital markets day, generally a capital markets day where you can share a deeper view on the strategic focus. We will go deep in our three existing business areas, which is the critical infra business, infra protection, metal extraction, and then circular materials, and we'll do a deep dive, and I think we also will try to tie the knot between where we're coming from as a materials company and why these three things, that is needed in the market, to clarify that at the higher level. Obviously we'll talk more about partnerships, we'll talk about long-term value creation, and I think some of the questions that we had today in the webcast. We are also touching on some of the topics. I think are very, very important in a capital markets day, like what are really the underlying drivers when you are looking at the critical infra, and how does it link back to, I think all that we'd like to go over, and really to carve out a path where we both ourselves, our customers and investors. See that we create value based on our know-how in materials, and how do we actually get from where we are today to a full-size commercial company with steady revenues.

Right. This was for the watchers or listeners to pay attention, there may be an invitation coming from Betolar to a capital markets day. Thank you so much for doing this interview today, I really appreciate it, and good luck for your CEO tenure. Thank you.