Ideal Power Inc. (IPWR)

Ideal Power does one thing. It develops and commercializes a power switch called the B-TRAN, short for bidirectional bipolar junction transistor. A power switch is the part that opens and closes the flow of electricity inside equipment; conventional ones pass current in one direction only, so a circuit that has to pass power both ways needs four devices, a pair of transistors and a pair of diodes. The B-TRAN passes current both ways by itself, which the company says lets a manufacturer substitute one B-TRAN for two pairs of the insulated gate bipolar transistors and diodes used in bidirectional circuits today. The accounts treat the whole business as one operating segment. 16171819

How it operates

Ideal Power does one thing. It develops and commercializes a power switch called the B-TRAN, short for bidirectional bipolar junction transistor. A power switch is the part that opens and closes the flow of electricity inside equipment; conventional ones pass current in one direction only, so a circuit that has to pass power both ways needs four devices, a pair of transistors and a pair of diodes. The B-TRAN passes current both ways by itself, which the company says lets a manufacturer substitute one B-TRAN for two pairs of the insulated gate bipolar transistors and diodes used in bidirectional circuits today. The accounts treat the whole business as one operating segment. 16171819

Two commercial products have been launched: the discrete B-TRAN, a single die packaged for electrical connection, and the SymCool Power Module, a multi-die version of the same thing. Both are aimed at the same two markets, solid-state circuit protection and electric vehicle contactors, where very low conduction loss is what buyers want. Commercial revenue was $37,728 in 2025 and $86,032 in 2024. Alongside it the company says it has generated 3.7 million dollars in grant revenue for bidirectional power switch development, and that operations have otherwise been funded by selling common stock and pre-funded warrants. 20212223

Money arrives two ways: development agreements with customers, and product sales. Revenue from a development agreement is recognized when the contractual deliverables are finished, and revenue from a product sale when the product ships. So far customers have bought prototypes in small quantities to evaluate them. The company says it expects significantly higher volume orders only once a customer grants it a design win and starts building inventory ahead of launching its own product, and that the time from announcing a design win to the sale of the related product runs roughly twelve to eighteen months, considerably longer for cars. It also has agreements with several distribution partners and has signed a letter of intent with a power module maker in Asia to make and offer B-TRAN based modules to that maker's own customers. 24252627

The filing names one customer and describes the rest by type. It says it has announced engagements or initial orders with large companies including Stellantis and other global automakers, Forbes Global 500 power management leaders, global tier one automotive suppliers, circuit protection leaders and inverter and energy storage leaders, all of them testing or evaluating the technology for their own applications. The markets it says it is aiming at run from AI data centers and solid-state circuit protection through static transfer switches, electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, vehicle charging, renewable energy and energy storage, uninterruptible power supplies, industrial motor drives and solid state transformers to other industrial and defense markets. 2829

There is no factory. The company uses what it calls a strategic partnership model that leans on the existing silicon processing infrastructure, and it has qualified two foundries that both fabricated B-TRAN wafers, which it treats as proof the switch can be made on conventional silicon semiconductor equipment and processes. Its primary raw material is silicon wafers, a large global business whose manufacturers sit mostly in Europe and Asia. It leases 5,775 square feet of office and laboratory space in Austin, Texas, and that is the whole of it: in 2025 and 2024 the company reported no material international revenue and no material assets outside the United States. 3031323334

The specifics

The switch came out of a grant. In 2012 the company received a grant from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, ARPA-E, at the United States Department of Energy, to develop a bidirectional solid-state power switch; the work started on a bidirectional insulated gate bipolar transistor and then shifted to the B-TRAN. On its own testing the company says B-TRAN can reduce power losses by 50% or more against conventional switches such as IGBTs, depending on the application, and that its symmetric bidirectional operation cuts the component count by 75% against a conventional bidirectional switch built from IGBTs and diodes. Less loss means less heat, which the filing says lowers what a product needs for cooling and allows more power in the same space. 3519363738

As of December 31, 2025 the company held 52 United States and 47 foreign issued patents and had 76 more applications pending at home and abroad on the B-TRAN; its first B-TRAN patent issued in 2015, and its patents generally run 20 years from the date of initial filing. The dual-sided wafer fabrication process it developed to produce B-TRAN wafers is kept as a trade secret rather than patented. It also pays for two exclusive royalty-free licences that sit underneath the portfolio: one entered in 2015, expiring in February 2033, over semiconductor power switches, at $100,000 a year, and a 2021 agreement amended in 2023, expiring in February 2034, over semiconductor drive circuitry, at $50,000 a year. At the end of 2025 the estimated present value of the future payments under both was $1,036,538, of which $150,000 falls due in 2026. 3940414243

It competes against entrenched suppliers of one-directional power switches, IGBTs and MOSFETs including silicon carbide MOSFETs, many of whom now sell modules that gang several conventional switches together to make a bidirectional circuit. The filing names the leading players in power semiconductors as Infineon Technologies AG, Texas Instruments, onsemi, Fuji Electric, ST Microelectronics, Mitsubishi Electric, Rohm Semiconductor and Renesas Electronics, and adds that they are potential licensees as much as potential competitors, because to its knowledge no high-efficiency bidirectional design is available in the market. It says it is aware of no offering, or potential offering, based on a true high efficiency bidirectional design for high power applications other than products based on its own technology. 444546

Government approval is not needed to license the technology or sell the devices, but government support decides how big the end markets get, and the filing states plainly that in the United States under the Trump administration that support has significantly diminished. The ARPA-E grant left strings attached: the company granted the United States a non-exclusive, nontransferable, irrevocable, paid-up license to practice inventions related to a bidirectional switch made within the scope of the grant, and march-in rights over any such invention it chooses not to keep title to. The company itself was formed in Texas on May 17, 2007 and converted to a Delaware corporation on July 15, 2013; the record this site holds shows it filing with the SEC since 2010. Since inception it has sustained approximately 118 million dollars in net losses. 47484950515253

What drives growth, line by line

Revenue was $37,728 in 2025 against $86,032 in 2024. In both years it came from development agreements and low-volume product sales, which is to say from finished program milestones and evaluation parts rather than from anything shipping in quantity. The company says it expects to recognize modest revenue from both product sales and development agreements in 2026. 54

It costs more to make the parts than they bring in. Cost of revenue was $60,408 in 2025 and $93,409 in 2024, so the gross loss widened to $22,680 from $7,377. The company puts that down to the higher costs of initial low volume production and, in 2025, to costs exceeding revenue under the development agreement with its first design win customer, and it says it expects a gross loss again in 2026 for the same reason. 5556

The one design win so far is the larger of the two customer stories. In late 2024 the company announced it, for solid-state circuit breakers, with one of the largest circuit protection equipment manufacturers in Asia, a company serving data centers, renewable energy, energy storage, electric vehicles and other industrial markets; a joint development agreement covered the product design, prototype builds and testing. The deliverables including prototypes were completed in the first quarter of 2025, the customer finished testing updated prototypes carrying the enhancements it had asked for in the third quarter of 2025, and it plans to gather feedback from its own end customers before launch. In February 2026 the two signed a multi-year strategic cooperation agreement over the design, development and worldwide sales of circuit protection products including solid-state circuit breakers, battery disconnect units and electric vehicle contactors built on B-TRAN. 575859

The other is Stellantis. A product development agreement announced in 2022 covered a custom B-TRAN power module for the automaker's electric vehicle drivetrain inverters on its next generation platform, and the second phase of the program was completed in 2024. In August 2025 the company secured an order from Stellantis for custom development and packaged devices aimed at several electric vehicle applications, and completed the first of five deliverables under it that year. Also in 2025 Stellantis told the company it is prioritizing the electric vehicle contactor application over the drivetrain inverter one, and the two are engaged on a possible contactor program. 606162

The spending is where the real numbers are. Research and development was $6,047,211 in 2025, 3% below the $6,207,218 of 2024, and it fell only because stock-based compensation dropped $856,914 on forfeited stock units and prototyping, packaging and testing costs dropped $198,296; semiconductor foundry costs rose $755,390, the largest single increase in the line, because the company was engaged with two foundries for the full year. General and administrative expenses rose 4% to $3,766,790 and sales and marketing fell 12% to $1,096,508. The loss from operations was $10,933,189 in 2025 against $11,071,175 in 2024. 63646566

Cash and cash equivalents were $6,129,049 at the end of 2025, down from $15,842,850 a year earlier; net working capital was $5,567,488 and long-term debt was nil. Operating activities used $9,135,479 of cash during 2025, more than was left at the year end, and the company says it expects those outflows to grow in 2026 as it commercializes the technology further. In February 2026 it sold common stock and pre-funded warrants in an underwritten public offering and a concurrent private placement for estimated net proceeds of 12.6 million dollars, which it says it intends to spend on commercialization and development of B-TRAN and on general corporate and working capital purposes. 67686970

What comes next, in the company's own words: it expects growth in revenue in 2026 from product development agreements and product sales, though it does not expect to recognize a gross profit; it expects higher research and development expenses in 2026, partly because it expects far fewer stock unit forfeitures and partly on further work on the technology, the products and the related drive circuitry; and it expects to announce additional design wins or custom development agreements, with the circuit protection customer or with others, in 2026. 717259

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What the desk infers Inferred

1. Inferred

   Ideal Power's revenue is a byproduct of its development programs rather than a measure of demand for its parts: what customers pay for is finished deliverables and evaluation prototypes, so the figure moves with program timing.

   Because

   • Revenue in both 2025 and 2024 related to development agreements and low-volume product sales. 54
   • Development revenue is recognized only on completion of the contractual deliverables, and product revenue on shipment. 24
   • Customers have so far bought prototypes in small quantities for evaluation, and the company says significantly higher volume orders wait on a design win. 25
   • The trade receivables on the balance sheet at the end of 2025 relate to development revenue. 73
   • The gross loss of 2025 is explained in part by costs exceeding revenue under the development agreement with the first design win customer. 56
   Confidence 85 of 100Wrong if A year in which the company reports product sales as the larger part of revenue, or revenue that grows in a year with no development deliverable completed.
2. Inferred

   The company went into 2026 on the strength of a stock sale rather than its business: without the February 2026 offering its own accounts would have carried substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.

   Because

   • The liquidity note says the offering completed after the year end alleviated the substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern for twelve months from the issuance of the annual report, so the doubt was there until the raise was counted. 74
   • Cash and cash equivalents fell to $6,129,049 at the end of 2025 from $15,842,850 a year earlier. 67
   • Operating activities used $9,135,479 of cash during 2025, more than the cash left at the year end, and the company expects those outflows to grow. 686769
   • The notes say continued operations depend on obtaining adequate funding through future revenues, follow-on stock offerings, warrants, debt, co-development agreements, grants or the sale or licensing of intellectual property. 75
   • Estimated net proceeds from the February 2026 offering are 12.6 million dollars. 70
   Confidence 88 of 100Wrong if An audit report or a later filing showing the 2025 accounts carried no substantial doubt before the February 2026 offering was taken into account.
3. Inferred

   The road to a first product in volume has narrowed onto circuit protection and electric vehicle contactors, and away from the car drivetrain inverter the Stellantis program was announced for.

   Because

   • The 2022 Stellantis agreement was for a custom module for the automaker's electric vehicle drivetrain inverters, and in 2025 Stellantis told the company it is prioritizing the contactor application over the drivetrain inverter. 6062
   • Both commercial products, the discrete B-TRAN and the SymCool Power Module, are described as designed for the solid-state circuit protection and electric vehicle contactor markets. 2021
   • The February 2026 strategic cooperation agreement with the first design win customer covers circuit protection products including solid-state circuit breakers, battery disconnect units and contactors. 59
   • The company says it is initially targeting markets where B-TRAN is an enabling technology, naming solid-state circuit breakers, static transfer switches and contactors. 76
   Confidence 78 of 100Wrong if A filing reporting a drivetrain inverter design win, or revenue from a drivetrain inverter program.
4. Inferred

   The two foundries are the hard constraint on this business, and the company has little leverage over them: it names neither, cannot readily swap them, and the cost of keeping both engaged was the largest single increase in its research spending.

   Because

   • It has qualified two foundries that both fabricated B-TRAN wafers, and no foundry is named anywhere in the annual report. 31
   • Semiconductor foundry costs rose $755,390 because the company was engaged with two foundries for the full year, the largest single increase inside a research and development line that fell overall. 63
   • The filing says the risk is magnified for a small company at a disadvantage in securing fabrication capacity, without longstanding relationships with foundries and needing time to scale to the volume that attracts and keeps them. 77
   • The process itself is unusual: both sides of the wafer are handled and processed and the features must align front to back, which the filing calls a heightened risk, and the dual-sided process is kept as a trade secret. 7840
   Confidence 72 of 100Wrong if A filing that reports a third qualified foundry, or B-TRAN wafers fabricated by a supplier outside the two already qualified.