19 Comments

Congratulations on a great article, and being the first to mention ASP Isotopes on Substack. This will be one for the ages.

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A very good DD article about an extremely compelling opportunity. They recently proved out their QLE technology so that is one less giant risk. If they can do it for Lu-176 then they can do it for anything now! It is just a matter of scaling and execution which will take a few years but I am patient considering the good chance to 10x eventually. Not looking too far into the future yet.

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Nice write up. Lots of good info here.

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Excellent write up!

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I own it but boy did I learn from this article. Great work!

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Very well written. Good work!

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Very well written and a comprehensive analysis on a remarkable opportunity. Thank you.

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Brilliant write up - have owned the stock for just under a year - very exciting company.

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Thanks for this excellent writeup. Very intriguing!

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So many ways it could go wrong. Looks like a lottery ticket, as a Biotech stock. Article with many fantasies and presumptions, and with a doubtful probability of being realized. There are better cases in the market.

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Yeah the fact they have no patent protection for this, that it's not a particularly complicated technology, that we don't even know how the quantum enrichment process works... and yet this is all brushed off, and the company is called a no-brainer at a $200m valuation pre-revenue? Seems a wild thing to put other people's money into.

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Good write up. In reviewing their 10K for 2023, a few things stood out if you could look into if needed and comment on:

- their auditors, EisnerAmper, expressed "the existence of substantial doubt concerning the Company's ability to continue as a going concern." This is mainly due to not having the money to fund operations through the next 12 months (self-expressed in the 10K). They were negative $4.6 mil in 2022(partial year as public co.) and negative $16 mil in 2024.

- With no revenue in sight and money being burned daily with construction, employee compensation, r&d, and operations for the current plant, how can they not be expected to raise shares in order to be able to fund the above? They are authorized 500,000,000 shares with about 60,000,000 or so currently outstanding. I expect more of the 440,000,000 shares to be sold in order to stay afloat. Why do you not? Remember, their belief that the $30 mil or so that they have for the next 12 months is enough is a forward-looking statement and if things do not go to plan, they could be looking at a sooner-than-later equity raise.

-Mr Mann is being awarded a $1,000,000 bonus per every $4 million of monthly revenue the company makes. That's 25% percent. Is it common for a small and emerging growth company such as ASP, to award their CEO that much especially considering he's already been awarded over 6 million shares in addition to his yearly salary of $500K. This is a company with no revenue yet. Seems high to me. Can you point me to another company similar to ASP with performance based compensation so high so early in the game?

Thank you.

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Hi Jacob, excellent thesis, thanks for all the digging.

Just one red flag I dug up, curious to know your thoughts.

It looks like Paul Mann intentionally omits from his resume on LinkedIn his stint as CFO in PolarityTE, which turned out to be a fraud (with many class action lawsuits). That in itself may not mean anything - he was brought in in June 2018 at which point the fraud was well underway and so may be he just doesn't want to be associated with them. Only it turns out he is using the same crooks that helped pump and dump PolarityTE - Canaccord Ingenuity - in ASPI as well. They just helped him raise $34.5m in July as a bookrunner. Isn't it a bit concerning that he would be using the same crooks (that have faced many SEC fines) in his new stint? Maybe I'm just paranoid. However, when I look at arguably over-promotional press releases that ASPI puts out, and you look at the PolarityTE case, you do find some concerning similarities.

If anyone wants to read up on what PolarityTE was up to with their fraudelent technology, this is a good summary - https://rosenlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/PolarityTE-Complaint-Web.pdf

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@roguefunds - Great writeup. I have been buying in my Roth IRA.

Questions:

Do you have a timeline for the upcoming catalysts - QLE spin, new capacity online, etc?

Given the stock moves in SMR companies (NNE, SMR, OKLO) and the small float and short interest, I can foresee a vicious short squeeze near-term.

Why do you think ASPI was not selected by the DOE for HALEU enrichment? You mention any of the companies as competitors?

https://www.powermag.com/doe-selects-four-companies-to-boost-u-s-haleu-enrichment-for-advanced-nuclear/

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund recently invested in a HALEU startup. Any thoughts there?

https://www.ft.com/content/6472a19d-0011-444f-a57a-3d11f143f291

Could an SMR company or a hyperscaler just outright buy QLE?

Do you have any information on the insider buying?

Do you have a long-term price target say 2028 - share price and enterprise value?

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- QLE is already working (was announced this past week)

- They don’t have an NRC license yet. I mentioned Urenco and Centrus. Centrus will be a semi serious competitor but they won’t be able to compete on cost as they can’t do depleted tails. Never heard of General Matter. Orano is a French mining and enrichment company that I would put in a similar boat to Urenco. (In the competitors part of the article)

- I saw that FT posted about Thiel investing in a HALEU company but I don’t know anything about it and they’re clearly very very early in that process so at least 10+ years behind.

- They’d have to put a very pretty price to buyout QLE, most SMRs have no cash.

- This is discussed in the article

- This is discussed in the article

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Thanks for the quick and thoughtful reply.

Do you have a sense of how much capital ASPI/QLE would need to fund their capex pipeline or more simply, to fully fund the business?

On M&A - I could see a hyperscaler or maybe Terrapower fund a HALEU production facility to get steady supply

I also saw NNE annc’d HALEU production but the company seems like vaporware - no revs or products or expertise

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General Matter is the Founders Fund company with Scott Nolan (FF GP) as CEO. The fact that it has already got a contract with DOE probably indicates they are not "at last 10+ years behind"

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The only way it’s faster than 10 years is if it’s just another centrifugal company which might be likely

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Urenco and Orano were also on that list to receive cash, it doesn’t mean much in terms of ability to scale. The slowdown of “10+ years” is NRC driven not DoE driven or even technology scaling driven. They are an insanely slow moving.

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