Ascendiant Analyst Says Energous Has Bright Future Ahead

Energous Corporation WATT has reportedly signed a contract with a "top tier" tech company to supply millions of its wireless charging devices, according to a report from CNN Money. The information came from an interview with CEO Stephen Rizzone. Energous's WattUp charging technology utilizes radio frequencies to allow users to re-juice mobile device batteries from up to 20 feet away. There is some speculation that the tier one customer mentioned in the report could be Apple AAPL. We spoke with Ascendiant Capital's David Williams about the news. An Energized Future Williams "strongly [believes] that [Energous] is going to be the first to market with a very differentiated technology." He isn't surprised that a large tech company has already signed a multimillion-device contract before WattUp has even been fully certified. "This is a very utilitarian concept...you're going to want to lock that up pretty early on." Williams notes that Energous execs have long been saying that they've had a close tier one relationship. But he doesn't expect the big contracts to stop here. "I think everybody is going to jump onboard...you get a first look at the technology as a tier one company." He adds that "once [Energous does] get the technology certified, you've already built a relationship." As for the identity of today's reported signee, Williams mentions Samsung and LG as possible alternatives to Apple, although he maintains that he doesn't have any concrete knowledge. Nevertheless, he believes that the Korean firms' wider breadth of products could make them more likely customers. Williams currently rates Energous as a Buy with a price target of $14. Energous spiked up about 16 percent in response to the news. It has since dipped down to about a 7 percent gain on the day.