OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) is at the critical intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and physical security, but can a company reporting $8.8 million in Q3 2025 revenue truly disrupt the multi-billion-dollar smart city and homeland security markets? You need to understand the mechanics behind this small-cap player, especially after its strategic sale of a legacy business in the first half of 2025 led to a massive $32.9 million improvement in stockholders' equity, signaling a sharp pivot to its AI-centric core business. We'll defintely break down OMNIQ's mission, its unique ownership structure, and how its patented machine vision technology generates revenue across government, healthcare, and transportation sectors to see if their turnaround is sustainable.

OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) History

You're looking for the bedrock of OMNIQ Corp., and the truth is its history is a long, winding road of strategic pivots. The company you see today, focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine vision, is a modern iteration of a decades-old supply chain business, Quest Solution, Inc. The most critical change happened in 2019, shifting the core focus from traditional barcode solutions to high-growth AI applications for public safety and logistics.

This long history means the company's current financial strength, like the estimated $35 million gain from the 2025 legacy asset sale, is directly tied to shedding its past to focus on the future. That's a massive balance sheet cleanup.

Given Company's Founding Timeline

Year established

1973

Original location

Salt Lake City, Utah

Founding team members

The company's long history and evolution through mergers make identifying the original 1973 founders difficult. The key leadership for the modern, AI-focused OMNIQ Corp. includes Chairman and CEO Shai Lustgarten.

Initial capital/funding

While the initial 1973 capital is not public, the company has historically raised approximately $23 million in funding. A significant early-stage funding event for the modern entity was a $5 million Post IPO round in 2019.

Given Company's Evolution Milestones

Given Company's Transformative Moments

The company's trajectory is a classic example of a legacy business successfully pivoting to a high-growth technology market, specifically AI-driven computer vision (machine vision). Honestly, the shift from selling barcode labels to providing AI-powered vehicle recognition is defintely a massive change.

• Embracing AI as the Core: The 2019 name change to OMNIQ Corp. wasn't cosmetic; it solidified the acquisition and integration of AI-machine vision capabilities, expanding the business into public safety, homeland security, and smart parking verticals.
• The 2025 Balance Sheet De-risking: The sale of the legacy business unit in 2025 was the most significant financial event in recent history. It resolved long-standing debt burdens by eliminating around $45 million in debt, which is a clear action to strengthen the balance sheet for future growth capital.
• Focusing on High-Margin AI: This strategic divestiture allowed OMNIQ Corp. to fully focus on its Smart Automation and AI business units, which are higher-margin and more scalable. The remaining business units generated approximately $38.5 million in consolidated revenue in 2024.
• Scaling AI Deployments: The company is actively expanding its AI footprint, evidenced by the October 2025 announcement of eight new AI-based Mobile License Plate Inventory (MLPI) deployments across airports and healthcare systems.

If you want to understand who is betting on this new, leaner OMNIQ Corp., you should be Exploring OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) Ownership Structure

OMNIQ Corp.'s ownership structure is unusual for a public company, characterized by a significant insider stake and an almost non-existent institutional presence, leaving the vast majority of shares in the hands of retail investors.

This setup means company strategy and stock price are heavily influenced by management's high-conviction decisions, not the typical large-scale institutional money you see at a BlackRock or Vanguard-backed firm. You're looking at a micro-cap stock where the people running the business own a meaningful slice of the pie.

OMNIQ Corp.'s Current Status

OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) is a publicly traded company, but it trades on the OTCMTS (OTC Markets) and is considered a micro-cap stock. The company's market capitalization was approximately $1.44 million as of October 2025, reflecting its smaller scale and higher volatility.

The company is in the middle of a strategic shift, focusing on its core artificial intelligence (AI) and automation business after selling a legacy unit in 2025. This move helped reduce its net loss to just $34,000 in the first half of 2025, a dramatic improvement from a $5.1 million loss the prior year, but the top-line revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2025, was $24.21 million. For a deeper dive into the financials, you can check out Breaking Down OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

OMNIQ Corp.'s Ownership Breakdown

The direct takeaway here is that OMNIQ is largely controlled by its public float, but the insider position is substantial enough to align management's interests with long-term shareholder value. Institutional money-the big funds-is defintely on the sidelines.

Here's the quick math on who owns the company, based on filings and data closest to November 2025:

OMNIQ Corp.'s Leadership

The leadership team steering OMNIQ is small and highly concentrated, which is typical for a company undergoing a major operational transition to focus on high-growth AI sectors. The key figure is the chief executive, who holds multiple critical roles, providing centralized control over strategy and finance.

• Shai Lustgarten: Serves as both Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He also holds the title of Interim Chief Financial Officer (CFO), a role he has held since November 2023, centralizing the financial and operational decision-making. His personal ownership is a significant 9.5% of the company.
• Board of Directors: The board is small, with key members including Shai Lustgarten and Guy Elhanani, who were both re-elected at the 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders in October.
• Governance: The re-election of directors and the approval of the 2025 Equity Incentive Plan at the October 2025 annual meeting, with approximately 61% of outstanding common stock participating, confirms the current leadership's mandate to pursue the AI-focused strategy.

This structure means the company can move fast, but it also concentrates execution risk heavily on the CEO and his small team. Finance: draft a risk-adjusted model of the Q4 pipeline by next Tuesday.

OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) Mission and Values

OMNIQ Corp.'s core mission centers on using proprietary Artificial Intelligence (AI) to secure and streamline the movement of assets and people, a focus that has been sharpened by a significant financial turnaround in 2025. This commitment to AI-driven safety and efficiency is what drives the company beyond its bottom line, though that bottom line is looking much better since the company reduced its net loss to just $34,000 in the first half of 2025, a massive improvement from the prior year's $5.1 million loss.

OMNIQ Corp.'s Core Purpose

You need to know what a company stands for, not just what it sells. OMNIQ Corp. is fundamentally a technology partner for complex security and logistics challenges. Their purpose is to deploy patented machine vision and AI to solve real-world problems in high-stakes environments like national borders, airports, and major healthcare facilities.

Official Mission Statement

While OMNIQ Corp. doesn't publish a single, formal mission statement in the classic sense, their operational focus is clear: delivering advanced technology solutions that enhance operational efficiency, improve safety, and drive business growth for their clients. They are in the business of securing and simplifying movement.

• Provide comprehensive AI-based solutions for supply chain, homeland security, and public safety.
• Help clients move people, assets, and data safely and securely through complex environments.
• Enhance operational efficiency and real-time visibility using proprietary AI technology.

Vision Statement

The company's vision is tied directly to their strategic pivot in 2025, which involved selling a legacy business to focus on high-growth AI and automation sectors. This move strengthened their balance sheet, improving stockholders' equity by $32.9 million. The vision is about becoming a dominant force in intelligent infrastructure.

• Lead the advancement of AI-driven automation and intelligent infrastructure globally.
• Sharpen focus on highest-margin, recurring-revenue business lines for long-term growth.
• Expand their footprint in public safety, retail automation, and supply chain logistics.

This is a company betting its future on AI, so their vision is highly technology-dependent. You can learn more about the institutional interest in Exploring OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

OMNIQ Corp. Slogan/Tagline

An official, widely-used tagline isn't defintely available, but you can infer their core value proposition from their customer-centric communications. The company's emphasis is on partnership and shared success, which is a key differentiator in the B2B tech space.

• The core philosophy is often expressed as: your customers are our customers.
• This reflects a commitment to customer-centricity and end-user satisfaction.

The commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction is their cultural DNA, and it's backed by the fact that their Q1 2025 revenue was $19.9 million, an 8.7 percent increase, showing that their solutions are resonating in the market.

OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) How It Works

OMNIQ Corp. operates by integrating its patented artificial intelligence (AI) and machine vision technology with specialized hardware to deliver real-time identification and tracking solutions for critical infrastructure and supply chain environments. The company acts as a specialty systems integrator, providing end-to-end solutions that automate processes and enhance security across diverse sectors like public safety, transportation, and logistics.

OMNIQ Corp.'s Product/Service Portfolio

OMNIQ Corp.'s Operational Framework

OMNIQ's operational framework is centered on a strategic shift toward its higher-margin, AI-driven Smart Automation business, following the July 2025 sale of a portion of its legacy assets. This divestiture eliminated approximately 63% of the Company's pre-sale debt, allowing for a sharper focus on core growth areas.

The company creates value by tightly integrating its proprietary software with third-party and proprietary hardware, delivering a full-lifecycle service model. For example, a new university customer in Wisconsin recently selected OMNIQ's AI Access-Control technology, demonstrating the demand for these integrated solutions.

• Cost Discipline: A continued cost-reduction strategy improved operational efficiency, narrowing the loss from operations to $591 thousand in Q3 2025, a 13.7% improvement year-over-year.
• Recurring Revenue: The focus is on securing long-term service agreements and software subscriptions, which contribute to more stable, recurring revenue streams, like the ongoing contract awarded by a multi-campus medical center.
• Agile Deployment: The company quickly deploys its mobile AI analytics platform, adding eight additional Mobile License Plate Inventory (MLPI) vehicles in Q3 2025 alone.

Here's the quick math: OMNIQ reported Q1 2025 revenue of $19.9 million, showing an 8.7% increase year-over-year, but Q3 2025 revenue was $8.8 million, so revenue timing and mix still matter a lot.

OMNIQ Corp.'s Strategic Advantages

OMNIQ's market success is grounded in its intellectual property and its ability to serve as a comprehensive, single-source technology partner for complex environments.

• Proprietary AI and Patents: The core advantage is the patented and proprietary artificial intelligence technology for machine vision image processing, which is difficult to replicate and is applied across diverse, high-growth markets like Global Smart City and Public Safety.
• Systems Integration Expertise: Unlike pure software vendors, OMNIQ is a specialty systems integrator that designs, delivers, deploys, and supports the entire solution-hardware, software, and communications-in mission-critical settings.
• Financial Restructuring: The 2025 divestiture significantly strengthened the balance sheet, reducing net loss to just $34,000 in the first half of 2025, positioning the company for growth with a leaner structure.
• Diversified Customer Base: Customer concentration risk is low; no single customer accounted for more than 10% of total revenue in Q1 2025, which is a key improvement over 2024.

You can see a deeper dive into the institutional interest in Exploring OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?. Honestly, their focus on high-margin AI is defintely the right move for long-term profitability.

OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) How It Makes Money

OMNIQ Corp. generates revenue primarily by providing artificial intelligence (AI)-based computer vision and data intelligence solutions to government agencies, healthcare, education, and transportation sectors. The company's financial engine is shifting toward a higher-margin mix of one-time system deployments and recurring software-as-a-service (SaaS) fees, following the divestiture of its lower-margin legacy business in the second quarter of 2025.

This strategic focus on AI and smart automation is designed to capture market share in high-growth areas like the Global Safe City and Ticketless Safe Parking markets.

OMNIQ Corp.'s Revenue Breakdown

The company's continuing operations are now centered on its AI and automation solutions, which combine proprietary software with specialized hardware. While a precise, granular breakdown of the new revenue mix for the full 2025 fiscal year is not yet published, the core business streams post-divestiture reflect a clear split between initial deployment value and long-term service contracts. Here's the quick math on the two primary streams based on the company's strategic focus as of November 2025:

The AI Solution Deployments stream represents the initial sale and installation of the company's AI-based access control, vehicle recognition, and data collection systems, like the Mobile License Plate Inventory (MLPI) vehicles and automated gates deployed at airports and universities. This revenue is generally non-recurring but provides the foundation for the second, more valuable stream.

The Managed Services, SaaS & Support stream is the future of the business model. This includes cloud-hosted software like the PERCS™ (Permitting, Enforcement, Revenue and Collection) system, which operates on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Plus, it covers ongoing technical service and support via Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This recurring revenue is defintely higher-margin and provides greater revenue visibility.

Business Economics

OMNIQ Corp.'s business economics are currently defined by a sharp pivot toward margin expansion, even at the expense of top-line revenue growth in the short term. They are focusing on selling more profitable revenue, not just more revenue.

• Pricing Strategy: The model is a hybrid. Initial deployment contracts are priced to cover specialized hardware and a one-time software license fee, while the long-term value is captured through recurring SaaS subscription fees and annual support contracts (SLAs). This structure shifts the economic risk and reward toward sticky, predictable revenue.
• Gross Margin Improvement: The company's focus on efficiency and better pricing is working. The gross margin for the first half of 2025 improved to 26%. Even more telling, the gross profit for Q3 2025 was $3.0 million on $8.8 million in revenue, yielding an impressive gross margin of approximately 34.09%. This is a clear indicator that the new, AI-focused revenue mix is significantly more profitable than the legacy business.
• Customer Diversification: A key economic fundamental is the reduction of customer concentration risk. In Q1 2025, no single customer accounted for more than 10% of total revenue, a marked improvement from 2024 when one customer represented 23.7%. This diversification across education, healthcare, and transportation makes the business model more resilient.

OMNIQ Corp.'s Financial Performance

The most recent data, from the Q3 2025 earnings report released in November 2025, shows a business in transition, prioritizing profitability and efficiency over raw sales volume.

• Revenue Trend: Revenue for the third quarter of 2025 was $8.8 million, a decrease from $9.5 million year-over-year. However, year-to-date (nine months ended September 30, 2025) sales were $24.21 million. The decline in Q3 is a direct result of management's choice to focus on higher-margin orders and the timing of new contracts.
• Profitability & Loss Reduction: Despite the revenue dip, gross profit for Q3 2025 rose to $3.0 million from $2.0 million in Q3 2024. Critically, the loss from operations narrowed to $591 thousand in Q3 2025, a 13.7% improvement year-over-year. Net loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2025, was significantly reduced to $0.784 million.
• Cash Flow and Balance Sheet: The sale of the legacy assets in H1 2025 was a turning point, materially improving the balance sheet. This move reduced the equity deficit by approximately 75% and supported a positive operating cash flow of $6.07 million in the first half of 2025. Positive operating cash flow is a big deal for a growth-focused company, especially one undergoing a turnaround.

For a deeper dive into the metrics behind this turnaround, you should read Breaking Down OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) Market Position & Future Outlook

OMNIQ Corp. is strategically pivoting to a focused, higher-margin business, having shed its legacy assets in 2025 to concentrate entirely on its core Smart Automation and AI-driven solutions. This move, which eliminated approximately 63% of the company's debt, positions the leaner operation to capitalize on the rapidly expanding $21.18 billion AI for Public Security and Safety market in 2025.

Competitive Landscape

The company operates in highly fragmented, niche sectors of the broader AI and IoT markets. While the overall AI for Public Security and Safety market is valued at billions, OMNIQ's focus on proprietary AI-based computer vision for access control and vehicle recognition gives it a specialized edge over broader enterprise software providers.

Opportunities & Challenges

The strategic divestiture in 2025 was a major step, but the company still faces execution risks. Here's the quick math: OMNIQ's projected 2025 revenue of $85.4 million is heavily reliant on successfully scaling its core AI products.

Industry Position

OMNIQ Corp. is a micro-cap player in a massive, high-growth sector, positioned as a specialist in AI-driven access and automation rather than a generalist software vendor. The company's strategic pivot in mid-2025, which included eliminating roughly $45 million in debt and recording a $34.7 million gain to equity, has defintely cleaned up the balance sheet for the new focus. That's a huge shift.

• The core business is now concentrated on AI and Smart Automation, which generated approximately $38.5 million of the company's total 2024 consolidated revenue, indicating the path to a higher-margin model.
• Operational efficiency is improving: the company narrowed its Loss from Operations in Q3 2025 to $591 thousand, a 13.7% improvement year-over-year.
• Its market standing is built on proprietary technology applied to critical infrastructure-homeland security, public safety, and traffic management-markets that are seeing double-digit growth.

You need to look closely at the financial details behind this pivot; for a deeper dive, check out Breaking Down OMNIQ Corp. (OMQS) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors. The key action now is watching if the company can convert its new customer wins in education and healthcare into sustained, profitable revenue streams in 2026.