Blink Charging Co.

Stand by, your program is about to begin. If you need audio assistance during today's program, please press... Good day, everyone, and welcome to Inc. Charging Company first quarter 2021 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have an opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing the star on one on your touchtone phone. I will be standing by should you need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn today's program over to John Nesbitt, MS, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Blink Charging's first quarter 2021 investor call. On the call today, we have Michael Farkas, founder and chief executive officer, Brandon Jones, president, and Michael Rama, chief financial officer. I would like to take a moment to read the safe harbor statement. This conference call contains four looking statements as defined within the Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. These forward-looking statements and terms such as anticipate, expect, intend, may, will, should, or other comparable terms involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and dependent circumstances that will occur in the future. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief, or current expectations of Blink and members of its management, as well as the assumptions on which such statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, including those described in Blink's periodic reports filed with the SEC, and that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, Blink undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed conditions. I would now turn the call over to Michael Farkas, CEO, Brendan Jones, President, and Brendan Jones, President of Blink Charging. Go ahead, Michael.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We had a solid start to 2021. First quarter revenue grew 72% compared to the first quarter of 2020, and we continued to aggressively expand the geographic footprint of our chargers. During the quarter, we made tremendous progress with 1,597 commercial and residential chargers contracted, sold, or deployed, and the number of Blink-owned charging stations contracted deployed grew more than 370% compared to the same period in 2020. Our target locations are high-density, high-volume venues like hotels, multifamily residentials, and healthcare networks. We are also working with a broad range of countries, states, and municipalities to strengthen EV infrastructure as more individual drivers as well as fleets transition to greener transportation. EV use is gaining traction worldwide, and in the U.S., the transition is being aided by favorable legislation initiatives and the Biden administration. In fact, as many of you know, in early April, the White House published its infrastructure plan, which, among other initiatives, proposes a $174 billion investment for the electrification of cars and trucks, and also proposes to establish grants and incentive programs to build a national network of 500,000 EV charging stations. With these efforts to get more EVs on the road, it's logical that demand will increase for fast, accessible and reliable charging stations to fuel these vehicles. While EVs are currently a relatively small portion of the vehicle market, They represent a rapidly growing segment of the transportation sector. As a leader in the EV industry, we are well positioned to play a key role in the infrastructure build-out necessary to support the anticipated growth in EV transportation. And we are already actively pursuing opportunities at the local, state, and federal levels of government. It's important to remember that we are a pioneer in the EV charging space. with a great deal of experience in deploying charging stations in locations that are accessible and convenient while also providing the technology that ensures a fast charge. We are focused on our operator-owner model where we enter into long-term exclusive contracts with automatic extensions that employ a revenue-sharing model in which we receive payment each and every time a vehicle is charged at one of our Blink-owned locations. With this structure, we have the potential to generate a valuable recurring revenue stream for many years to come as EV utilization increases. Our property owner partners also benefit from this model because we take care of the installation and maintenance of Blink-owned units, which is often an attractive option for property management companies who have a lot of other responsibilities on their plate. Additionally, in our own and operate approach, we have exclusive long-term contracts which allow us to deploy charging stations today, but most importantly, to add chargers to these contracted locations as necessary to meet demand. And that is through long-term, again, very long-term and exclusive contracts. This is a very exciting time to be a leader in the EV charging industry. Even before the recent announcements from the White House, we believed and continue to believe that the transition to EVs represent an opportunity with tremendous potential for our company's growth. As we've noted in previous calls, I think it's important to point out again and again, Bloomberg's NEF Electric Vehicle Outlook, which looks at the global EV market, noted that passenger EV sales increased from 450,000 in 2015 to 2.1 million in 2019 and are expected to reach over 50 million by 2040. Bloomberg NEF also expects that more than 50% of new car sales globally will be EVs by 2040 and projects that the need for charging stations will top 290 million by 2040. Again, 290 million charging stations needed globally. We're not even in the beginning of the first inning as to the amount of deployments that are necessary. And by the way, that has a value of over $500 billion worldwide. The shift to EVs is happening, and Blink is poised for significant growth as we play a key role providing the infrastructure to support this transition. To support our growth in January 2021, we completed a successful equity raise of $232 million, significantly strengthening our balance sheet. With a stronger capital structure, we are better positioned to expand Blink-owned charging infrastructure, improve internal systems, operations, and technology, and to prepare for anticipated exponential growth, securing new partnerships, acquiring new locations, and continuing to seek strategic acquisition opportunities. As a key contributor to the expanding EV landscape, we are continuously looking for opportunities to strategically increase our global assets while also making EV charging more accessible. As such, we are very excited about this week's announced acquisition of European EV charging operator, Blue Corner, and its portfolio of 7,071 charging ports. giving Blink operational control, complete operational control, of Blink Corner and its EV charging assets. The acquisition is part of our broader strategic international expansion plans and provides a significant infrastructure input in Europe. Blue Corner chargers are located across Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France. EVs enjoy a much higher market share in Europe, It's heightening the potential for the increased utilization for our EV charging stations. In addition, the historically higher price of fuel in Europe makes driving in EV a much stronger value proposition for drivers there. To facilitate our further expansion in Europe, we've also created Blink Holdings, a new company headquarters in Amsterdam, and we're excited to immediately establish a significant presence in Europe, supporting the international expansion that is fundamental to our growth, and we believe this acquisition will accelerate the success we are already achieving in Europe. Finally, we are excited by the opportunities we are seeing in the marketplace, and during the first quarter, we strengthened our capabilities for capitalizing on these opportunities by strategically adding new positions and people to improve our operational strength across the organization. Perhaps most notably, we added our new CTO, Harjinder Bhatti, He's a founder of ChargePoint, one of our biggest competitors, and he's a seasoned renewable and EV charging executive. We'll focus on the aggressive development of the company's product lineup, the technology infrastructure, and just bringing everything within our portfolio up to the next level. Additionally, we made 17 new hires across the organization, including the technology, sales, IT, and customer service departments. We are also expanding our facilities in advance of anticipated growth, and at the start of the quarter, we announced the purchase of a 10,000-square-foot office in Miami to house our corporate headquarters and to support our current and future growth. Also at the beginning of the first quarter, we opened a new Phoenix location, which has already begun making meaningful contributions to our operations. Blink is off to a strong start and solidly positioned to drive growth. And as we move through the balance of 2021, we have amazing and exciting things ahead of us. And this is a very exciting and transformative time for Blink, and we're extremely optimistic about our future and our role in the growth of worldwide EV charging infrastructure. Now I'll turn the call over to Brendan Jones, President of Blink, to discuss some of our recent developments. Go ahead, Brendan.