LM Funding America, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the LM Funding Third Quarter 2022 Business Update Conference Call. At this time, all participants are placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Mr. David Waldman of Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.

Good morning, and thank you for joining LM Funding America's Third Quarter 2022 Conference Call. On the call with us today are Bruce Rogers, Chief Executive Officer, and Richard Russell, Chief Financial Officer of LM Funding. This morning, the company announced its operating results for the quarter ended September 30, 2022, and its financial condition as of that date. The press release is posted on the company's website, lmfunding.com. In addition, the company has filed its quarterly report on Form 10-Q of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which can also be accessed on the company's website as well as the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. If you have any questions after the call or would like any additional information about the company, please contact Crescendo Communications at 212-671-1020. Before management reviews the company's operating results for the quarter ended September 30, 2022, and the company's financial condition at September 30, 2022, we would like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this conference call, including statements regarding our future results of operations, and financial position, strategy, and plans, and our expectations for future operations, our forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based largely on the company's current expectations and projections about future events and trends that it believes may affect its financial condition, results of operations, strategy, short-term and long-term business operations, and objectives and financial needs. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, as described in the company's Form 10-K file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on March 31, 2022. Because of these risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, the forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this conference call may not occur, and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated and implied in the forward-looking statements. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance, or achievements. In addition, neither the company nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of any of these forward-looking statements. The company disclaims any duty to update any of these forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements attributable to the company are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements, as well as others made in this conference call. You should evaluate all forward-looking statements made by the company in the context of these risks and uncertainties. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Bruce Rogers. Please go ahead, Bruce.

Thank you, David. Good morning, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. I'd like to begin by saying thank you to all of our investors for your continued support and confidence in the LM funding story. I'm pleased to report that in the third quarter, our Bitcoin mining strategy has taken another step forward as we've been actively mining Bitcoin in September 2022 and have electrified 1,200 of our machines as of November 15th, 2022. The 1,200 machines provide us with a capacity of 120 petahash. We currently believe that by year's end 2022, we will have approximately 2,700 machines electrified and mining Bitcoin, and that our capacity will increase to approximately 270 petash. When we last updated you at the end of the second quarter, we'd anticipated that we would have more than 5,000 miners operational by the fourth quarter of 2022. However, like many others in the industry, we are experiencing issues with one of our third-party hosting companies, Compute North. with whom we had placed nearly 2,700 of our mining machines during the second quarter of 2022. These machines are currently sitting there dormant. We are attempting to regain control of these machines and look for alternative solutions to host these miners. In the third quarter, we opportunistically took advantage of favorable pricing on mining machines and purchased an additional 400 S19J Pro miners and 200 S19XP miners, which we expect to come online between now and March 31st, 2023. We will continue to look for and take advantage of similar opportunities to purchase additional miners when pricing is favorable in order to maximize long-term shareholder value. We would expect that once all of the 5,646 miners that we currently own are electrified in mining, they would provide us with a capacity of approximately 570 petahash. Overall, we continue to believe that the current volatility facing the entire cryptocurrency market is created and will continue to create significant opportunities for us to acquire distressed assets at attractive prices. While the market for Bitcoin may be volatile, the one thing that will not change is our resolve to maintain a disciplined approach of opportunistically purchasing and cost-effectively operating Bitcoin mining machines in order to maximize long-term value for our shareholders. We plan to continue our strategy of hosting with strong credit-worthy third parties. We believe our decision to remain debt-free for now in our strong cash position will serve us well this crypto winter. Regarding our legacy business, providing funding to nonprofit community associations, the business remains relatively unchanged from when we last reported in the second quarter. Our priority going forward continues to be Bitcoin mining, which we believe can potentially transform our business for the foreseeable future. As the sponsor and founding shareholder in LMF Acquisition Opportunities, our special purpose acquisition company, SPAC, we are happy to report that the business combination transaction with Seastar Medical was successfully completed on October 28, 2022. We did this at a time when many other SPACs have been unable to complete business combinations prior to SPAC expiration dates. Seastar Medical's business plan is focused on bringing a critical care therapeutic breakthrough to the market. They're a medical technology company that is seeking FDA approval of its proprietary solutions to reduce the consequences of hyperinflammation on vital organs and an innovative immunomodulatory platform for pediatric and adult acute kidney injury, as well as other programs for acute and chronic inflammations, including conditions associated with COVID-19. Prior to C-Star Medical's therapy, patients experiencing inflammation have had only limited options for treatment. This innovative therapy will provide treatment options that not only treat inflammation, but also helps the body heal. Since the closing of the transaction, C-Star Medical has been busy announcing positive interim data from the company's ongoing open-label clinical trial in a poster presentation at the American Society of of Nephrology Kidney Week 2022 in Orlando, Florida. They gave a poster presentation highlighting preliminary findings from the company's ongoing open-label clinical trial being conducted at five pediatric hospitals across the U.S., evaluating their selective cytophoretic device, also known as the SCD, for the treatment of immunomodulatory dysregulation. CSTAR also announced that its SCD has been included in the consensus statement for pediatric acute kidney injury as part of the first Pediatric Acute Disease Quality Initiative meeting, which builds upon the existing support within the pediatric community for this important therapy. The outcome of the meeting, titled Consensus-Based Recommendations on Priority Activities to Address Acute Kidney Injury in Children, has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open. In conclusion, we are encouraged about the prospects for Seastar and believe that they are well positioned to accelerate the execution of their business plan, which we believe will create significant value for the LM funding shareholders. At the same time, we are excited about the prospects for our Bitcoin mining strategy. As we continue to electrify machines and mine Bitcoin, we expect to reinvest the net proceeds of our mined Bitcoin back into the business to buy more miners. further accelerating our business plan. We close the quarter with a strong balance sheet, cash of $10.2 million, working capital of $15.5 million, and no long-term debt. This provides us with a solid foundation and the ability to further invest and drive returns from our Bitcoin mining operations. We continue to be surprised by the disconnect between our stockholders' equity of $62.2 million as of September 30, 2022, which equates to $4.75 per outstanding share, and the price where our shares are currently trading at just 78 cents a share. Our plan is to increase our investor outreach in the future by supplementing our quarterly earnings calls with an increasing number of presentations to investors at upcoming conferences, which will be announced. On that note, I would like to turn the call over to Rick Russell, Chief Financial Officer of LM Funding, who will review the financial results for the three-month period ending September 30, 2022. Rick?