NextNav Inc.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to NexNav's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Participating on today's call are Gary Parsons, NexNav's chairman, Ganesh Pabiraman, NexNav's co-founder and CEO, and Chris Gates, NexNav's chief financial officer. Before we begin, please note that during today's presentation, the company may make forward-looking statements either in our prepared remarks or in the associated question and answer session. These statements which involve risks and uncertainties, relate to analyses and other information that are based on forecasts of future results and estimates of amounts not yet determinable, and may also relate to NextNav's future prospects, developments, and business strategies. In particular, such forward-looking statements include statements about NextNav's position to drive growth in its 3D geolocation businesses and expansion of its next-generation GPS platform, the business plans, objectives, expectations and intentions of NextNav, NextNav's partnerships, and the potential success thereof in NextNav's estimated and future business strategies, competitive position, industry environment, and potential growth opportunities. These statements are based on current expectations or beliefs and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Such forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks uncertainties, assumptions, and other important factors, many of which are outside NextNAP's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other important factors include, but are not limited to, the ability of NextNAP to continue to gain traction in key markets and with notable platforms and partners, both within the U.S. and internationally. The ability of NextNav to grow and manage growth profitability, maintain relationships with partners, customers, and suppliers, including with respect to NextNav's Pinnacle 911 solution and its TerraPoint network, and the ability to retain its management and key employees. The ability to maintain balance sheet flexibility and generate effectively deployed capital in line with its business strategies. The possibility that NextNav may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and or competitive factors. including the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, other risks and uncertainties indicated from time to time in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by NextNav. New risks and uncertainties arise from time to time, and it is impossible for us to predict these events or how they may affect us. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date made. and NextNav undertakes no commitment to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Risk factors that may impact our performance are identified in our most recent SEC filings. Following our prepared remarks, the company will host an operator-led question-and-answer session. In addition, at the conclusion of today's call, a replay of our discussion will be posted to the company's investor relations website. With that, I'll turn the call over to NextNAS Chairman Gary Parson. Please go ahead.

Well, thank you very much, Operator, and welcome everybody to NextNAS first quarter earnings conference call. We're pleased to be here and to provide you an update on the business. And, of course, since we actually recently only spoke with many of you a few weeks ago on our fourth quarter call, I'll keep my overview and strategic comments fairly brief. Joining me on the call today, as you heard, is NextNav's CEO, Ganesh Pataparaman, and NextNav's CFO, Chris Gates. To start the call, I'm going to provide, say, a quick overview of the quarter, and then I'll pass it off to Ganesh, and he'll offer a review of some of the more recent operational highlights. Chris will then wrap up the call with a look at the financials, and we'll then open it up for Q&A. As you will hear today, NextNav is off to a solid start in 2022. We're building off the momentum of last year. We delivered continued execution against our strategic plan in the first quarter. As Ganesh will discuss in greater detail, we expanded our partnership network and key areas such as E911 and gaming for our Pinnacle service. We also added a new vertical, one we've talked about in the past sometimes, but really added something in the IoT or Internet of Things transportation space with an agreement with Last Mile Technologies. As you'll hear more about this in a minute, this partnership is a great example of how the platform we've built, the ubiquitous, resilient location services, can now continue to meet the needs of multiple industry verticals. We're also continuing to make progress on our TerraPoint build-out. Notably, we continue to hold really detailed and earnest conversations with government officials as interest in protecting critical infrastructure and PNT or position navigation and timing systems gain attraction along with the devastating war in Ukraine, which we've all talked about. I guess we spoke about on the last earnings call. We told you last quarter that both the US and European government officials remain highly engaged in discussions around water now becoming very apparent vulnerabilities of GPS, and to then find solutions to meet this growing concern. We're beginning to see promising signs in terms of government interest, particularly as they contemplate how to deal with Russian interference with GPS in Europe and elsewhere. Since we last spoke, budgets in the United States have been finalized, and money has been allocated to areas that are of importance to our business. The fiscal year 22 budget approved by the U.S. Congress includes ramped-up funding for the Department of Transportation to examine next steps following their 2020 technology assessment, which we've spoken about in the past. Both DHS and DOD also secured designated funding, much of which was specifically allocated or targeted towards ensuring GPS resiliency. And we also saw the Open P&T Alliance, of which we are a member, this month publicly recognized the government's growing interest in P&T services. To date, we remain fully engaged with all of these efforts and assessments and expect to be an integral part of the government's roadmap to address these concerns. And of course, I would also be remiss if I didn't remind you Of course, the government funding and the full budgetary process through Congress is a drawn out affair, and it does not produce quick results. Our VP of Government Affairs, Ed Mortimer, is closely involved in the ongoing discussions, ensuring our interests remain top of mind. Because of the momentum we've built thus far, and knowing that this isn't a quick process, we're taking a further look out into next year's budget process as well, to ensure that these key topics remain in the conversation. So with that, let me turn the call over to Ganesh to provide you with the details about the quarter's progress. Ganesh?

Thanks, Gary. Afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter earnings call. We feel pretty good about where the business stands today and are excited by the many opportunities we have in front of us. In the first quarter, we continued to build off of our strong foundational work that we began last year, signing a slate of new partnerships while executing against the build of our Pinnacle and SharePoint services. To begin with, let me dig into some of our key announcements, starting with the Pinnacle service. We continue to build on our leadership position in the public safety space. As you may recall, back in January, we announced a partnership with the major wireless carrier to provide vertical location for emergency calls to public safety access points. We're continuing to build on this foundation, now making the information more actionable for PSAPs and dispatchers by working with platform providers who enable that end of the service. We're excited about our expansion in the public safety space as our pinnacle technology is adopted by key players in the ecosystem and is now able to provide the z-axis vertical information visually in a way that makes it understandable and actionable for PSAP operators by including an altimeter view, which is really a visual way to show three-dimensional data on a two-dimensional map. To this end, we announced deals with both GeoComm and NextGen Advanced 911. Geocom is one of the leaders in map data and location intelligence for public safety. Using local GIS data and building information, Geocom systems can convert raw positioning measurements received from wireless carriers into dispatchable locations, including building name, street address, and other elements such as floor and room number. Geocom systems are enabled with the ability to take indoor tactical map displays to the next level, automatically highlighting the vertical location from where the 911 call originated in a multi-story building. Next Generation Advanced, or 911, is a cloud-based next generation 911 cloud platform. It's one of the fastest growing platforms to allow for next-gen 911 and call handling solutions with major clients in California and Nevada. NGA's clients will now be able to natively show floor-level vertical information data of incoming calls across its ecosystem and display the location in both 2D and 3D format. In turn, first responders will gain the confidence that they need and those they're dispatched to serve, needing to remain safe in emergency response instances. I'm also happy to report that our large E911 carrier integration project remains on schedule. And we expect to have devices roll out with Z-axis capability later in the year. So we feel pretty good about how that project is moving forward too. As you can see, we've established or continue to establish a solid foundation in public safety market. And we'll continue to look to identify additional opportunities moving forward. Beyond this, we are also expanding our footprint in the gaming and metaverse space. Here, we're working to expand into augmented reality where we see vast opportunities to align ourselves and provide best-in-class location authentication and vertical location services to this fast-growing and nascent market. Similar to our previously announced agreement with Echo3D, we recently signed a partnership with Widogames, a gaming development company that's closing the gap between the physical and digital worlds. Widogames is bringing NextNav's 3D geolocation capabilities to their application enabling more immersive virtual experiences tied to the real environment of users and leveraging location verification to validate transactions and interactions in the metaverse. The application of our technology in this way is the first to be truly able to authenticate location in the metaverse with the use of vertical location, which can prevent location spoofing for something like an NFT treasure or the purchase of a landmark or property in a virtual real estate. mobile game. It'll also enable unique gaming experiences in augmented reality, providing different experiences depending on the floor you're at. As part of this opportunity, Pinnacle technology will be integrated into Widow Games' marquee titled Geopoly, a mobile game that couples buying, upgrading, and selling digital properties tied to the real world with real-time virtual events. Our technology is actually helping them to validate the location, including the vertical dimension and timestamps of users to authenticate attendance, verify transactions, and prevent in-game location-based spoofing. Through geofencing and geolocation, the positioning of specific users in the real world will enable location-based virtual experiences and rewards, authenticating users' presence at virtual events and facilitating interactions with other users in the same location. And finally, while you've heard us We talked about gaming and public safety before, and as Gary mentioned, we're also making moves into other logically aligned spaces where our technology and services can help businesses grow and diversify. One exciting area for us is IoT. Just a few weeks ago, we announced a partnership with Last Mile Technologies. They're a provider of proprietary asset movement and sensor event analysis services to enhance vertical location capabilities for their asset tracking solutions. Last Mile partners with a large number of key providers to enable IoT solutions. With e-commerce services exploding during the pandemic, we view this partnership as a natural next step in expanding the Pinnacle use case. Our partnership with Last Mile enables organizations to precisely visualize and understand the three-dimensional movement of business-critical assets via API, web, or mobile applications to strengthen operations, security, and data-driven decision-making. This can be done without complex and expensive localized on-premise infrastructure or hardware that could otherwise be required to provide location intelligence. Beyond these exciting additions, we have a lot of other partnerships at various stages of development that we will sure to keep you updated as they progress. Now, turning to TerraPoint, we continue to make solid progress building towards the launch of this technology. Expenditures are expected to be modest in 2022 as we optimize the commercial transmitter design, conduct site selections, and overall network planning. Our strong balance sheet and license spectrum holding allows us to maintain control over the pace and scope of that activity from both the capital and technology perspective. As Gary mentioned, we continue to see growing government interest to address GPS and location services vulnerabilities stemming from the unfortunate events from in Ukraine. We remain in active discussions with government officials, both here in the U.S. and internationally, and expect to be an integral part of this roadmap to address these concerns. As we noted last quarter, we're participating in the European Commission's Joint Research Center Alternate Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Conference evaluation in Ispra, Italy. On May 18th, which is next week, they'll be hosting the demo day where we will be showcasing our technology to the European Union officials. We expect the full report coming out of ISPRA with results of the demonstration similar to the Department of Transportation's demonstration to be released later this summer. We'll be sure to update you on this and our performance as more information is made available. In addition to the demonstration at ISPRA Italy, Ed Mortimer, our VP of Government Affairs, and I will be flying to the UK and European Union next week to meet with senior government officials to make further progress on P&T resilience. I'm also excited to note that I've been asked by NASA to participate in a panel on position navigation and timing workshop the following week on May 25th. And I'll be specifically speaking to the current P&T needs and how technologies like NextNavs can meet those needs today and in the future. This is just one of the many efforts we have underway with NASA, and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with them. With that, let me turn things over to Chris for a review of our financials. Chris?