Trinity Capital Inc.

Good afternoon. My name is Jamie and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Trinity Capital's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. Our hosts for today are Kyle Brown, Chief Executive Officer, Michael Testa, Chief Financial Officer, Jerry Harder, Chief Operating Officer, and Ben Malcolmson, Head of Investor Relations. Ron Kundage, Chief Credit Officer, and Sarah Stanton, Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel are also present. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay beginning at approximately 3 p.m. Eastern. The replay dial-in number is 800-839-7414 and no conference ID is required for access. At this time, all participants are are in a listen only mode. And the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. We ask that when posing your question, please pick up your handset to allow optimal sound quality. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance please press star zero. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Trinity Capital's Head of Investor Relations, Ben Malcolmson. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jamie, and welcome to Trinity Capital's earnings conference call for the fourth quarter and full year 2023. Trinity's financial results were released today prior to the open of the financial markets and can be accessed from our investor relations website at ir.trinitycap.com. A replay of the call will be available on our website or by using the telephone number provided in today's earnings release. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements that are not based on historical facts made during this call, including any statements relating to financial guidance, may be deemed forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. Because these forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, There are important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. We encourage you to refer to our most recent SEC filings for information on some of these risk factors. Trinity Capital assumes no obligation or responsibility to update any forward-looking statements. Please note that the information reported on this call speaks only as of today, March 6, 2024. Therefore, you are advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of any replay listening or transcript reading. Now, please allow me to turn the call over to Trinity Capital's CEO, Kyle Brown.

Thanks, Ben. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Trinity delivered record fourth quarter results to round out a tremendous year for our platform. In 2023, we advanced our strategy, significantly grew the platform, strengthened our balance sheet, diversified our portfolio, and enhanced multiple revenue streams, all to the long-term benefit of our shareholders. Most notably, we outperformed across multiple operating metrics, setting several financial and performance records throughout the efforts of our incredibly talented team. Headline accomplishments include record quarterly fundings of $267 million in Q4, contributing to a record year with $642 million of total fundings in 2023. platform AUM growth of 29% year-over-year, pushing our assets under management to approximately $1.5 billion, and a record $90 million of net investment income, up 26% year-over-year. This exceptional performance allowed us to increase our quarterly dividend to $0.50 per share in the fourth quarter, making this the 12th consecutive quarter we increased our regular dividend. In the face of industry-wide pressure from disruption in the banking industry in 2023, we emphasized our proactive portfolio management strategies, and partnered with borrowers to navigate a challenging operating environment while continuing to grow our asset center management. Additionally, we continue to invest in our platform by growing our team, scaling the strategy, which we believe widens our funnel as we pursue attractive investment opportunities across the ecosystem of growth-oriented companies. We've organized our business around distinct vertical market opportunities, tech lending, life sciences, equipment financing, and warehouse lending. each with its own dedicated originations, credit, and portfolio management teams. The performance of our life sciences vertical provides an excellent example of Trinity's commitment to scale and asset diversification. We launched this business vertical in 2022, and since that time we've opened a satellite office in the location of San Diego and hired best-in-class talent to expand our deal teams. As of December 31, 2023, our life sciences portfolio sits at approximately $183 million on a cost basis, and represents nearly 14% of our total portfolio. With our tech lending vertical, we continue to grow our footprint by adding proven, experienced talent to our deal teams. In 2023, we expanded our East Coast presence with the appointments of three new originators in New York and Boston, giving us a regional footprint in several major tech markets. We also began to realize the benefits of our direct lending joint venture in 2023. As we've mentioned in prior earnings calls, This off-balance sheet vehicle provides incremental capital for growth and accretive returns to our shareholders. In Q4 2023, the joint venture provided approximately $1.1 million of interest, dividend, and fee income to the BBC and had $153.4 million of assets at fair value as of December 31, 2023. We ended 2023 with a strong investment pipeline, including $358 million in unfunded commitments. But as a reminder, many of our unfunded commitments are subject to performance milestones and and all of Trinity's unfunded term loan and equipment financing commitments are subject to ongoing diligence and approval by our investment committee. We will remain very selective and committed to adhering to our disciplined deal selection and credit underwriting process, and as a result, we're seeing larger and more mature businesses enter the pipeline. This is great momentum as we head into 2024. As we said before, our team is the cornerstone of Trinity's success and will be the key to our growth moving forward. We are committed to creating a unique culture of excellence that is built around our six pillars of humility, integrity, trust, uncommon care, continuous learning, and entrepreneurialism, all of which create the differentiated lending platform that we've built here at Trinity. We strive to provide value above and beyond expectations to every part of the Trinity platform, whether that's employees, clients, or investors. And as an internally managed BDC, our structure allows us to maintain 100% alignment with our shareholders' best interests. Another key factor is that as a direct lender, we continue to own our pipeline, with originators strategically located around the country to bring in opportunities through deep relationships with sponsors, banks, and operators. For Trinity, the commitment to our portfolio companies and the relationships we've developed as a result allows us to invest in a wide array of opportunities supported by quality sponsors. In 2023, an aggregate of nearly $3 billion was raised by 45 of our portfolio companies. Our high-quality portfolio companies continue to secure the funding they seek, and Trinity continues to be a less dilutive source of growth capital for them. We focus on doing three things exceptionally well here at Trinity, exhibiting uncommon care for our employees and partners, being more than just money for our clients, and providing outsized returns for our investors. We expect 2024 to be a strong one for sponsor-backed, growth-oriented companies, providing us with the opportunity to continue to expand this platform. We look forward to continuing this trajectory into 2024 and in the years to come. With that, I'll turn the call over to Michael Testa, our CFO. Mike.