Danimer Scientific, Inc.

Hello and welcome to the Dannemann Scientific fourth quarter and full year 2020 conference call. Currently, all participants are in only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator's assistance during the conference, you may press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Russ Zukowski, Vice President of Corporate Finance. Thank you, and you may begin.

Thank you, Shamali. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings call. Hosting the call today are Danimer's CEO, Steve Cross-Cree, and CFO, Chad Dowdy. Phil VanTrump, our Chief Science and Technology Officer, is also on the line for questions and answers. During our discussion today, we will be referring to our earnings presentation, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at danimerscientific.com. On slide two, please note that we may discuss forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, future results of operations, capacity, production, and demand levels that could differ in a material way from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof, except as required by law. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation to the most comfortable GAAP financial measure can't be found in the investor presentation. I will now turn the call over to Steve, who will begin on slide three.

Thank you, Russ. Good afternoon, everyone. Before we get started, I want to express my appreciation to our team for their strong execution as well as to our new shareholders for their exceptional support. During 2020, we completed construction of the world's first commercial PHA facility and went through a rigorous de-SPACing process all during a pandemic while simultaneously negotiating development agreements with Mars and Bacardi. Thank you for your hard work, dedication, and support. I will start with a review of our business highlights. Following that, I will turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jed Dowdy, who will provide financial highlights from the fourth quarter and full year 2020. I will then wrap up with some exciting updates on our growth strategy. I'm extremely pleased with our numerous accomplishments during 2020 to end the year with an outstanding customer base and an unrivaled commercial-scale bioplastic technology platform. Becoming public was an important milestone for our company, providing us with additional financial flexibility to achieve our long-term expansion objectives. 2020 was a year of record revenues for Dannemer, and we are still in the early stages of an immense opportunity to grow our business and build long-term shareholder value. On today's call, we are going to address four key takeaways. First, The depth and capabilities of our high-growth, next-generation ecotech company that produces 100% biodegradable polymers for use in plastic applications. Second, our massive addressable market spanning 500 billion pounds. Third, our unrivaled growth potential from intense demand by blue chip multinational customers. And finally, the progress we have made to significantly expand our business to meet customer demand. Moving to slide four, those of you who met us during our SPAC merger transaction know that we view PHA as the best end-of-life solution for single-use plastics and that there are no other marine degradable materials available today with PHA's performance characteristics. We are even more bullish now about PHA than we were a few months ago. The tremendous demand resulting from the powerful tailwinds of corporate sustainability commitments, governmental regulation, and consumer awareness of the environmental impact of plastic waste is expected to only make our future brighter. We are in a very unique place within our industry that sets us apart from peers. We have the market know-how, a large portfolio of patents developed over the past 13 years, commercial scale, and long-term customer contracts, all of which puts us well ahead of our industry. We have already built our first commercial scale production facility, and we have a significant pipeline of new capacity to extend our leadership position. We have aligned the majority of our expansion plans based on long-term partnerships with customers. Our customers are mainly major blue chip multinational brands that have all made long-term commitments to make their plastic packaging recyclable, reusable, or biodegradable. With bioplastics representing less than 1% of the addressable market today, we have only scratched the surface of what we believe to be the immense upside moving forward. Our team is comprised of acknowledged leaders in the bioplastic space, and I could not be more pleased with their measurable achievements at Danmar and in this industry. On the next several slides, I'll provide some context to address some questions that we get on PHA and Danmar's proprietary approach. Turning to slide five, Danimer's Nodax PHA is certified as marine degradable by TUV Austria. I'll give you some context on why that is positive for customers and the environment. The two questions we think about with respect to polymers for plastic are, is it renewable, and what happens at the end of its life? Fossil fuels are non-renewable and typically accumulate in landfills and in nature. Most biopolymers, though, go away, and those that do can obtain industry certifications for five different environments. Industrially compostable is the easiest standard to achieve but requires the high heat and moisture of an industrial compost facility. Home compostable is similar but requires less heat and moisture. Soil degradable does not require heat or moisture as the polymer is broken down enzymatically by bacteria. Freshwater and finally marine degradable certifications such as those NODECS has received are the most difficult and highest standards to achieve because there is less bacteria in those environments and so more difficult to degrade. On slide six, we show the lifecycle of PHA. We make PHA by feeding canola oil to bacteria. The bacteria then convert the carbon from the canola oil into another form of carbon for their own metabolic process. That's PHA. The resulting product is the bioplastic resin that we turn into a finished product. The product is not degraded in your home or on your shelves, but after it is discarded, it will be enzymatically degraded by bacteria as this is their preferred energy source. We believe our PHA's beginning through end of life cycle puts us at the forefront of sustainability. Moving to slide seven, we are excited about our PHA leadership position in a significantly large addressable market. It's an 800 billion pound total market, and today virtually all of that ends up accumulating in landfills or nature. Even recycled products have to be discarded at some point. Bioplastics, particularly PHA, are a viable end-of-life solution to truly address the growing need to reverse the global plastics crisis. We think bioplastics can replace about 500 billion pounds of the total market, and so far have only achieved less than 1% of that figure. To put that into perspective, Dannemer has announced plans to have 315 million pounds of named plate production capacity by 2024. That makes this by far the largest producer of PHA globally, and that still pales in comparison to the over 200 billion pounds discarded in nature, 200 billion pounds of fossil fuel-based plastics discarded in nature, including the 17 billion pounds of plastic dumped into the ocean every year that don't make their way into landfills. On slide eight, we have had a long journey that we believe puts us significantly ahead of our industry in terms of patents, commercial scale production, and long-term commitments from customers. This has made us a pioneer and a world leader in producing natural biopolymers that are biodegradable and compostable. We have grown alongside our customers as partners in our mission to address the global plastic crisis. Their long-term contracts and commitments with us continue to fund our R&D efforts, capacity build-outs, and revolutionary products. This history of continuous innovation has brought us to this current inflection point. Now, as a better capitalized company, we plan to accelerate our growth trajectory and further invest in capabilities to support this growth. We have continued to build out our R&D, engineering, sales, and marketing teams to prepare for the expected ramp-up in production. We have hired a number of highly experienced leaders in engineering, manufacturing, technology development, and finance in support of this growth. We have entered into new partnerships, including our March announcement of a two-year partnership with Mars to develop biodegradable packaging as part of their supply chain. We entered into an agreement with Bacardi to make a biodegradable and compostable spirits bottle to help Bacardi replace 80 million plastic bottles. And more recently, we announced that we intend to double the size of our planned greenfield facility to further capture the growing demand from customers. I'll now turn it over to Jad for an update on our financial results.