TriplePoint Venture Growth BDC Corp.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Triple Point Venture Growth BDC First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all lines have been placed in a listen only mode. After the speaker's remarks there will be an opportunity to ask questions and instructions will follow at that time. This conference call is being recorded and a replay of the call will be available as an audio webcast on the Triple Venture Growth BDC website. Company management is pleased to share with you the company's results for the first quarter 2020. Today representing the company is Jim Labe, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, Sajal Srivastava, President and Chief Investment Officer, and Chris Matthew, Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn you over to Mr. LeBay, I would like to direct your attention to the customary safe harbor disclosure in the company's press release regarding forward-looking statements and remind you that during this call, management will make certain statements that relates to future events of the company's future performance or financial condition, which are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities law. You are asked to refer to the company's most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement or projections unless required by law. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements made during the call. which reflect management's opinions only as of today. To obtain copies of the latest SEC filings, please visit the company's website at www.tpbg.com. Now I will turn the call over to Mr. LeBay.

Thank you and good afternoon everyone. On behalf of TPVG, we hope that our shareholders and their families are healthy and continue to stay that way during this pandemic. As I hope to make clear on today's call, our first priority at TPVG is protecting the health of our employees and supporting our portfolio companies during this global pandemic. As a global firm, we also continue to work closely with our venture capital partners, the entrepreneurs, and investors within the venture ecosystem during these challenging times. The resilience of our portfolio companies and the strength of the venture community is never more evident during these times, and we are grateful for all the support and collaboration within the venture community. At TPVG, our greatest strength is the quality and experience of our management team. which is the most experienced team in the venture lending asset category, bar none. We have decades of experience in venture lending and have been through many economic cycles in the venture lending business over the last 30 years. In this environment, we have a playbook and we have been operating and executing on it. And although this is a very difficult period and we are far from out of the woods, Our focus on the venture lending segment of the BDC market brings some mitigating factors that mean the current environment could affect us less than some of the broader segments of the BDC sector. And I'll get into those shortly. Our consistent results in Q1 demonstrate the value of our expertise and execution of this playbook. During the quarter, We grew the portfolio to a record $713 million at fair value. We continued to deliver stable portfolio yields. We also generated NII in excess of our dividend, not only covering the dividend, but then some. We were also very proactive in the capital markets last quarter, raising both equity and debt capital. resulting in strength and liquidity for the remainder of this year. As an added measure, we announced today that we have put in place an unsecured revolving facility from our advisor merely as a show of support and in keeping with our conservative and true belief in best-in-class practices as a BDC. I mentioned earlier that our differentiated venture lending segment can avoid some of the broader issues and some of those challenges which are facing other segments of the BDC market. First, we originate all our business directly, so we don't have the complications that arise in syndications with multiple party lenders. Second, our portfolio companies are all backed by venture capital funds. Our companies are not primarily funded through sources such as PE funds, hedge funds, corporate or other sources. At TPVG, we further narrowly define this to a limited subset of venture capital funds out there. These are funds that we refer to as our select venture capital funds with whom we've had longstanding profitable relationships. We believe venture capital-backed companies are more durable during periods of stress as their venture capital, as these venture capital investors expect to invest new equity every 12 to 24 months or so in their companies.

And they generally have equity capital reserved for this very purpose.