Nextech3D Ai Corp

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Welcome everyone to the Nextech AR Solutions Corp first quarter results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. I'd like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded today, Wednesday, May 12, 2021. I will now turn the call over to Shauna Mason, Investor Relations at Next Tech AR Solutions Corp. Shauna, the floor is yours.

Thanks, Operator. Good afternoon and welcome to the Next Tech Q1 earnings call. With me on the call are Evan Gappelberg, CEO, and Koshif Malik, CFO. Today, after market close, Next Tech AR Solutions released its financial results for the first quarter ending March 31st A copy of the earnings disclosure is available on our website and on CDAR. Some of the information discussed on the call is based on information as of today, May 12th, and contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in such statements. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, you should review all forward-looking statements disclosure in the earnings press release, as well as in our CDER filing. During this call, we will discuss IFRS results and non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation between IFRS results and non-IFRS financial measures is available in our MD&A, which again can be found on CDER. Neither this call nor the webcast archives may be re-recorded or otherwise reproduced or distributed without prior written permission from Next Tech. To begin our call, Evan Gappelberg, CEO, will discuss the highlights of our first quarter as well as recent business developments, followed by Tasha, who will review our financial results and outlook. Finally, Evan will make some closing remarks before opening up the line for more questions. I'll now turn over the call to Evan. Thanks, Evan.

Thank you, Shauna. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. First, I want to thank our employees all over the world. They're located in Canada, United States, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. I want to thank them for their continued commitment. Next Tech's success in the first quarter of 2021 was made possible through the hard work creativity and dedication of our talented and valued employees. Our culture of organizational learning and respectful collaboration is energizing and driving business excellence throughout our company. I would like to thank our employees in advance for another year of strong performance in 2021. Nextech's first quarter growth was fueled by a combination of all our businesses that we operate, not just one. We are a unique public small cap company in that we are diversified in multiple businesses that all have the red thread of AR connecting them as our core technology is, of course, augmented reality. Our AR business is the fastest growing part of our business and is connected to everything we sell, creating a virtual flywheel effect within our company. For e-commerce, we have our genie in the bottle, which we are rapidly bringing to market as a self-serve platform for all CPG brands and expect to have this new platform under the brand livestreamhologram.com in the near future. For events under Inferno, previously Inferno, currently IgniteX and LiveX, we offer a large selection of AR-enhanced experiences, including human holograms for keynote speakers, 3D augmented reality booths, augmented reality portals, as well as custom AR experiences that we build for our customers on demand. Throughout Q1 2021, demand for our products and our solutions has accelerated. I'm particularly excited about our next generation digital experience platform called Nextech AR LiveX. The transition of all our events from Inferno, now called IgniteX, to a new highly scalable LiveX platform will allow us to save and reduce our overhead by approximately $6 million annually. As a result of this major cost savings, the company has committed all current and future events for our LiveX platform. LiveX sits at the intersection of the massive creators market and the enterprise market while simultaneously On the LiveX platform, you can have a three-day corporate summit going on with speaker tracks, breakout rooms, chat, and AR holograms, all with real-time analytics, while at the same time, a YouTube star is playing guitar and singing for his or her million followers, earning money from our ad network, while at the same time, Nextech is putting on a capital markets day. while Restaurant Canada is hosting a Top Chef cooking show, while an NFT auction is happening, all while product is being demoed and sold from thousands of Shopify site owners. That's what I call scale. That's LiveX. The LiveX platform is a walled garden, just like Facebook and Snap. And just like Facebook and Snap, we see our advertising network generating significant revenue in 2021 and beyond. With LiveX, our events are designed 10 times faster, allowing for significant cost savings and scale. With LiveX, we have better user functionality and design, resulting in an improved attendee experience. With LiveX, we have multiple monetization options, including advertising, ticketing, merchandise sales, event sales, and even NFT auctions. Reduction in the cost to serve per event will yield a greater gross profit with additional benefit of recurring revenues from monthly and annual subscriptions. Transitioning all of our events to LiveX platform will, again, save the company an estimated $6 million annually. Nextech AR LiveX has the potential for further delivery efficiencies and related cost benefits through Q3 with the release of LiveX 2.0, which will feature a self-serve option. Our business model has not changed as we are in the AR virtual experience business, which is the fastest growing highest demand technology and market today. In conclusion, Next Tech is focused on its key strategic priorities of maintaining financial strength and liquidity. Since our inception, the company has been advancing efforts and evaluating potential acquisitions to optimize its tech stack, improve its capital structure and liquidity, and ultimately enhance long-term shareholder value. In Q1 2021, our results once again reinforced the importance of our three foundational pillars. A leader in augmented reality technology, which is underpinned by enabling digital transformations in key verticals like education, entertainment, events, retail, medical, and even marketplaces, that all live and breathe on the LiveX digital platform, which is, in our belief, the platform of the future. We are full steam ahead, and I have total confidence in our team and the direction our company is going. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kashif Malik to further comment on the quarterly financials.