Safeguard Scientifics Inc

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for this presentation of Safeguard Scientific's fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results. Joining me on today's call webcast are Eric Salzman, Safeguard's Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Herndon, Safeguard's Chief Financial Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we're open to call your questions. As always, today's presentation includes forward-looking statements. Reliance on forward-looking statements involves certain risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to uncertainty of the outcomes of corporate strategic transactions, if any, the uncertainty of the future performance of our companies, our ability to make good decisions about the monetization of our companies, the ongoing support of our companies, our inability to unilaterally control our companies, fluctuations in the market prices if any of our companies are publicly traded, and the effect of regulatory and economic conditions generally, and other uncertainties described in our filings with the SEC. Many of these factors are beyond our ability to predict or control. As a result of these and other factors, our past financial performance should not be relied on as an indication of future performance. During the course of today's call, where detectives expect, anticipate, believe, and intend, we'll be using our discussion of goals or events in the future. Management cannot provide any assurance that future results will be as described in our forward-looking statements. We encourage you to read safeguards filings with the SEC, including our Form 10-K, which describe in detail the risks and uncertainties associated with managing our business. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made today. With that, I would now like to introduce Eric.

Thanks, Matt. Thank you for joining our call this afternoon to discuss Safeguard's Q4 and full-year 2022 results. The last three quarters have presented a number of challenges to Safeguard's portfolio companies. We've seen a broad decline in public tech company valuations, a sharp drop-off in investments to VC-stage companies, and a pullback in M&A by both strategic and financial buyers. We're going to depart by rising interest rates, recessionary fears, and a shift away from a growth-at-all-cost mindset, public and private valuations have declined meaningfully during this period, and investor sentiment has shifted from prioritizing revenue growth to prioritizing profitability. This is further evidenced by many of the recently announced layoffs at leading tech companies.

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