NextNav Inc (NN) 2025 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Desiree, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the NextNav first-quarter 2025 earnings call. (Operator Instructions)

I would now like to turn the conference over to Nevin Riley. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to NextNav's first-quarter conference call. Participating on today's call are Mariam Sorond, NextNav's Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Gates, NextNav's Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, let me remind everyone that this call will include certain statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Forward-looking statements may be identified by use of the words may, anticipate, believe, expect, intend, should, could and similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements, which may relate to NextNav's forecast of future results, future prospects, developments, and business strategy are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions, many of which are outside NextNav's control and could cause actual results to differ.

In particular, such forward-looking statements include the achievement of certain FCC-related milestones and SEC approvals, NextNav's projections, plans, objectives and expectations and NextNav's future business strategies and competitive position. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs as well as a number of assumptions concerning future events.

You are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon the forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made, and NextNav undertakes no commitment to update or revise the forward-looking statements, except as required by law. For additional information regarding risks and uncertainties, please refer to the risk factors and other disclosures contained in the company's filings with the SEC.

Following prepared remarks, the company will host an operator-led question-and-answer session. In addition, a replay of our discussion will be posted to the company's Investor Relations website.

I'd now like to turn the call over to Ms. Sorond. Please go ahead, Mariam.

Thank you, Nevin. Good morning and thank you all for joining us today. Before drilling down on business milestones and momentum, I'd like to begin with a snapshot of who we are and discuss why our solution has never been more important. I will then pass it over to Chris to provide an update on our financials.

At NextNav, we're focused on solving a critical national security challenge: the vulnerabilities of GPS. GPS is critical in nearly every part of modern life from national defense and aviation to emergency response, power grids, telecommunications, and financial systems.

However, GPS can be jammed or spoofed with low-cost equipment. And unlike China and Russia, the US currently has no domestic terrestrial backup in place for continuity if GPS fails.

That's where NextNav comes in. We're proposing a vital layer of resilience by delivering a terrestrial complement and backup to GPS. Using our licensed low-band 900-megahertz spectrum, the scale of 5G infrastructure and the 5G equipment ecosystem, we've proposed a reliable, accurate positioning, navigation and timing or PNT solution to the FCC.

Our system can provide a critical backup to GPS and complements it indoor and in urban canyons where GPS signals are often limited or not available. This is essential for first responders and critical infrastructure, and we structured our solution to be deployable at no cost to taxpayers.

We're actively working with the FCC and key stakeholders to integrate our solution as part of a broader system of systems approach to national PNT resiliency. While we've been talking about this for over a decade, we're excited to see the increased urgency from the current administration. As FCC Chairman Brendan Carr recently put it, while GPS may be indispensable, it is not infallible. Disruptions to GPS have the potential to undermine the nation's economic and national security.

During the first quarter, the FCC demonstrated meaningful progress with fast movement under Chairman Carr to advance space-based and terrestrial PNT solutions. On March 27, the FCC unanimously voted to advance a notice of inquiry, or NOI, titled Promoting the Development of Positioning, Navigation and Timing Technologies and Solutions to explore how the FCC may foster GPS backups and complements.

The unanimous vote demonstrates a clear recognition of the urgent national security and public safety need for resilient PNT. Backed by bipartisan and public support, the NOI advances efforts to develop terrestrial PNT solutions that add critical redundancy to America's infrastructure.

We were pleased with the NOI and applaud the FCC's engagement with stakeholders across government and industry and for its interest in a system of systems approach, an approach that includes both space and terrestrial-based technologies to build redundancy into America's critical infrastructure.

We saw unanimous support for the NOI and a framework for moving quickly by the FCC as indicated by its expedited NOI comment period. Chairman Carr brought to light a critical issue for the industry with the vast majority of commenters supporting the need for a backup and complement to GPS.

There was a broad consensus in the NOI comments regarding the importance of enhanced national PNT infrastructure and mitigating GPS vulnerabilities via system of systems approach. Many commenters also agreed that a terrestrial solution is critical and that it should be wide scale and available for incorporation in end-user devices.

In addition, first responder organizations have urged the FCC to support deployment of resilient PNT and a number of key public safety organizations as well as other commenters have supported further action by the FCC with respect to NextNav's proposal.

While the NOI was a general proceeding, NextNav was specifically described by the FCC in the NOI, which underscores the interest in our wide-scale technology proven across the public and private sectors. The discussion in the NOI references NextNav's demonstrated performance.

Moreover, the language of the NOI closely echoes the foundational points of our separately filed FCC petition for rule change, repeatedly emphasizing the necessity for a system of systems, including a terrestrial component and the need for a backup and complement to GPS to address vulnerabilities and limitations in GPS.

It is critical for the FCC to enable at least one future-proof solution that relies on market forces to deliver a terrestrial wide-scale PNT solution that is broadly available to critical infrastructure, public safety and consumers and has a clear path to incorporation in end-user devices.

In terms of the FCC's ongoing consideration, we did not see any surprises or showstoppers from the NOI that would prevent the FCC from taking action with respect to next steps. We believe PNT resiliency is an urgent national security objective and are encouraged by the FCC's swift action thus far. We hope the FCC maintains this pace and NextNav will continue to work collaboratively with the FCC and industry to deliver on this administration's priority.

Now as a brief aside, while we are proud of the support in record, both for NextNav and for the objective of a wide-scale terrestrial backup and complement, we wanted to touch on the recent opposition and why we think it is unlikely to be persuasive at the FCC. There are generally two types of arguments.

The first claims that there are superior terrestrial alternatives to NextNav and PNT, but we believe the FCC is interested in a system of systems approach requiring multiple terrestrial technologies. And NextNav's part is a wide-scale terrestrial solution that can be incorporated in consumer devices without the need for taxpayer funding.

The second type of opposition claims that modifying the technical rules for the band would cause interference issues to other current licensees in the band and to a variety of unlicensed devices that currently and successfully coexist in the band. Thus far, none of these interference claims are supported by technical analysis.

We continue to reach out to incumbents in the band for engineer-to-engineer dialogue, and we are confident that the staff at the FCC will be able to assess the technical arguments fairly and completely. We continue to believe that the benefits of implementing NextNav's proposal in terms of addressing a critical national security vulnerability will far outweigh any cost of retuning licensed incumbent systems or replacing equipment if required.

In addition, a technical analysis we filed at the SEC in late February showed that NextNav's proposed 5G operations would not cause unacceptable interference on unlicensed devices in the band. The recognition of the urgent national security and public safety needs at hand is not just a topic of policy. It is an imperative from a number of audiences in the broader global markets that are bringing attention to this now.

Earlier this week, I presented at the Milken Institute Global Conference on a panel regarding America's lack of preparation for future warfare. There was a wide recognition that building resiliency in vulnerable systems is important for deterrence and also for regaining our leadership in critical technologies. Further, it was recognized that the private sector can help address national security concerns by accelerating the availability of these resilient systems.

Additionally, as we execute on our goal of providing a terrestrial backup and complement to GPS to address a major national security threat, we are pleased to welcome two esteemed individuals to our Board of Directors, Rear Admiral H. Wyman Howard and Lorin Selby. Their extensive military and national security leadership experience in technology, research and development and management capabilities will be invaluable to NextNav and will help drive our agenda.

Looking ahead, NextNav is committed to strengthening PNT resiliency in support of national security, public safety, and the economy. With increasing recognition of the need for a terrestrial GPS backup, evidenced by the bipartisan NOI vote in March and strong national security focus from the new administration, we are well positioned for continued momentum. We remain focused on executing on our strategic roadmap and driving innovation in geolocation technology.

With that, let me turn things over to Chris for a review of our financials. Chris?

Thanks, Mariam, and good morning, everyone. I'll address our financial performance for the first quarter of 2025 and provide details on the strategic financing we closed in March. Beginning with the top line, NextNav's revenue in the first quarter was $1.5 million, a $0.5 million increase from $1.0 million in the prior-year period.

The year-over-year increase in the period was driven primarily by an increase in service revenue from technology and services contracts with government and commercial customers. Operating expenses for the first quarter were $18.5 million, up approximately $1.3 million versus the same period last year.

Operating expenses included $1.5 million in depreciation and amortization and $4.3 million in equity compensation compared to $1.3 million in depreciation and amortization and $4.2 million in equity compensation in the first quarter of 2024.

Net loss for the first quarter was $58.6 million, which included a $24.5 million loss associated with the change in the fair value of derivative liability and $14.4 million of debt extinguishment loss. This is compared to a net loss of $31.6 million in the first quarter of 2024, which included a loss in the change of the fair value of our warrant liability of $13.2 million.

Turning now to our balance sheet and liquidity. We finished the quarter with $188.4 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments. This reflects the closing during the quarter of the previously announced $190 million of 5% redeemable senior secured convertible notes due 2028 issued in a private placement to lead investors, M-Cor Capital, Fortress, and other new and existing investors.

As part of the closing of the notes, a portion of the net proceeds were used to redeem our previously issued $70 million 10% senior secured notes due 2026, along with accrued interest. As noted, we were pleased to welcome new strategic investors while deepening our relationship with existing investors and enhancing the liquidity of our balance sheet on attractive terms.

We believe this capital will provide additional financial flexibility and strategic support as we pursue our objectives through 2025 and beyond. As we have mentioned in the past, we take a prudent long-term approach to liquidity and continue to carefully manage our use of capital.

With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator for questions. Operator?

(Operator Instructions) Ryan Koontz, Needham.

Great. Thanks for the question. With regards to your proposed network deployment model, can you maybe walk us through that a little bit, how it involves incumbent mobile operators and their spectrum and how your services would mesh with their infrastructure and their wireless services? Thanks.

Yeah. Hi, Ryan. Basically, our proposal is the technology is embedded in 5G. It's completely standards based. 5G has an existing standards-based signaling mechanism called PRS or the positioning reference signal that doesn't need any modification or anything to the equipment. And basically, you turn it on, it provides a beacon and then our software derives positioning timing from that beacon.

So basically, what this means is that on our spectrum, and we've said this in the past, that basically the spectrum will be deployed by our partner, most likely an MNO, they will add the spectrum to their existing network like they do any other spectrum for capacity purposes or coverage purposes. And they go through the same routine as they would. And then when it's completed deployment, they turn on the PRS and we get to go.

And so you'd use their towers, their backhaul and their core infrastructure to route your signals?

Yeah. The signal is embedded in the 5G. So it's already whatever routing mechanism, the same equipment that you use for 5G broadband is actually going to turn on this signal, which same routing mechanisms. And then we actually detect and derive the signal within an end-user device. It's 5G based. That's why we talk about the wide-scale availability and convenience and end-user devices. And our solution is just software. It extracts that information and derives the positioning and timing.

Right. And what would be their motivation for rolling this out -- commercial agreement?

Their motivation will be that they need spectrum, specifically also low-band spectrum, which is scarce these days for coverage or capacity enhancements. They will deploy it for the reason of the spectrum need.

Got it. So they'll operate their own traffic over your 900-megahertz spectrum?

Exactly. This is the solution we came up for this to be an economically innovative solution, right? And in the past, we've talked about how deploying just a beacon for PNT is not economical. So this is how we came up with a solution to say the spectrum is what the operators would be interested in. So therefore, we could then derive the PNT signal from it.

And how about on the client side, what are you going to do there? Obviously, you need a new chips and RF capabilities in the end devices to process this?

So just like any spectrum today that an operator adds, right -- and they're going to continue to do this because they need spectrum, they're going to add spectrum to their networks -- devices would have the road maps, whether that's on the front end or whether that's the software to include a new band. It's the same process, no different than any other spectrum that they would add.

And in terms of the client processing capability to derive the signals, does it run in software? Or do you need another chip to process?

No, just software. Our solution is 100% software-based for extracting the positioning. Yeah.

Tim Horan, Oppenheimer.

Thanks guys. Just following up on that question. How expensive would this be to deploy for an MNO if it's software-based? And why wouldn't they all deploy this maybe on existing spectrum now if it's feasible just to add in?

So the CapEx or any addition would be similar to any other spectrum, which they do all the time because we're exactly not going opposite direction on the need for more capacity or coverage. They're going to continue to spend the money to add spectrum to their networks.

As far as whether it's expensive to add our software, no. Again, laying over a software layer is not at all. It's not a hardware modification. It's not an additional equipment, which would then make it additional cost to what they routinely do to add spectrum. So we don't have any of those.

And you asked a really good question on why wouldn't they do this now if it's there. They can. They can actually turn on the PRS signal or in a 5G network or CRS signal in a 4G network. But it is a 5% capacity hit to their networks. So basically, they would be giving up 5% of their capacity, which is generating mobile broadband revenue. That's one problem.

The second problem is just turning on the signal is not enough. You have to then have -- NextNav has the expertise, the licensing, the IP, the software to be able to then take that signal and convert it to positioning and timing.

Got it. So is there anything else about your technology or intellectual property that I thought you only needed a couple of megahertz of your spectrum to run this. And I think the carriers are up to like 300 megahertz on average now. Or why would it take 5% of their capacity and for you would be a much lower amount?

So we actually have put an analysis early on about this needs a broad bandwidth. So we do need the 10-megahertz downlink. So it's a 10 plus 15 configuration that we're proposing. The 10 megahertz, the depth of the spectrum is critical in providing accuracy. Capacity is a completely different layer, and that 5% is from the bits per second perspective, not the megahertz perspective, perspective.

And it's the same. The overhead associated with TRS, whether it's in this band or whether it's in another band is going to be about 2% to 5%. I'm taking the upper edge of things depending on many configuration parameters. Did I answer your question?

I got it. So it's 5% of the 10 megahertz that you're using.

Yeah.

Got it. And Iridium has pushing pretty hard TNT standard using their low earth orbiting satellites that will be global and they claim it's 100 times the signal of what you get for GPS. I know you're talking about systems of systems. And clearly, there's still a need for terrestrial. But do you see that as a competitor or complementary? And there's a bunch of other satellite systems that are looking to do something similar?

Yeah. We see that as very complementary. I mean, satellites are providing GPS today, which 4 billion users worldwide depend on it. Satellites are really critical. They're going to continue to be needed. The satellite commenters or -- we think they have definitely an important place to play in this whole system of systems. And whether it's in the backup or any other solutions they're bringing to the table, they bring an important part of the solution to the table.

What we're doing is we're coming over a vulnerability of a satellite. So whether that's a GPS satellite or another operator's LEO or MEO or GEO satellite, it's still a satellite and it's vulnerable. They're vulnerable to their space base, right? I mean, Milken was all about the future of warfare that's going space-based and how easy it is to go after satellites.

They're very far in the sky. So their signals are weak when they get down to earth. They get jammed, they get spoofed. Those are the vulnerabilities, and that's a gap and are part of the solution that we're bringing to the table. And they will continue to play an important role where their strengths are.

Mike Crawford, B. Riley Securities.

Thank you. In your comments filed in the PNT NOI, you essentially are urging the commission to issue NPRM on your parallel petition. Is there a way for you to get -- is that the only path? Or is there any shortcut path maybe if this PNT action moves more quickly that you could get essentially what you want with the ability to use the rest of 5G waveform besides just the timing and positioning signal that you'd be transmitting along with it or your partner would be transmitting?

So the FCC -- Mike, the FCC can decide what it wants to do in the next steps. We would like to see an NPRM. And an NPRM, it doesn't have to be on the earlier petition. The NPRM can be issued on the NOI. So either way that they see this, it's fine as long as we get to an NPRM process.

You do need an NPRM to change rules. It's notice of proposal rule-making changes and then eventually a report and order. There is no other mechanism that gets you to a rule change. But of course, in the interim, they could do many other processes in the toolbox and that they would like to get to the final position of a report and order ultimately.

That concludes the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us today. We're very excited by the pace of momentum we're seeing on the regulatory front with the FCC. And as we look ahead, we are committed to advancing geolocation services that will enhance PNT resiliency for national security, public safety, and the economy. And we're excited as our momentum propels us forward. We're looking forward to connecting with you all next quarter.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.