Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the Deveron Corp First Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session for analysts. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded today, Thursday, June 1st, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Philip Linton, Vice President of Corporate Development. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, operator. As we conduct this call, various statements that we make about future expectations, plans, and prospects contain forward-looking information. Certain material assumptions were applied in making these conclusions and forecasts. Therefore, actual results could differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking information. Additional information about these factors and assumptions are contained in our current annual report, MD&A, and annual information form filed with Canadian Securities Administrators. On the call today, I have David MacMillan, President and CEO, and Craig Hogan, VP of Finance. I will now turn the call over to Dave MacMillan for opening comments before we take your questions. Thank you. Good morning and thank you for joining Deveron's Q1 2023 results call. Before we begin discussing Deveron's results and the company's outlook for the rest of the year, I would like to take a moment to discuss our strategy and focus for the business. Over the last two years, the company's focused its strategy on creating a platform to provide our customers with useful information and data to improve decision-making on the farms they influence, service, or farms they themselves. We believe agriculture happens locally, and we can nurture and support these long-lasting relationships by providing a leading, professionalized, and vertically integrated solution to collecting, testing, and managing soil information. We have always been focused on the customer and their needs to improve their operations. Our primary focus and expertise revolves around soil information, we believe there are many derivative product opportunities that parallel other needs of our customers, which we are in a unique position to serve as Deveron continues to evolve and the capabilities of the North American farm market pushes forward with further innovation. In the short term, we think our focus on consolidating, professionalizing, and vertically integrating the soil testing market will continue to create significant growth opportunities here in North America. The market is characterized by many local providers that lack scale and standardization, which we believe is going to continue to be important as soil testing continues to increase across the U.S. and Canada. In 2022, Deveron executed on strategy and became a key player in the soil testing market in North America. As we focus in on 2023, we have identified major opportunities for the company to succeed and grow our market share further. These are regional organic growth, new enterprise sales, and further industry co-consolidation. Today, I just want to touch on our enterprise strategy, where we continue to see significant growth opportunities ahead. Many larger companies in agriculture have complex logistical requirements when it comes to soil information and have historically relied on lots of relationships in different markets to get the information they want. We believe that our multi-state and province coverage makes Deveron a great partner as we can create a turnkey solution across multiple operating regions, so our customers really have a single chain of custody. Additionally, we are focused on standardizing our lab testing procedures so our customers can have confidence in data comparability across markets. Our belief is that many large and influential relationships exist across agriculture that can benefit from this professionalized and standardized offering. In Q1, we've already seen the benefits of this strategy. We announced substantial enterprise wins, which totaled CAD 9.5 million in new enterprise clients, with CAD 4.7 million to be recognized throughout 2023. Regionally, we have built our sales team out to focus on growing volumes with our many trusted customers, while also looking to bundle field collection and testing products. Many of our trusted partners today are on hundreds of retail locations where we believe continued expansion into new territories is possible. In Q1, we already have seen regional organic wins, onboarding four new additional ag retailers into our soil ecosystem. From a consolidation perspective, we still see many strategically important opportunities we believe are accretive to the platform, whether to add lab capacity expansion or fill in some regional gaps we don't have strong coverage in. Agriculture is changing, and more customer segments are realizing the value of our core offering and how our services and data can help to better their operations. Deveron Soil Ecosystem can scale for any user of agriculture services and data from the grower who needs to make a multimillion-dollar input decision to a major CPG company looking to execute on their ESG initiative. Demand for soil information continues to grow, so does the opportunity to standardize the collection, analysis, and delivery of that data across a broad network. According to the International Plant Nutrition Institute, 12 million soil samples were tested annually in North America in 2021. These tests were executed by a fragmented market of 140+ different soil labs, leaving a substantial opportunity for this professionalization. That short update on strategy and focus for 2023, I'll now turn over to briefly discuss our Q1 results. Deveron had a record Q1 with revenue growth of 281%. This was supported by market share gains through the acquisition of three soil labs. Q1 is typically Deveron's slowest quarter due to seasonality in agriculture and general low levels of field collection and testing. Despite a seasonal slow quarter, we still saw increased gross margin due to the integration of these lab assets, achieving 54%, up from 52% year-over-year. We take a closer look into Q1, Deveron saw triple-digit revenue increases in the company's data insight services, driven by our laboratory consolidation. Much of the data insight growth is attributable to the company's three acquisitions in 2022, which we have now integrated: Agri-Labs, Frontier, and A&L Canada. With the capacity and scale at A&L and the sizable expansion of the facility, we're in a position to increase our capacity above 10,000 samples per day, support our bundling sales strategy of getting more samples from the field into our soil ecosystem. Heading into Q2 and for the remainder of the year, we see significant wins ahead. Volumes have been very strong across the network, both in field services and testing this spring. I believe 2023 will be another significant year for Deveron as we implement our strategy of regional growth and improve focus on larger enterprise and further consolidation. With that, I'd like to hand it over to Craig Hogan, our VP Finance, to speak more directly to our results. Craig? Thank you, David, and hello, everyone. Today I'll be focusing on three main topics during our conversation. First, I will provide an overview of our financial results. Secondly, I will discuss our gross margin and EBITDA margin highlights. Third, I will discuss our balance sheet. Now turning to our results. Deveron achieved CAD 5.4 million of revenue, its highest ever in Q1, led by strong growth in Data Insights. Data Insights revenue increased to CAD 4.5 million in the quarter, up from CAD 779,000 in Q1 2022, led largely by the successful integration of three lab facilities. Data collection revenue was steady in the quarter at CAD 895,000, up from CAD 627,000 in Q1 2022, as our carbon and fertility field service teams completed work in the seasonally slowest time of the year, following a very strong Q4. Gross margin increased 2% year-over-year to 54% in the quarter due to the expansion of our lab network, contributing to the data insights margin mix in the quarter. Data collection margins were down from 35% in Q1 2022 to 33% in Q1, excluding lab costs coming from our internal lab network as we processed a record level of samples collected in late Q4 and early Q1. Adjusted EBITDA was a CAD 3.4 million loss versus an IFRS net loss of CAD 6.1 million. We exclude CAD 1.1 million of interest expense, CAD 1.8 million of depreciation and amortization, CAD 563,000 of stock option expense, CAD 21,000 of income tax expense, and CAD 760,000 of change in non-controlling interest put obligation gains when calculating adjusted EBITDA. Subsequent to the quarter, we raised CAD 5.2 million in a public offering and closed the partial restructure of our CAD 28.3 million credit facility with a CAD 6.8 million mortgage on A&L properties from TD. With that summary, I'll hand the call back to David to conclude before we open the call for questions. David? Thank you, Craig. We couldn't be more proud of the huge growth we were able to achieve in our typically slowest quarter of the year. I think these results speak volumes to the company's capacity to grow and foreshadows what we believe will be another watershed year for the company. With that said, let's open the call for questions, if there are any. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw from the queue, please press star followed by two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before pressing any keys. Analysts are asked to limit themselves to one question and one follow-up. one moment, please, for your first question. Your first question will come from Steve Hansen at Raymond James. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning, guys. Just a couple here, Dave, if I may. First is just on some of the new incremental enterprise work that you guys have announced in recent months. Where are we in the ramp-up of those contracts? Presumably, it's still early given the seasonal component, but just want to get a sense for how those are trending. Thanks. Thanks, Steve. I think I'll start with, we're really excited about the continued growth of that. I think it's something that about two years ago we started on the enterprise kind of journey, focusing on carbon work, and we've really seen that professionalization and standardization flow through into just regular, everyday soil testing as well. To your point, it is very seasonal in Q1, so a lot of work goes into getting field crews up, our labs ready to manage the capacity, but we really don't start getting into any heavy work, workload until later in March. I think you'll start to see, you know, some of the work on the enterprise side flow through in Q2 and then more heavily in Q3, Q4, just because so much of this enterprise work is predominantly getting data out of the field and then getting it into the labs, which obviously doesn't happen when the crop is up. I think, hope that kind of answers your question from our perspective of when you might expect to see the timing of revenue recognition, even though we do have a ramp-up of costs on a monthly basis as we prepare for the kind of seasonal glut of what's going to be demanded from our teams to service all these contracts across the US. Oh, no, that's great. That's good perspective. Just as a related note, is there still efforts to, you know, go in and pursue additional enterprise contracts out there? You had a series of them over, I believe, it was six or eight months that came through. Just trying to get a sense of whether there's still a pipeline and new opportunities there, or you're just comfortable with starting to ramp these existing ones first. No, absolutely. I think this is kind of part of the whole strategy around, you know, now that the network and the platform is built, I mean, we've got people across the U.S. and Canada that can be in fields collecting data. We now have three, like, very prominent lab testing facilities and then a fourth in Maine that does a lot of our carbon and research work. Like we're kind of have that additional capacity to be working on, and I know our sales teams through the winter, we're doing a lot of work moving forward with enterprises that, you know, sort of historically have been doing and buying a lot of these services. They've just been buying them locally or through, you know, a whole bunch of different regional partnerships. I think for us, there's quite a bit of opportunity, especially within, you know, government and the continued support from the USDA around soil health initiatives. Like we're finding a great relationship ability there. Obviously, they move at the speed of government, but, you know, $3 billion has been dedicated to the soil health market through the USDA alone. We're seeing like upstream fertilizer folks, you know, looking at soil information as something very strategic to them and things that they're looking at supporting down through their retail channel. Without saying too much in specifics, it's a core focus. We've got a sales team that's completely focused on enterprise sales development and relationship building. I think that there's still lots of opportunity here, with it only really being, you know, not quite the end of the second quarter for us to deliver on some more opportunities as we head into the back half of the year. Okay, that's great. Just one more, and I'll jump back in the queue, is just around, excuse me, the idea of M&A. You guys have completed a number of acquisitions over the last 18-24 months. It's been more quiet lately, understandably integrating and ramping some of the existing contracts that we discussed. How do you feel about the M&A landscape today relative to your resources? Should we expect more in the future, or is this still an integration and sort of contract ramp-up focus right now? I think it's been a little bit of both. We're still outsourcing and talking to the market, and I guess just given our general growth as well, the success that we've had acquiring, I believe 13 companies over the last three years and integrating them in, I think we're becoming a call for people that are either looking to grow a growing network or maybe has an asset and is realizing that there's likely going to only be one or two really large platforms that have a big stake and control in this market. Like, lots of opportunities out there. 100%, in all honesty, with the three labs we bought last year and given their size, it's just been a really good pitch to get singular culture at the company, get the right kind of operating leaders on top of the P&Ls, which, you know, we've all completed through the January through the end of April. I feel like we're in a really good spot now. I know, like, Phil's kind of referenced before, and I have as well, our opportunities that exist in our pipeline. I think when... If you look at the disclosure we put out when we did our public offering there, 1.5 months ago, under the prospectus, some of those funds are being earmarked for continued consolidation. For us, a core part of our strategy is recognizing that there is a very fragmented market. We know when we look at the volume trend of soil that's coming through our ecosystem, that excess capacity is going to be great. I still believe that nothing replaces the strong local, regional relationships that come with folks who've been in the market. We've got a couple of holes in areas we'd like to be a little bit stronger. I think that a few tech teams on that side would be very complementary to that. I think, over the next few months, we'll hopefully have a little bit more progress on that side, and I think is another, again, key part of our strategy, that we're not relaxing just because, you know, markets are a little bit soft these days. Okay, that's helpful. Actually, I will squeeze in one more. Sorry. Just on the acquisitions that have been done to date, perhaps some of the latest ones in the U.S., you know, how do you guys track, or can you guys assess how they've been growing since the acquisition? I think if I'm not mistaken, there was a payout for one of the groups in the latest quarter. Just trying to get a sense for how those groups are performing organically once they've come into the umbrella. Thanks. Yeah. Typically what we've seen across the network over the last two years is that 15%-20% organic growth post-integration. Obviously, when earnouts are getting paid, I think it's a really great symbol that these businesses are performing and they're achieving their targets. I think it's still, like, kind of a little bit early to give specifics of the latest three, just because we're really only looking at most one that's been in for nine months, and then one that's really only been in for four months as a reporting quarter. The focus will just be, I think, as we get through Q3, we'll be able to kind of look at an apples-to-apples comparison of all those. I think holistically, everything is going as we expected, and we're seeing more soil volume both come through the collection side of companies we've acquired, as well as increased testing. Okay, very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at the phone lines. My apologies. We do have a follow-up from Steve Hansen at Raymond James. Please go ahead. Okay, great. Thanks, I feel special. Just one last one really was around the idea of, you know, attracting additional soil volumes to the lab network. You know, David, are there other strategies you can deploy to pull in additional soil volumes outside of some of the larger enterprise deals? In other words, are there partnerships with some of the local consultant firms or any other approaches you can deploy here to pull additional volume into the network? I'd just be curious of what you're working on, if anything. Yeah, we have some ideas that are sort of maybe in the preliminary stage of execution, but again, within our enterprise sales strategy, one of that is channel partnerships. One of the observations we've made is that there's a number of companies out there today that influence samples being collected, and it's not just in the sort of the traditional ag retail world or independent agronomist world. You have sensor companies that need to have calibration checks. You have research institutions that are looking at soil data to drive, you know, improved decision making, et cetera. We think there's maybe an opportunity around channel partnership, where, again, perhaps some of these relationships are not monetizing the soil data themselves. They're also struggling, perhaps with data comparability, because data is going from all over the country to different labs. We think we can be like a pretty strong partner on that side and really create a unique end-to-end solution that at the end of the day is delivering information back through an API or a standardized digital format. I think also within that, there's all sorts of platforms out there in the agriculture world that growers, retailers, and large chem seed companies are using to manage their broad holistic information. I don't think there's a very strong connection today of the soil fertility world back into those platforms. I think that's another interesting place where Deveron may be able to play in looking at preferred lab relationships, where again, if soil's being collected and we can standardize and professionalize it, as well as create that technological loop back, I think it creates a really like frictionless, win-win opportunity to increase volume across our network. That would be just where we're at on a holistic strategy, and hopefully maybe by Q3, Q4, we can have some substantial kind of updates around, you know, partnerships that we're pursuing, coming to light. Okay, much appreciated. Thanks for the time. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, there are no further questions. This will conclude your conference call for this morning. We would like to thank you all for participating and ask you to please disconnect your lines.