Thank you for your patience. We will be beginning in just a few moments. Once again, we would like to thank you for your patience. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Good afternoon and welcome to Next NRG, second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, we will move to a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sharon Cohen, Investor Relations, for Next NRG. Sharon, please go ahead.

Thank you. I'd like to begin by reminding everyone that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our most recent SEC filings for a full discussion of relevant risk factors. Today's call will also reference adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure. A full reconciliation of this measure to net loss, the most comparable GAAP measure, is available in our earnings release, located in the investors tab of our website. Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a substitute for GAAP results. On the call today is Michael Farkas, founder and chief executive officer, as well as Joel Kleiner, chief financial officer. Michael, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Sharon, and good afternoon, everyone. I want to begin by saying that this was a strong quarter for Next Energy. While the financial results are important, and Joel will walk you through those in a few minutes, what encouraged me most this quarter wasn't any single financial metric. It was how much clearer our strategy has become as we've continued building the business. When we started this company, we had a pretty clear idea of where we wanted to end up. Over the last year, I believe we've gained a much better understanding of what it will take to get there. One thing I've learned building this business is that success isn't about trying to do everything at once. It's about building capabilities in the right order, proving they work in the field, and then expanding from there. Every company has to earn the right to build what's next. We believe you earn that right by executing well every single day. That's become the framework we use to make decisions across the company, and it's what I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about this afternoon. Three strategic priorities have become very clear to us, and we believe they'll define how we build this company over the coming years. The first is strengthening the operating business. The second is commercializing the technology we spent years developing. And the third is building our EV charging business. These priorities reinforce one another. They aren't independent initiatives. Progress in one creates opportunities in the next, and together they create the foundation for the business we're building. Let me start with the first one. Our first priority is continuing to grow and strengthen the operating business we have today. Mobile fueling is an attractive business in its own right, but it's also something more than that. It gives us recurring customer relationships, operational expertise, and a growing presence inside the commercial fleet market. One thing we've become increasingly convinced of over the past year is that the value of this business goes well beyond the revenues it generates. Every day, we're on customer sites. We're solving operational problems. We're learning how fleets consume energy, where they're spending money, and where reliability matters most. That's very important because those same customers are beginning to ask broader questions than simply, can you deliver fuel? They're asking us how they reduce energy costs, how they improve resiliency, how they prepare for electrification. And increasingly, they're asking us whether we can help them solve those challenges. We think being their trusted operating partner gives us a significant advantage as those conversations evolve. This quarter, revenue grew more than 40% year over year. We expanded into Gainesville, extending our operating footprint in Florida, and we supported fueling operations during one of the world's largest international sporting events. Those achievements matter because they continue building the operating business we're creating, not simply because they increase quarterly revenues. every company has the right to build what's next. Our second priority is taking the technology we've spent years developing and getting it into the field, operational. When I talk about technology, I'm talking specifically about our smart microgrid controller and the software that powers it. We believe that's one of the most important assets we've built as a company. Its purpose is straightforward. It sits at the center of a microgrid and continuously determines the most efficient way to manage the energy resources connected to it, whether that's utility power, battery storage, solar generation or backup generation. As energy systems become more distributed and more complex, we believe the intelligence that manages those systems becomes just as important as the infrastructure itself. That's where we believe our long-term opportunity lies. Building that technology was the first step. Now the focus is on deployment. Every successful deployment gives us operating experience. It strengthens the product. It demonstrates value in the real world operating environments. And it gives us another reference that helps us pursue the next commercial opportunity. Just as importantly, every deployment teaches us something. It helps us refine the software, improve the product, and build the operational expertise that's difficult to replicate in a lab. That's why we continue investing in the capabilities of our AI-driven smart controller and why our focus remains on getting this technology into the field through commercial deployments and partnerships. That's how we believe great technology becomes a great business. Our third priority is building our EV charging business. EV charging is more than just installing charging stations for vehicles. There's robotics. There's so many uses for dynamic wireless charging, and our strategy is very straightforward. We're starting by deploying EV charging solutions today because that's how we build the operating experience, customer relationships, and infrastructure foundation for the larger opportunity we see ahead. As that business grows, we'll continue developing our wireless charging and bi-directional charging technologies, which we believe and know represent the future of not only commercial fleet charging, but charging across the board for all different types of products. But today, our focus is on building the business one deployment at a time. Every successful deployment moves us one step closer to the larger infrastructure. Ultimately, everything we've discussed today comes back to execution. Building the operating business, deploying our technology, and expanding our EV charging business as well. Those are the priorities we're focused on every day, and I believe this quarter reflects meaningful progress across all three. Before I hand it over to Joel, I want to let you guys know that we were successful in a few sales and deployments of EV charging in the past quarter, and now I'll leave it up to Joel.

Thank you, Michael. From a financial standpoint, I believe this quarter demonstrates meaningful progress in the underlying economics of the business. I'll start with adjusted EBITDA, which I believe is one of the clearest measures of our underlying operating performance. During the second quarter, our adjusted EBITDA loss decreased by approximately 62% from approximately $5.8 million in the prior year quarter to approximately $2.2 million in this quarter. What I find particularly encouraging in this improvement is what we're seeing underneath that. Revenue increased more than 40% year over year, while operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation, declined approximately 26%. That decline reflects lower insurance costs, including truck insurance, lower repairs and maintenance expenses, and changes we've made to our personnel costs and staffing structure. Taken together, those results indicate that we're beginning to see operating leverage in the underlying business. We're growing revenue, were reducing the cost required to support that growth. As the business continues to scale, we want a greater percentage of incremental revenue to flow through the bottom line. Revenue for the quarter increased approximately 41% year over year to $27 million. As we've discussed previously, the geopolitical situation and resulting increase in oil and fuel prices also contributed to the increase reported in our revenue during the quarter. More importantly, Gross profit increased approximately 25% compared with the prior year quarter. We continue to see growth in gross profit as the business scales while the number of gallons delivered also increases. Interest expense declined approximately 38% year over year as a result of our continued efforts to simplify the balance sheet and reduce financing related costs. Those efforts are important because lowering financing costs allows us to deploy more of our capital toward growing the business rather than servicing debt. On the bottom line, diluted loss per share improved to approximately $0.04 loss compared to a 30% loss in the prior year period. Turning to liquidity, during the quarter, we completed a $6.4 million private placement, strengthening our balance sheet, and providing additional working capital. As of quarter end, cash and cash equivalents were approximately $884,000 as we continue to evaluate financing alternatives. Overall, we believe this quarter reflects continued progress in the financial fundamentals of the business. We're growing revenue, improving the underlying cost structure and reducing financing costs. We still have work to do but we see the trends and believe and know that we are consistent with the business plan that we're building towards over the long term. With that, I'll hand it back to Michael.

Thanks, Joel.

Before we move on to our Q&A, I'd like to leave you with one final thought. When I look at where we are today compared to a year ago, I see a much stronger company. Our operating business is larger. Our financial performance is improving, and we're continuing to build new opportunities for long-term growth. There's still a great deal of work ahead of us, and we're not taking anything for granted. But I believe we're making the kind of steady, measurable progress that builds lasting businesses. I'd like to thank our employees for their hard work, our customers for their continued trust, and our shareholders for their continued support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. We'll now move on to the questions we've received from investors. Here's the first question. Michael, you've talked about Next Energy being a stronger company today than it was a year ago. Can you speak to some of the changes you've made inside the organization that have contributed to that progress?

Yes. I think a big part of that progress has come from making the business more efficient. Over the past year, we brought in some very strong people across the organization and made some decent changes for processes, staffing, resource allocation, and to improve how we business operates just in general. Excuse me. That's been a company-wide effort. We've looked closely at where we're spending time and money, where we can eliminate inefficiencies, and where we can improve execution. At the same time, the operating business has continued to grow, which has given us a stronger financial and operational foundation. We've also learned a lot from operating the business at a greater scale. We have a better understanding of what's working, where we need to make adjustments, and where we need to stay disciplined. So when I say we're stronger compared to today versus last year, I mean that in a very practical sense. We have stronger people, better processes, a stronger operating foundation, and a much clearer understanding of what we need to accomplish next.

Thank you. Here is the next question for you. You've described the smart microgrid controller as one of the most important assets Next Energy has built. What do you believe differentiates the controller from the other energy management systems already available in the market?

Good question. I think the biggest difference is that we're bringing together capabilities that are typically found in separate systems and we're putting them together into one platform. There are, without a question, other energy management systems in the marketplace. There are predictive analytical platforms. There are systems that monitor individual energy assets. There are companies that specialize in particular pieces of the energy management problem. But what we've done is a little bit different. We've built something where we're bringing all of those capabilities together through a single controller. The system can monitor what's happening across the energy system, use predictive analytics to anticipate what is likely to happen, and then translate that information into actions. It can identify an issue and generate a work order or call ticket telling the operator what needs to be addressed. And that's been developed over many years of research and development prior to us acquiring that technology. So we're not talking about a controller that simply monitors a battery or tells you how much energy you're using. We're talking about a system that's designed to provide an intelligent layer across the entire energy system. And we believe that makes what we've built very, very unique. And we don't believe it ourselves. We're hearing it from our customers. There are very large companies working in the energy management, energy software space, but we don't see many of them that have brought these capabilities together the way we have. We're still in early commercial deployment, so we have to prove the technology in the field, although it has been in other deployments that were done prior to us acquiring the technology, but we believe we have something something very special, genuinely differentiated, and that's why getting it into the real operating environments is such an important priority for us.

Thank you for that, Michael. The next question is for Joel. Adjusted EBITDA improved significantly year over year, and you also highlighted the 26% reduction in operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation. For investors who are looking at that metric What does that improvement actually tell you about the business?

Before I get into adjusted EBITDA, I do want to highlight that in our call last year, when we talked about stock-based compensation, we highlighted that that was a one-time expense. And I'm happy to report that we not only committed to do it, we executed on our commitment. But I think the significance is that we're starting to see the relationship between revenue growth and our stock cost structure move in the right direction. That tells us we're not simply growing the business by adding costs at the same rate as revenue. We're beginning to see operating leverage in the underlying business. That's significant and important because as business grows, we want a greater percentage of incremental revenue to flow through to the bottom line. So we're beginning to see the evidence of that underlying business The goal is to build a business where growth increasingly translates into improved profitability.

Thank you, Joel. Here's the next question for you. Revenue grew more than 40% year over year, while growth profit increased approximately 25%. How are you thinking about the economics of this fueling business as it continues to scale?

Thank you.

That's a good question.

I think the key to understanding what is driving the economics of the fueling business as we scale is this. Fuel prices, product mix, and the cost of delivering each gallon affect all those results quarter to quarter. In Q2 2025, our gross profit per gallon delivered was 27 cents. In Q2 2026, our gross profit per gallon delivered was 33 cents. That's a 22% growth in efficiencies during a time of volatile commodity prices for fuel. This growth represents our hard work to optimize the labor force required to deliver our product. As a technology-first company, we are constantly investing in our solution to best route our drivers to increase bottom-line enterprise value.

Thank you for that response, Joel. And we have one final question. The company's loss per share improved significantly year over year. How would investors How should investors think about the improvement in EPS in the context of the broader financial results?

Great question. I think it's important to look at EPS as part of the broader financial picture rather than a standalone metric. The improvement reflects several factors, including the significant reduction in stock-based compensation, the lower interest expense as we improve our balance sheet, and the improvement in the underlying operating performance of the business. We also benefited from a much lower financing burden compared year over year, as I mentioned, with our interest expense. At the same time, we're still reporting a gap net loss, so I want to suggest that our four cent loss per share will reach profitability. We're not there yet, but we're striving and making the right changes. What I do think is encouraging is the direction of these results. We're growing revenue, reducing the underlying operating cost structure, lowering financing costs, and seeing those improvements reflected in the bottom line. Ultimately, our objective is to continue improving the underlying economics of the business so that the improvement in earnings becomes increasingly driven by the operating business itself.

Thank you, Joel, and thank you, Michael. That concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. Thank you all for joining us today and for your continued support of Next NRG.

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect at this time and thank you for your participation.