NextNav Inc. Common Stock 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Jared, please go ahead. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to NextNav's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call.

Participating on today's call are Maryam Sorond, NextNav's Chief Executive Officer, and Tim Gray, 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 the 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 strategies 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 FCC 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, Maryam. Thank you, Jared.

Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us today. Since our last earnings call, we have strengthened our position across every dimension of our business, from balance sheet and strategic partnerships to our regulatory engagement and technical validation. Financially, we took decisive actions that transformed our balance sheet and increased available liquidity to approximately $300 million. This enhanced financial position provides NextNav with substantial resources and flexibility to execute our strategy from a position of considerable financial strength. Tim will provide more details shortly. Operationally, I'd like to highlight our recently announced partnership with Safran Electronics & Defense, an important milestone that enables NextNav to demonstrate the potential of our terrestrial 5G-powered 3D PNT solution in real-world operating environments and validate its role within future resilient PNT ecosystems.

Taken together, we believe these and other recent accomplishments leave NextNav stronger and exceptionally well-positioned to capitalize on our next phase of growth. Turning now to our process with the FCC, we have continued to make meaningful progress and remain encouraged by the positive momentum. That momentum continues with a recent and significant development. Yesterday, SpaceX filed an ex parte letter in our proceeding urging the FCC to encourage fast investments to put scarce low and mid-band spectrum to use for terrestrial, direct device, and IoT services, expressly calling out NextNav's 900 MHz proposal. In the filing, SpaceX cited the ongoing interest in new spectrum bands to serve Americans in innovative ways. We view this as meaningful validation of the ongoing need for additional low-band spectrum from a key voice in the industry.

The filing from SpaceX reinforces both the urgency of putting scarce low-band spectrum to productive use and industry recognition of the value these spectrum resources can unlock. I'll now step back and provide an update on the broader process. As we've discussed previously, the FCC has formally submitted a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, or NPRM, focused on promoting the development of PNT technologies and solutions for an inter-agency review process, including review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, or OIRA. We believe this represents a critical step that underscores the FCC's focus on addressing the national security urgency of identifying resilient backups and complements to GPS. Moreover, in early July, Chairman Carr released the FCC's fiscal year 2026 to 2030 strategic plan, which included spurring development of the new PNT technologies as an alternative to GPS to ensure redundancy against GPS outages and reduce vulnerabilities.

As we have mentioned previously, while OIRA reviews are relatively new for FCC rulemaking, review across executive branch agencies has been a longstanding process, and timing remains subject to such ongoing reviews. These processes are designed to incorporate input from all stakeholders, and we continue to support that work through regular engagement with the FCC and various federal agencies. As is typical in proceedings of this significance, a range of questions has been raised, particularly by unlicensed users of the band. Our team has been working closely with the relevant agencies to provide technically sound education, ensuring concerns are evaluated thoroughly and transparently. As a result of these efforts, we believe our team has made meaningful progress across multiple departments to support the FCC's process.

Beginning with the FCC's Notice of Inquiry in March 2025, we have seen a depth and breadth of stakeholder responses to our proposal that is more typical of the period following the issuance of an NPRM. As a result, NextNav has been addressing matters at an earlier stage, which we believe has made this proceeding more mature at this stage than comparable proceedings. This dynamic has in part facilitated ongoing engagement with freight railroads, tolling industry stakeholders, and utilities, making good progress towards coexistence planning to develop a practical path forward for deployment that aligns with industry stakeholders' priorities. We believe this approach has been constructive, as introducing later-stage considerations into the record earlier may help streamline a post-NPRM process and support a more efficient path towards report and order. At the same time, we continue to see meaningful support from key stakeholders.

In addition to our long history and continued constructive engagement with various federal agencies, we're continuing to mobilize third-party supporters, including leaders from the public safety community. Such support was reflected in a letter submitted by the International Association of Firefighters, or IAFF, to Congress and the FCC in advance of the June 2026 hearing on PNT by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. The letter emphasized the urgent need for more accurate, reliable, and resilient location tracking and positioning technologies to help protect firefighters, improve emergency response capabilities, and ensure first responders have the tools necessary to safely carry out their missions. The hearing underscored strong bipartisan agreement on two key points. First, the need for a resilient, complementary PNT system to strengthen America's critical infrastructure. And second, the FCC's role as the expert agency and ultimate decision-maker on spectrum matters.

The hearing provided a valuable opportunity to educate various lawmakers on GPS vulnerabilities and the importance of a system-of-systems approach to PNT. Notably, NextNav was one of only a handful of recognized experts participating. Additionally, we shared our views with the FCC on the draft unlicensed direct to device, or D2D, NPRM proposal and continue to believe in the inherent value of lower 900 MHz spectrum for D2D services. While the FCC's draft NPRM proposed changes that would permit unlicensed Earth to space transmissions in the lower 900 MHz band, that band was ultimately not included for consideration in the FCC's final NPRM. I will now turn to operational progress, where we continue to build meaningful momentum.

First, as I highlighted at the start, we recently announced an agreement with Safran Electronics & Defense, an important milestone in evaluating the role of terrestrial 5G-powered 3D PNT within future resilient PNT ecosystems. The collaboration will integrate and demonstrate interoperability between NextNav's terrestrial 5G PNT network and Safran's navigation and timing receivers, providing an opportunity to validate the performance of our technology in real-world operating environments and assess its contribution to the resilience and continuity requirements of mission-critical applications. This partnership paves the way for NextNav and Safran to deliver solutions to the urgent and growing need for resilient PNT in defense, UAV, aviation, energy, and other critical infrastructure markets. Next, we continue to develop wide-area sensing capabilities for counter-UAS detection. Through our Santa Clara pilot network and growing ecosystem of integrated sensing and communications partners, we are advancing such solutions.

Today, we are very pleased to announce Tiami Networks as a sensing ecosystem partner, supporting the development of 900 MHz 5G PRS-based counter-UAS detection solutions for homeland security and critical infrastructure applications. We also entered into a new partnership that expands the delivery of our z-axis technology through an innovative device-based model. This agreement provides important commercial validation of our technology by bringing NextNav z-axis software and reference data directly onto a Tier 1 partner's devices for 911 vertical location services. Beyond adding a new customer, it highlights the versatility of our platform, advances our device-based strategy, and creates a pathway for future 3D PNT offerings and incremental revenue opportunities over time. Additionally, we achieved a significant technology milestone during the quarter that underscores the growing importance of PNT in the AI era.