LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS FROM BIGBEAR.AI
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER DR. REGGIE BROTHERS
The Power to See and Shape the Future
Dear Fellow Shareholders,
2021 was a 12 months that challenged us as people, organizations, and societies. With crucial data altering by the minute, the necessity for higher instruments to assist organizations make necessary choices with imperfect or advanced information solely grew. Through the impression of COVID-19, a unstable market, and social and political unrest that has continued into 2022, BigBear.ai is proud to help our prospects as they make high-stakes choices on this unsure atmosphere.
We are additionally pleased with the numerous achievements we made as an organization, together with the mergers that fashioned BigBear.ai, our partnership with GigCapital4, and our itemizing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in December. We gained and signed necessary new contracts, entered into productive new partnerships, and recruited high-caliber expertise all through our group.
Now, with a devoted workforce centered on execution, we’re accelerating the subsequent section of our progress technique, shifting from a gradual, services-first firm to a high-growth, technology-first firm.
Significant Opportunity Ahead
At BigBear.ai, our mission is to information prospects to comprehend their very best future by delivering transformative applied sciences and professional, actionable recommendation. There is an enormous, rising marketplace for the options we offer. Organizations are drowning in information and not using a dependable course of to find out what information is necessary and what choices will give them an edge over their rivals. This overload has slowed down decision-making, relatively than bettering it as meant.
The use of synthetic intelligence (AI) and machine studying (ML) know-how to enhance choice making is highly effective, however deployments are nonetheless restricted to silos inside enterprises as a result of AI instruments have been designed for extremely technical customers, not enterprise customers. Large corporations deal with the
information overload by including technical consultants to their employees, however that is costly, not scalable, and never possible for mid-market and smaller corporations.
That’s the place BigBear.ai is available in. We empower our prospects to harness the ability of AI and ML to make mission crucial choices quicker, extra precisely, and with higher outcomes.
Offering Unique, Best-In-Class Solutions
BigBear.ai’s transformative options simplify real-world complexity, minimize by way of the noise, fill in gaps in information, and improve the decision-making course of with goal-oriented, actionable recommendation. Insights are delivered for enterprise customers in an simply consumable method. Our merchandise add speedy worth out of the field, with a speedy, no-code configuration functionality.
Our information enrichment capabilities are second to none, and our options can uncover extra insights and provides quicker, extra dependable steering than different predictive analytics instruments available on the market. Our platform can also be extremely versatile and modular. This means we are able to combine seamlessly and rapidly with prospects’ current information, methods, and processes. When prospects see the ability of our options and worth we offer, they usually add extra of our choices; this “land & broaden” technique is behind our long-term relationships with a variety of presidency prospects.
2021 Performance
Despite exterior market headwinds, BigBear.ai grew our already sturdy backlog and delivered robust income and gross margins in 2021. For the 12 months ended December 31, 2021, whole revenues have been $145.6 million, gross margin was 23%, adjusted EBITDA was $4.9 million, and whole backlog grew to $465 million.
In 2021, we made a strategic choice to speculate aggressively to reinforce our product and gross sales & advertising and marketing capabilities and public firm readiness regardless of market delays brought on by the Omicron wave and the federal government’s reliance on persevering with decision for funding. These investments will allow us to seize and speed up the huge alternatives earlier than us and ship compelling worth to our stakeholders.
In the latter half of the 12 months, we introduced a number of new contracts with key U.S. authorities prospects, together with the Air Force, Cyber Command, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Army. We additionally signed agreements with a number of organizations within the industrial house business, corresponding to Virgin Orbit and Terran Orbital, getting into a subject with super progress potential. In addition, we fashioned a strategic partnership with Palantir that may help our federal and industrial SaaS progress technique. We see vital alternative to plug our options into their scaffolding and go-to-market with an end-to-end platform.
In our federal enterprise, we’re prioritizing future market growth to organizations within the protection, intelligence, and federal civilian sectors. We are additionally utilizing data gleaned from our current engagements to drive improvements and developments to our know-how. As we proceed to deepen {our relationships} inside authorities businesses, we’re laying the groundwork for future resolution and SaaS gross sales alternatives.
On the industrial aspect, our partnerships within the house and maritime industries have demonstrated the ability and adaptability of our options to deal with issues for industrial companies. As we additional broaden commercially, we’re specializing in high-value markets with speedy purposes from our current options, corresponding to web site choice, location intelligence, and logistics optimization. Delivering a fully-SaaS providing designed for manufacturing, provide chain, and distribution vertical industries will drive the subsequent section of our industrial growth.
As we develop, our robust community of channel companions will allow quicker entry to a wider base of consumers throughout industries and geographies. Our know-how partnerships will permit us to supply pre-integrated options that amplify our worth proposition.
We are additionally prioritizing strategic alternatives so as to add capabilities by way of mergers and acquisitions. Our Board and administration workforce recurrently assess M&A alternatives the place we are able to purchase know-how and merchandise that complement our present capabilities and speed up our progress trajectory.
Our People and Our Communities
We are proud to draw proficient staff from across the business who’re enthusiastic about BigBear.ai’s distinctive worth and potential. Approximately 78% of BigBear.ai staff have Secret or larger safety clearance ranges, which provides us a aggressive benefit within the federal market. Security clearance is a barrier to entry for a lot of authorities service suppliers, however our workforce can simply navigate delicate tasks of various dimension and scope.
In 2021 and early 2022, we expanded our government workforce with seasoned consultants who will spearhead progress in our federal and industrial enterprise segments. We additionally bolstered our technical, operational, and administrative employees with skilled leaders to drive innovation and excellence throughout our enterprise.
The basis of BigBear.ai’s tradition is our dedication to variety and inclusion at each degree of the corporate. We are proud to be forward of business averages in each gender and racial variety and to have been acknowledged by the U.S. Department of Labor as a HIRE Vets Gold Medallion Award recipient. Within
BigBear.ai, we foster this dedication to staff by way of our Employee Resource Groups, corresponding to Women of BigBear.ai and the Veterans Command Post.
In truth, a 3rd of our workforce is comprised of energetic or former members of the U.S. Armed Forces, reaching all ranges of the corporate, together with the C-suite. We steadily companion with veterans’ organizations in our communities to make sure our service members have entry to social {and professional} help methods. At BigBear.ai, giving again to the communities the place we reside and work is each a duty and a reward for our continued success.
Core Objectives for 2022
Moving ahead, we are going to proceed doing what we do finest: driving innovation with the purpose of democratizing the usage of AI and ML for organizations of all sizes. We are pushing the boundaries on predictive information science so our prospects can see and form their future.
BigBear.ai is effectively positioned to execute our progress technique in 2022, broadening our buyer base within the Federal authorities, the place our enterprise continues to thrive, whereas ramping our industrial enterprise towards the second half of the 12 months and into 2023.
As excited as we’re about our prospects, we’re clear-eyed concerning the headwinds that may persist in 2022, due to the impression of COVID and delays in authorities contract award exercise. Importantly, our robust monetary place will allow us to proceed our progress regardless of these pressures.
In conclusion, 2021 was a milestone 12 months for BigBear.ai. We are grateful for a lot of benefits we have now as a enterprise: exhausting work by all staff, nice collaboration with our companions, loyalty of our prospects, steering from our Board, and help from our communities. We are on the precipice of an thrilling new period for our firm and for the sector of synthetic intelligence at massive.
I look ahead to working alongside this nice workforce in delivering on our imaginative and prescient of empowering individuals to make the appropriate choice on the proper time, each time, and creating sustainable long-term worth for our shareholders.
Sincerely,
Dr. Reggie Brothers Chief Executive Officer
https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/BIGBEAR-AI-HOLDINGS-INC-130483706/news/BigBear-ai-2021-CEO-Letter-39930164/
