Runway Growth Finance Corp. (NASDAQ:RWAY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

But most VCs are thinking, okay, this is going to have to last us a long time and we are really only going to feed our very best companies and the ones that don’t make the cut will be nice to them and let them know we still love them, but we are going to let them know we don’t have additional dry powder. So for our companies, we have really advised them to test that and go back to their venture investors and ask how much dry powder do you have and is it still good, and if possible, actually, do around. And so we have seen situations where VCs have backed out of what were otherwise commitments. And as a result, you will see occasionally, what we call a down and dirty or a wipe out round where the go-forward investors, say, we will continue to invest, but we are not going to let the guys that aren’t investing right our coattails.

So we are going to do around that really wipes those folks out. So it’s a mixed bag. We are lucky because we really focus on the latest stage companies and our average company, as a reminder, is doing more than US$50 million, 5-0 U.S. dollar of revenue and they have raised over $100 million of venture equity. So the investors, for the most part, are very committed and they are going to think twice before flushing $100 million down the toilet. They might be more prone to flush a company where they have only invested a little bit. So the venture industry is very choppy, it’s very mixed and you are finding a lot of VCs remaking on prior commitments, but that’s a phenomenon that’s happening much more at the earlier stages than the late stages.

Mickey Schleien: That’s also good to hear. I appreciate that. Just one question. Well, a question on liquidity. The — I appreciate that you expanded the credit facility, but even with that expansion, your liquidity relative to your unfunded commitments is pretty tight, but within those unfunded commitments, there’s a lot of discretion. Can you give us a sense of, of how much of those unfunded commitments are at Runway’s discretion and your comfort with your liquidity level?

Tom Raterman: Sure, Mickey. This is Tom. Total unfunded is $315.7 million. What’s eligible at 12/31 to be funded because of milestones and other requirements was only $56 million. And then out of that $315 million, $316 million, $131 million have been of those expire during 2023. So we believe that we have got more than adequate liquidity to cover that and we have expanded the credit facility. We also believe we will continue to have access to the debt capital markets.

David Spreng: Well, I

Mickey Schleien: That’s — I am sorry.

David Spreng: Well, I was going to say, Mickey, I would add another phenomenon that’s hard to put numbers on, but we have seen a couple of companies that have had access, because they achieved the milestones actually decide not to take the available capital, because they had done a really good job of cutting their burn and they no longer need the capital and don’t want to pay interest on money they don’t need. Again, impossible to quantify that, but I think we will see more of that as we go through the year in 2023.

Mickey Schleien: Okay. Well, that’s not a bad equation then.

David Spreng: No.

Mickey Schleien: And just a question on the portfolio, you have one investment calls for cadence, which has been marked at 80% of amortized costs for a couple of quarters and now Mingle Healthcare is also down at that level. Those are pretty distressed valuations generally speaking. I don’t know if that’s being impacted by market technicals or if there’s anything you can tell us about how those companies are progressing.