Thank you for joining the BigBear.ai fourth quarter and full year 2022 conference call. This call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Shane Karp, Vice President of Marketing and Communications. Please go ahead, Mr. Karp.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to BigBear.ai's 2022 fourth quarter and full year earnings conference call. I'm joined by Mandy Long, our Chief Executive Officer, and Julie Peffer, our Chief Financial Officer. During the call today, we may make certain forward-looking statements. Listeners are cautioned not to put undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, and BigBear.ai specifically disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements that may be discussed during the call. Many factors could cause actual events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements made on the call. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions, and as a result are subject to risks and uncertainties. For more information about these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the forward-looking statements section on the earnings press release issued today and our SEC filing.
We will also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures during the call today. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with GAAP results. You can find the GAAP and non-GAAP reconciliations within our earnings release. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Mandy.
Thank you, Shane, and thank you all for joining today's call. In the fourth quarter, we achieved our 2022 financial outlook and took significant steps to bolster our fundamentals and set the stage for long-term growth. As discussed in previous calls, we have continued to take material steps forward in reducing our recurrent operating expenses and improving our liquidity position. Less than six months into my role as CEO, we are much healthier. We've cleaned up our operating structure, funded the company in a very tough market, and completed a comprehensive technology assessment to baseline our portfolio. We now have a clearer understanding of our capabilities and how they can be applied to the markets that we service.
I see 2023 as a critical foundational year for us as we support some of the challenging things that are happening in the world right now and strive to deliver clarity for the world's most complex decisions. We are in the midst of an unprecedented wave of excitement around artificial intelligence. Key decision makers and leaders across government and industry are recognizing the necessity of at-scale production-grade adoption of AI-powered decision support. BigBear's capabilities and decades-long heritage in this field gives us a competitive advantage in delivering a higher form of reliable, scalable Decision Intelligence solutions. We're seeing an explosion of interest in what we provide. We are continuing to foster our innovation pipeline to adapt and extend our capabilities to serve our markets. We will continue to focus on delivering solutions in three core markets: complex global supply chains and logistics, autonomous systems, and cyber.
We anticipate the government investment in AI solutions will continue to grow. In November 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense released its National Defense Strategy, which stated that the government would continue to invest in AI and aggressively seek to fill technology gaps in its AI specialization. In December 2022, the U.S. National Defense Spending Bill was passed, allotting over $800 billion in funding to our national security and recommending boosted spending on AI solutions to protect our nation from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. Just last week, President Biden put forward his 2024 defense budget proposal, which included a record amount of $145 billion for research and development. At BigBear.ai, we are uniquely positioned and view the unfolding global market dynamics as an opportunity for us to be a catalyst.
There will be millions of models that might play a role in the orchestra of how we'll achieve true augmented Decision Intelligence in high-stakes environments, and there will not be a single company that provides all of these models. An organization needs to step up for production-grade AI adoption to happen at scale. In other words, this orchestra will need a conductor. That is the role that we will play. We will be the conductor. We have been a trusted partner to critical government agencies for decades. Throughout 2022, we deepened these relationships and see examples of this in selections such as the $900 million 10-year multiple award Air Force IDIQ contract vehicle, where we will have the opportunity to compete for task orders.
With the integration of our legacy companies, we have the capabilities to compete in a more substantial contracting space and have a seat at the table as an established prime contractor for innovative government and defense work. We are showcasing our strengths in complex global supply chains and logistics through our Global Force Information Management, or GFIM, phase II work, where our solutions are empowering senior leaders and combatant commanders to man, equip-Train, ready, and resource the Army more effectively by transitioning 14 legacy systems into a single solution to provide real-time holistic data for 160,000 users. This phase II work is significant in that it builds on our successful GFIM prototype efforts during phase I and accelerated what was supposed to be a $2 million award for a second prototype into a $14.8 million award to deliver a minimum viable product.
The phase II award accelerates the program timeline while naming BigBear.ai as the sole prime contractor to deliver this critical capability and puts us in a strong position to receive the phase III production award. We are continuing to demonstrate our expertise in autonomous systems through our participation in the Digital Horizon event series, which supports the Navy's efforts to integrate AI technologies in unmanned surface vessels. We look forward to showcasing our threat intelligence and situational awareness capabilities at IMX 23, the largest maritime exercise in the Middle East. Our experience and lessons learned through these events sets us up to be a premier partner with the Department of Defense as they tackle their broader JADC2 strategy, a multi-billion-dollar effort to use AI, ML, and predictive analytics to better sense, make sense, and act at the speed of relevance. We are also providing cyber solutions across sectors.
Our SpaceCREST partnership with Redwire is delivering a suite of space cybersecurity solutions to Mynaric in the development of an advanced satellite communications program sponsored by DARPA. Our specialized reverse engineering capabilities provide critical insights to our customers as they look to manage the increasingly complex and threat-heavy environment of cybersecurity. We are continuing to build our pipeline in the complex manufacturing, shipping, and shipbuilding industries, and we are making significant progress. Our process simulation and modeling solutions help companies manage massive and complex physical and information environments, delivering clarity on facility, equipment, and personnel systems, forecasting requirements, and simulating real-world situations. Another focus area for us in the back half of 2022 was the implementation of the cost savings initiatives we discussed on our last two calls and began implementing in the third quarter.
The fourth quarter was our first full quarter to benefit from our restructuring, and we are pleased to have delivered on our revenue and Adjusted EBITDA targets despite a continued challenging macro environment. We continued our cost reduction actions in Q4 and Q1 2023, taking additional steps to reduce our overhead spend and improve our financial position. Additionally, in the first quarter of 2023, we closed a private placement for $25 million in a very challenging market, bolstering our balance sheet and providing us with sufficient liquidity to execute on our strategy in 2023. We are in a solid position, and we'll continue to keep an open eye towards opportunities to grow our portfolio inorganically in the coming quarters as well. With that, I will turn the call to Julie for a detailed review of our financials.
Thank you, Mandy. Let's turn to our fourth quarter and full-year results. Revenue for the quarter was $40.4 million, compared to $33.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, which was 21% year-over-year growth, primarily driven by our analytics segment at $23.1 million in the quarter, an increase of $6.5 million or 39% compared to the same period in 2021. This growth was driven by key program wins in 2022, including the phase II award for the Global Force Information Management, or GFIM program, with the U.S. Army that Mandy walked through earlier. Revenue in our C&E segment was $17.2 million in the quarter, compared to $16.8 million in Q4 2021.
For full-year revenue, we achieved our guidance target with revenue of $155 million, representing 6% year-over-year growth versus 2021. The growth margin was 29% in the quarter, an increase from 11% in Q4 2021, driven by the growth in our analytics segment. Turning to segment adjusted growth margins, we are continuing to see growth in our higher-margin analytics segment, which includes our commercial business, outpace our C&E segment. We anticipate that this trend will contribute to increasing segment-adjusted margins going forward. The segment adjusted growth margin was 35% in Q4 2022, compared to 31% in Q4 2021. Segment adjusted growth margin in analytics was 47% in Q4 2022, compared to 34% for Q4 2021, driven by prior investments that were successful in winning and executing higher-margin follow-on awards.
Segment adjusted margin for C&E was 20% compared to 28% in Q4 2021, primarily driven by a one-time year-to-date fringe rate true-up adjustment that was recorded in fourth quarter of 2021, resulting in a higher than typical segment adjusted growth margin in that period. Turning to backlog. Backlog was $222 million at year-end, which is down 23% or $66 million compared to the third quarter. This was largely driven by contracts converting into Q4 revenue of $40 million, as well as a couple of contracts that expired period of performance in the quarter. For those time and material contracts, the customer did not spend to their contractual limits, our backlog was reduced for any remaining funds when the period of performance was completed.
In most cases, we simply roll into the next option year on the contract, and we continue to work with these customers to extend these contracts at the end of their option years to recapture these funds. In addition, backlog was impacted by one government contract where we switched to a subcontractor role. This change in the contract vehicle type does not impact the revenue associated with this work, but impacts when we receive funding from the prime. As a reminder, when comparing our backlog in prior quarters, we made a change in our methodology of measuring backlog to take a more conservative approach that does not include anticipated follow-on awards and also updated estimates as it related to unpriced, unexercised backlog. Now turning to expenses. For Q4, operating expenses were $38.2 million, or $19.9 million, excluding the non-cash goodwill impairment charge.
Q4 operating expenses included R&D expenses of $1.2 million and SG&A expenses of $15.6 million, or $16.8 million in total. This represents a 43% reduction from R&D and SG&A expenses in Q2 of $29.4 million prior to initiating our cost reduction action plan. Excluding the impact of stock-based compensation and non-recurring integration expenses in both periods, Q4 expense still reflects a 27% decrease in spending compared to Q2, driven by a full quarter benefit of cost savings initiatives we implemented in the back half of the year.
While we believe the actions we took in the third and fourth quarters of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023 have positioned us to operate efficiently going forward, we will continue to be disciplined in our expense management as we grow, and we will be focused on implementing scalable processes, operating rigor, and driving overall efficiency across our business. Looking ahead, we are also focused on ways to improve efficiency of contracting processes and timeliness of payments. Net loss was $29.9 million in the quarter versus $114.8 million in Q4 of last year, when we had $60.5 million of stock-based compensation expense related to the merger transaction. The net loss in the fourth quarter of 2022 was impacted by a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $18.3 million in our analytics segment.
We reviewed goodwill for impairment in the fourth quarter, while we saw improved financial results in our analytics segment this quarter relative to fourth quarter of 2021, we concluded that our goodwill was impaired due to several factors, including current macroeconomic headwinds and previously anticipated growth rates. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $2.5 million in Q4, compared to Adjusted EBITDA loss of $3.9 million in the third quarter and $7.7 million in the second quarter. Our total Adjusted EBITDA loss for the second half of 2022 was $6.5 million, as we forecasted, compared to the $10.6 million in the first half of 2022. With our cost saving actions in the second half of the year, we now have a foundational baseline for future profitable growth.
In review of the balance sheet, at the end of the fourth quarter, we had cash and cash equivalents of approximately $12.6 million. Of the $9 million operational cash usage in Q4, $6 million was our biannual interest payment. The remaining operational cash burn of $3 million was significantly less than previous quarters as a result of the cost initiatives we executed beginning in the third quarter. In January, we took steps to address liquidity with a $25 million private placement, which provides us with sufficient liquidity to execute our 2023 strategy. Following the actions we took to right-size our operational cost structure in the second half of 2022 and early 2023, we expect to continue the trend toward a much lower cash burn in 2023.
We are focused on achieving positive operational cash flow in the second half of 2023, which excludes non-recurring and non-operational items, including interest payments, transaction fees, tax payments for stock vesting and severance costs associated with our reduction in force. Finally, I wanted to provide additional context of the material weakness that we described in our earnings release related to our internal IT controls. While we have completed a thorough review of our financial statements and have not identified any material errors in our financial results or our consolidated financial statements, we have discovered gaps in our internal control processes and IT-related controls that in aggregate resulted in a material weakness in our internal controls. We're addressing the issues, including enhancing segregation of duties, implementing additional IT general controls, and increased monitoring and oversight activities.
We are implementing a comprehensive remediation plan in coordination with our auditors and expect the remediation work to be completed this year. Turning to outlook. We are expecting 2023 revenue to be in the range of $155 million-$170 million. We are projecting single-digit negative Adjusted EBITDA in millions for 2023. We have several significant expected contract awards in our pipeline, which, given their size and timing of awards, could have a significant impact on our FY 2023 revenue. As Mandy said in her opening remarks, it's clear that the race for AI dominance will continue into 2023. As we execute our strategy this year, we will undoubtedly have to make certain investments that we believe will be catalysts in accelerating our success as an industry leader in AI.
Looking ahead, we remain disciplined on managing costs and focused on areas to drive operational efficiency. Following cost reduction initiatives, we anticipate substantially lower cash burn, particularly in the second half of 2023, as we saw in the fourth quarter of 2022. After improving our near-term liquidity position, we will make targeted investments to efficiently drive sustainable growth. We are well-positioned to deliver increasing growth margins and steady revenue growth, driven by increasing demand for our offerings in federal markets and our ramp-up in commercial go-to-market efforts, as well as a continued shift in our business mix in favor of higher-margin analytics segments. I'll turn it over to Mandy for final remarks before we turn it to Q&A.
Thank you, Julie. I am proud of the BigBear.ai team and the work that we have done to deliver on our commitments and begin to capitalize on the evolving market opportunities we discussed. That is the pattern that you will always see here. We will say what we are going to do, and then we will do it. We know what we are capable of. We aren't afraid to learn fast and work hard, and we see the long game. 2023 will be an important year of growth and stability for BigBear.ai as we deliver clarity for the world's most complex decisions. We're very excited about the year ahead. Operator, we're ready for questions. Thank you.
Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please, as we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Louie DiPalma with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.
Mandy and Julie, good evening.
Hello, Louie.
Hi, Louie.
Hi. Hi there. There has been a great deal of investor excitement associated with ChatGPT and its impact on AI innovation. Can you provide a quick overview of how your solutions may differ from ChatGPT and your use of tensor completion as part of your AI solution? Also related to this, will ChatGPT developments translate into contracts for BigBear.ai over the long term? How should we in general think about the recent excitement for AI solutions? Thanks.
Thank you, Louie. It is an incredibly fair question, and I think, you know, one that many wonder about. ChatGPT as a whole, right, is, I think there's been a lot of coverage on, is derived off of LLMs, right? Large language models. Which is a capability that's actually existed for a very, very long time and has been applied. BigBear uses LLMs, a lot of companies do, but I think that this particular instance is the first time we've seen a degree of democratization and consumer-facing access to the capabilities that exist within training on such a large spectrum of data.
Now, in terms of kind of how that pulls forward for us, I think what's important to note about BigBear.ai is that we have more than a couple of decades of experience in working in even the early days of machine learning, and now, you know, as deep learning has progressed, we leverage a wide variety of training tools and methodologies to meet customer need. You know, sometimes that, to your point, right, may require different types of artificial intelligence, you know, whether it's the work that we do in predictive analytics, whether it's computer vision or any underlying tools that we use to accomplish those things. We have skill sets that tap into each of them. What I would note in terms of, you mentioned Tensor, right?
I think the big thing that I always sort of say about AI in general is that it is a tool. It is a spectacular tool, and it can be applied in a way that, you know, even five years ago, we really couldn't tap into because of the limitations around compute. At the end of the day, as a technology provider and as a solution provider, our job is to use the right tools to solve the customer problem. We're gonna lean into things like Tensor, right? As an example, it does a pretty spectacular job, and we've been working in that for quite a while, around weak link correlation, so dirty datasets. We do use that in some of our solutions that are deployed with the federal government.
As we look forward into 2023 as well as beyond, you know, unquestionably, we are seeing an unbelievable amount of interest in the application of artificial intelligence in both the federal sector as well as the commercial sector. What's putting us apart in those conversations and what gets us excited about the future is that we're not new to the table, right? We've been doing this for a very long time, and we have a lot of production examples of the types of tools that I just talked about. I would expect, you know, and when we look at our pipeline, right, I see a lot of promise, right, associated with where we're headed, and it's really on us to do what we said, right? Go execute and then keep sharing it as we go. Does that answer your question, Louie?
Yes. Definitely. Thanks, Mandy. You were just talking about production examples, and last quarter, you discussed how your MED model and FutureFlow Rx platforms have been gaining some traction with hospital customers. I'm wondering, how has that platform progressed since last quarter in terms of customer adoption, and what does the pipeline look like?
It's a great question, and I do wanna note, right, the sort of commercial side of our business, which does include the FutureFlow Rx solution. We don't break out separately in terms of reporting. The pediatric care crisis continues, right? There is a unbelievable challenge happening in the world that I spent many years in, across hospitals and health systems associated with staffing shortages, associated with, you know, incredible upticks in particular types of illnesses that we just haven't seen, right, in this kind of volume for a very long time. Our tools are incredibly well situated to be able to help with how to design, right, patient flow solutions and optimization solutions for how to get patients to the right place at the right time and do prioritization. We are continuing to see interest in that, and our pipeline is reflective. Does that answer your question?
Yes. One more on your business prospects. The U.S. Army, at an industry conference in January, announced that it is looking to multisource its Vantage data analytics dashboard program. In your prepared remarks and, you know, over the past year, you've discussed the success that you've had with the GFIM program, which is also with the Army Data and Analytics Platforms. I was wondering if this Vantage multisourcing represents an opportunity for BigBear.ai, given its strong relationship with the U.S. Army and, you know, what other potential defense prospects you may have in your pipeline. Thanks.
Sure. I think probably the best way to answer it, Louie, is to maybe talk about some of the things we're seeing as it relates to consolidation of federal contracts, right? That, I think, is, you know, is absolutely happening. You know, we are seeing multiple contracts consolidated into larger contract infrastructures in certain cases, which allows, you know, the government to manage processes more efficiently and streamline the work. We are definitely, you know, having those conversations now. We've seen that in other instances.
As it relates to kind of the general, you know, kind of federal market and, you know, how we position ourselves and what we're seeing in terms of opportunity, I think in all three of the sort of vectors, right, that we have strength in, whether it's complex global supply chains and logistics, whether it's autonomous systems like our work at IMX 23, right, whether it's cyber, right, particularly with a focus on cybersecurity and risk, right, and reverse engineering. I see our pipeline growing, I guess, is the, is the short summary, and I think it has, in no small part, right, to do with the fact that there is a level of geopolitical unrest that is pretty unprecedented right now in the, you know, leadership that is in the seat, and we are doing our best to help.
Great. For Julie, following the cost reduction initiatives, what should we expect for, like, ballpark cash burn for 2023 when taking into account the interest payments and different tax payments that you mentioned? Also, what is the total company liquidity pro forma for the $25 million raised?
Specifically to your first question, Louie. You know, we feel like we have done a really good job of getting the pipe in has really helped significantly on that liquidity profile, obviously. When we look at our cash burn with the cost reductions that we've taken out in starting in Q3, again in Q4 and Q1, we do expect the cash burn to be significantly lower. You're already aware of our interest payments that do happen in second quarter and fourth quarter, you know, you kinda already know where those are placed. I would tell you that, you know, we are targeting to be operationally cash flow positive in the second half of the year.
You know, to be clear on what we mean by operational cash flow positive, we're focused on the ongoing day-to-day business. That includes, you know, everything that would be normal operating expenses that you would see in the business as well as inflow of customer payments. It doesn't include, as I said, the interest payments, which you know where those are, or transaction fees or severance costs and things like that. We're going to be much more positive, we believe, in the second half of the year. In the first half of the year, just to be clear, I think we noted this in our earnings release. We had some startup costs in fourth quarter and early Q1 in advance of a contract that was awarded in late Q1.
The timing of those customer payments is probably gonna flow into Q2. We do think that early in the year, cash is gonna look a little bit worse than it will be in the back half of the year. We still think that we're comfortable with our, you know, liquidity position where we are, that we have plenty of liquidity to support our growth strategy and deliver on the promises we've made.
Great. Thanks, Julie. Thanks, Mandy. That's it for me.
Thanks, Louie.
Thank you, Louie.
Our next question comes from the line of Param Singh with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Thank you. Yeah, this is Param Singh on for Timothy Horan from Oppenheimer. First of all, I just wanted to get a better sense of your overall revenue guide. You know, obviously you've had some really good successes with multiple contracts that you've talked about, GFIM today, and of course, IDIQ. Now, I wanted to kind of parse that and, against your guide for $165 million-$170 million. I mean, it doesn't seem you're embedding much growth in there. Maybe you could help me understand why is that, you know, not growing at a much faster pace, or is there incremental conservatism baked into your guidance?
Hello. First of all, hi, thanks for joining. Second, I'll make a couple of comments, and then I'll hand it to Julie to add some color. I think, you know, when we, when we looked at kind of the year we had in 2022, and then we looked forward into 2023 and kind of what we see, the way that we're approaching guidance is really to be balanced, right? And really establishing and sharing, right, what we have line of sight to, what we see, what we think is reasonable, right? Given, certainly a continued challenging macroeconomic environment. You know, to reinforce what Julie shared as well as what I shared earlier, right?
We, I think for many companies, right, ourselves included, January opened up a lot of conversations that, you know, I think we are seeing accelerate, right? I'll continue to be optimistic about how those conversations will progress. As you also know, the federal contracting process can be a long one. While we are, you know, pushing and being extremely responsive and adapting and extending our solutions to meet those needs, our guidance reflects, you know, what I think is a very kind of appropriate and measured approach for 2023. Julie, anything to add on your side?
Yeah. I would say yeah. Mandy said most of everything that I would would've said. The only thing I would add is that, you know, there's a couple of things that I would add to that with the sense of we are trying to ensure that we don't get ahead of ourselves. We saw some challenges last year as we experienced some shifting and funding from various different contracts that we had in terms of timing of how those were gonna be funded or specifically some of the funding that was reprioritized to be associated with the war in Ukraine. We wanna make sure that what we have in our guidance is what we believe is in front of us and that we can deliver.
The only other thing I was gonna just remind you guys is, I think Mandy said this, but just to reemphasize, it's important to understand that in the government world, even with, even with this really heightened awareness and excitement around AI and the capabilities, there's typically three major stages that we have to go through in order to get these contracts awarded. There's a prototype phase, which is small and typically break even. There's an MVP stage, which has to prove things out, and then we get into production. That takes a long time. So even with the excitement around everything that we're seeing, and we're excited about what we're seeing, it's just gonna take a while for people to move, you know, through that process and through that curve. So I think that's why our guidance is where it is.
We wanna make sure that we're measured about how we're communicating and what we're committing to and how fast we can get there.
That's really helpful. Thank you so much for the color, Mandy and Julie. Maybe if I could on the GFIM part, you know, obviously did much better on phase II. Phase III, I mean, what do you expect or what's embedded in your guide in terms of the dollar portion of the contract? Obviously, you know, the revenue on phase II was much higher than you had previously anticipated. Is there now a higher outlook for phase III as well?
It's a fair question, and I'll kind of do the same as the last, which is I think initial as Julie walked through in terms of thinking about phases, right? As we move from where we are in phase II and compete for phase III, which we continue to believe we're very well positioned for because of our execution and delivery in the phase II process. Ultimately, the shift to production, you know, in I think all example cases that we could look at means that it's larger, right? Because you're talking about putting it into the real world, doing it at scale. In terms of kind of, you know, size and scope, right? I think ultimately it's up to the customer to, you know, make that determination and to make the award as appropriate.
I mean, Julie, you know, definitely weigh in because we are certainly spending a lot of time talking about it.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, everything's going very well on the program. You know, it was announced back in September of last year for phase II. You know, we're still working toward the next phase. Again, I think the government is still looking to accelerate the deployment of the overall solution. We're excited about where it's going. As we've said, they continue to, you know, refine their contracting processes and decide how fast they're gonna move down the curve and whether they need some more, you know, prove out during the process before they land in a production mode. I think everything's going exactly as we hoped and maybe even better than we hoped.
I think right now, though, we just don't wanna over-commit to how quickly they're gonna move into production. Although we do believe it is palmed as part of the 2024 budget.
Thank you. No, that's really helpful. Thank you so much. Maybe, you know, we could talk a little bit more about the cybersecurity opportunity. I don't think, you know, that's been discussed as much. I wanna really understand what you're doing there and what are the new avenues of revenue that could potentially help Big Bear in the upcoming years.
Sure. I can talk a little bit about that. I think it's important to note first, right, this is actually not a new capability for us. We have a pretty mature and long-standing cyber competency. The area that I was referring to, that I talked about at the beginning of the call is really in and around part of our business that we're seeing mature pretty quickly, which is that SpaceCREST solution. Not only being able to do a soup to nuts holistic reverse engineering work and vulnerability analysis on componentry, but also to be able to do simulation, right, and modeling associated with potential, whether it be offensive or defensive security postures and monitor that.
On an ongoing basis, some of the things that we're seeing as well is that, you know, as we all know, right, cybersecurity continues to be one of the great challenges for a wide variety of industries as we go through the Fourth Industrial Revolution. You know, a lot of these systems and sets of hardware were just not set up with the level of rigor, right, that is going to be needed as the threat landscape continues to mature. We're doing more and more work in what I would describe as kind of almost vulnerability assessments as a service. There is a large platform manufacturer that we've worked with on that. We're seeing additional chances.
The area where I guess I wanna kind of focus and educate around is that we have a pretty unique competency in being able to do end-to-end reverse engineering and full scope vulnerability work. That is not something I have seen in a lot of other companies, all the way through the, you know, process of being able to actually work with physical hardware, do extraction analysis. I hope that's helpful, but that is where we have some superpowers.
Would you compete with, like, traditional defense contractors there or, you know, cybersecurity companies would be more off a displacement for you in this vertical?
It's a good question. I think in the space that we work in, right, particularly if I focus first on the SpaceCREST solution, right? That's a pretty distinct solution that we have a partnership with Redwire around, right, that we're doing that work in. As it relates to some of the kind of broader vulnerability work that I mentioned and the reverse engineering work, I would say we do see a level of competition from both sides. This is pretty kind of special superpower services work, too. It requires pretty highly talented and skilled individuals who live along the, you know, technology pipeline that we're using for it. We do see some competition in the kind of more traditional contractor world, too. Does that answer your question?
Yeah, absolutely. That's really helpful. Thank you. maybe one last.
Very welcome.
On the revenue side, maybe. The commercial revenue, you know, I know you haven't broken down, but previously, you know, BigBear.ai used to somehow outline a percentage of revenue that would come from commercial and then that would increase over time. Is there some sort of guideline or number embedded in your 2023 guide? You know, do you think you can hit 10% would be coming from commercial? Is there a better number? Just wanna understand your trajectory for that piece of the business.
Yes, it's a great question. We continue to see the commercial business show promise, right? Our, you know, our pipeline is great, right? We're continuing to see that grow. We have not broken it out specifically because we're still, you know, kind of below that 10% threshold for us. You know, I think 2023 is gonna be a great year for it.
Just on the, on the margins front, you know, I'm looking at the numbers, it seems like your C&E margins, gross margins was lower year-over-year. Maybe you can give me some clarity why that's taking a little bit of pressure here?
Yeah, actually, let me take that one for you, Mandy. I would say on the CNE, what you saw in Q4 was pretty close to what we've been running, slightly below, what we've run all year. The anomaly is the year-over-year comparison. Last year there was a kind of a one-time year-to-date catch-up that happened in Q4 that caused the CNE margins to look a little bit out of sync with everything else in the, in the fourth quarter of last year. When you look at the comparison, it looks odd, but, I think what you see in Q4, although right at that 2021 level, is what we consistently run for the CNE segment.
Got it. Okay, that's really helpful. Thank you so much. Then at what level of revenue do you think you could, you know, probably get an EBITDA breakeven?
What our guide,
On an adjusted basis.
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, basically, our target is between $155 million and $170 million on revenue, and we think that that will be really aligned with our guidance of, you know, negative single digit, negative in millions EBITDA. We know we're gonna do everything we can to continue to focus on our cost structure and be very diligent in how we can take costs out and, you know, focus on that where we can. We're not going to, you know, we're not gonna do the wrong thing. We're gonna make sure we have enough investment opportunities, so we can take advantage of this really unique opportunity, you know, in our life cycle where we can make those investments as necessary. You know, I think that's where we need to be right now, and that's our guidance for the year.
Got it. Thank you so much, guys. I'll get back in line.
Thank you.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if anyone has any questions, you may press star one on your telephone keypad to join the question-and-answer queue. Our next question comes from the line of Vivek Balani with Northland Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, I'm Vivek on for Michael Latimore. I have three questions with me.
Hi, Vivek.
Hi. My first question is, how many salespeople do you have, and do you expect them to grow this year?
I, Julie, do you wanna go ahead and take that one?
Yeah. I was gonna say, I want to make sure I heard the question right. Are you asking about how many salespeople we have?
Yes.
We don't specifically give guidance out on headcount, and specifically not within one area. I would say, you know, we are really focused on where we think we need to invest, both on the, you know, both on the CNE side as well as on the analytics in terms of opportunities within the best customer sets. We're looking to, you know, do two things. One is to pursue opportunities into adjacent customers that, you know, we haven't had a position in. Our business development resources are critically important to that growth opportunity. We're also looking to continue to grow within customers that we already have. So, you know, that often falls on the program manager side of the house as well.
I think the way we handle that growth is, you know, a two-part answer, but it's not something that we typically give guidance on.
Yeah. I think the only other note.
Okay.
that I would make in addition to just the comment that, you know, everybody sells, is that we have a strong partner channel as well, and it's a space that we're growing, right? When we think about sales, right, I would also encourage you to kind of also think about it from an indirect standpoint and channel. We have a growing degree of interest in some established relationships already there. For us, it's not just about direct sales. I hope that helps.
Yes. Thank you. My second question is, should we assume first quarter to be the lowest revenue for the whole of the year, and then it builds from there?
Julie, do you wanna go ahead and take that one?
Yeah. I can take that. I would not make that assumption. Again, we don't give quarterly guidance. The nature of our business is that sometimes it is lumpy. When we give guidance for the year, there is a reason why, you know, we don't give that quarterly guidance. We wanna make sure that, you know, we're offering the best perspective we have on the year. It can be lumpy, and it can move around. I mean, as I mentioned, we had a contract that got delayed at the end of fourth quarter that came in in Q1, that's gonna cause some lumpiness in our cash flow. Bottom line is it's just not something we're comfortable yet.
You know, we may get to a point where we get there, where we start to give quarterly guidance, but we're just not quite to that level yet.
All right. My last question is about, I mean, do you see analytics or cyber engineering growing faster this year?
Just to make sure that I understand, are you talking about comparison between the two, which will grow more significantly?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Or
Yes.
This is something that, and Julie, you can add on after me, right? We've been talking about this for the past several quarters is our analytics business, which is a, you know, higher margin business for us, an area where we're seeing a lot of growth, right? Continues to be a part of our business that we expect to, you know, drive, right, a lot of growth for us overall. That being said, right, I would say, you know, CNE is, you know, projected to have a good year as well. I guess, Julie, I don't know if you'd add anything on that.
I would just say, you know, I would point to our performance, which you've seen recently, which is, you know, we've clearly been focusing on a shift of our revenue mix toward that higher margin analytics segment, technology-led services, right? We're pleased to see that, you know, in Q4, we had 39% growth in that analytics segment. We expect that helped us drive better profitability in the quarter and in the back half of the year as well, and we expect that to continue into 2023. Yes, we do expect the analytics segment to grow faster.
Thanks a lot, guys. Thank you.
You bet.
Thank you.
We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I'll now turn the call back over to Mandy Long for closing remarks.
Thank you all so much for joining today. Appreciate the questions and the discussion. You know, as I shared, Greta, I continue to be genuinely excited about BigBear.ai, you know, our potential, our future. I think we are doing all of the right things, and have a very clear focus on long-term and sustainable growth for the business. We appreciate all of your time, and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter.
This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.