Item 1. Legal Proceedings.
Refer to Note 11, Commitments and Contingencies – Litigation, to the condensed consolidated financial statements included in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for a description of current legal proceedings, if any.
Item 1A. Risk Factors.
Our operations and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those described below. You should consider and read carefully all of the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information contained in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, including the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our condensed consolidated financial statements and the related notes. The risks described below are those which we believe are the material risks we face. The occurrence of any of the following risks or additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe to be immaterial could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, or results of operations. In such case, the trading price of our Class A common stock could decline.
Risk Factors Summary
The following is a summary of the principal risks associated with an investment in our Class A common stock:
•Our recent rapid growth may not be indicative of our future growth. Our limited operating history and recent rapid growth also make it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and may increase the risk that we will not be successful.
•We may not be able to successfully manage our growth and, if we are not able to grow efficiently, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be harmed.
•Because we derive substantially all of our revenue from our automation platform, failure of this platform to satisfy customer demands could adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects.
•Our business depends on our existing customers renewing their licenses and purchasing additional licenses and products from us and our channel partners. Declines in renewals or the purchase of additional licenses by our customers could harm our future operating results.
•If we are unable to attract new customers, our business, financial condition, and results of operations will be adversely affected.
•The markets in which we participate are competitive and, if we do not compete effectively, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be harmed.
•If we fail to retain and motivate members of our management team or other key employees, or fail to attract additional qualified personnel to support our operations, our business and future growth prospects would be harmed.
•Unfavorable conditions in our industry or the global economy, or reductions in IT spending, could limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our results of operations.
•A limited number of customers represent a substantial portion of our revenue and ARR. If we fail to retain these customers, our revenue could decline significantly.
•We rely on our channel partners to generate a substantial amount of our revenue, and if we fail to expand and manage our distribution channels, our revenue could decline and our growth prospects could suffer.
•If we are not able to introduce new features or services successfully and to make enhancements to our platform or products, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.
•Real or perceived errors, failures, or bugs in our platform and products could adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects.
•Incorrect or improper implementation or use of our platform and products could result in customer dissatisfaction and harm our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects.
•We rely upon third-party providers of cloud-based infrastructure to host our cloud-based products. Any disruption in the operations of these third-party providers, limitations on capacity, or interference with our use could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
•We expect fluctuations in our financial results, making it difficult to project future results, and if we fail to meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors with respect to our results of operations, our stock price and the value of your investment could decline.
•If we fail to maintain and enhance our brand, our ability to expand our customer base will be impaired and our business, financial condition, and results of operations may suffer.
•Any failure to obtain, maintain, protect, or enforce our intellectual property and proprietary rights could impair our ability to protect our proprietary technology and our brand.
•We may become subject to intellectual property disputes, which are costly and may subject us to significant liability and increased costs of doing business.
•Our current operations are international in scope, and we plan further geographic expansion, creating a variety of operational challenges.
•We and our independent registered public accounting firm identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting in the past, and any failure to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting could harm us.
•The dual class structure of our common stock has the effect of concentrating voting control with our Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, and Chairman, which will limit your ability to influence the outcome of important decisions.
Risks Related to Our Business, Products, Operations, and Industry
Our recent rapid growth may not be indicative of our future growth. Our limited operating history and recent rapid growth also make it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and may increase the risk that we will not be successful.
We have experienced rapid growth. Our annualized renewal run-rate, or ARR, was $726.5 million and $453.5 million at July 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively, representing a growth rate of 60%. We generated revenue of $195.5 million and $139.4 million, for the three months ended July 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively, representing a growth rate of 40%. We generated revenue of $381.7 million and $252.5 million, for the six months ended July 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively, representing a growth rate of 51%. You should not, however, rely on the ARR or revenue growth of any prior quarterly or annual fiscal period as an indication of our future performance. We were incorporated in June 2015, and as a result of our limited operating history, our ability to accurately forecast our future results of operations is limited and subject to a number of uncertainties, including our ability to plan for and model future growth. Even if our ARR and revenue continue to increase, we expect that our ARR and revenue growth rates will decline in the future as a result of a variety of factors, including the maturation of our business, increased competition, changes to technology, a decrease in the growth of our overall market, or our failure, for any reason, to continue to take advantage of growth opportunities. Overall growth of our business depends on a number of additional factors, including our ability to:
•price our products effectively so that we are able to attract new customers and expand sales to our existing customers;
•expand the functionality and use cases for the products we offer on our platform;
•maintain and expand the rates at which customers purchase and renew licenses to our platform;
•provide our customers with support that meets their needs;
•continue to introduce and sell our products to new markets;
•continue to develop new products and new functionality for our platform and successfully further optimize our existing products and infrastructure;
•successfully identify and acquire or invest in businesses, products, or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our platform; and
•increase awareness of our brand on a global basis and successfully compete with other companies.
We may not successfully accomplish any of these objectives, and as a result, it is difficult for us to forecast our future results of operations. If the assumptions that we use to plan our business are incorrect or change in reaction to changes in our market, or if we are unable to maintain consistent ARR, revenue, or ARR or revenue growth, our stock price could be volatile, and it may be difficult to achieve and maintain profitability. You should not rely on our ARR or revenue for any prior quarterly or annual fiscal periods as an indication of our future ARR or revenue or ARR or revenue growth.
In addition, we expect to continue to expend substantial financial and other resources on:
•our technology infrastructure, including systems architecture, scalability, availability, performance, and security;
•our sales and marketing organization to engage our existing and prospective customers, increase brand awareness, and drive adoption of our products;
•product development, including investments in our product development team and the development of new products and new functionality for our platform as well as investments in further optimizing our existing products and infrastructure;
•acquisitions or strategic investments;
•our international operations and continued international expansion; and
•general administration, including increased legal and accounting expenses associated with being a public company.
These investments may not be successful on the timeline we anticipate or at all, and may not result in increased ARR or revenue growth. For instance, we anticipate that our customers will continue to increase adoption of our cloud offerings in future periods. We have offered our cloud-based products for only a short period of time, and we cannot predict how increased adoption of our cloud-based products will change the buying patterns of our customers or impact our future ARR or revenue. If we are unable to maintain or increase our ARR or revenue at a rate sufficient to offset the expected increase in our costs, our business, financial position, and results of operations will be harmed, and we may not be able to achieve or maintain profitability over the long term. Additionally, we have encountered, and may in the future encounter, risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing industries, such as unforeseen operating expenses, difficulties, complications, delays, and other known or unknown factors that may result in losses in future periods. If our ARR or revenue growth does not meet our expectations in future periods, our business, financial position, and results of operations may be harmed, and we may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
In addition, we will need to appropriately scale our internal business systems and our services organization, including customer support and professional services, to serve our growing customer base. Any failure of or delay in these efforts could result in impaired system performance and reduced customer satisfaction, resulting in decreased sales to new customers, lower dollar-based net retention rates, the issuance of service credits, or requested refunds, which would hurt our ARR or revenue growth and our reputation. Even if we are successful in our expansion efforts, they will be expensive and complex, and require the dedication of significant management time and attention. We could also face inefficiencies or service disruptions as a result of our efforts to scale our internal infrastructure. We cannot be sure that the expansion of and improvements to our internal infrastructure will be effectively implemented on a timely basis, if at all, and such failures could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We may not be able to successfully manage our growth and, if we are not able to grow efficiently, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be harmed.
As usage of our platform capabilities grow, we will need to devote additional resources to improving and maintaining our infrastructure and integrating with third-party applications. In addition, we will need to appropriately scale our internal business systems and our services organization, including customer support and professional services, to serve our growing customer base. Any failure of or delay in these efforts could result in impaired system performance and reduced customer satisfaction, resulting in decreased sales to new customers, lower dollar-based net retention rates, the issuance of service credits, or requested refunds, which would hurt our revenue growth and our reputation. Even if we are successful in our expansion efforts, they will be expensive and complex, and require the dedication of significant management time and attention. We could also face inefficiencies or service disruptions as a result of our efforts to scale our internal infrastructure. We cannot be sure that the expansion of and
improvements to our internal infrastructure will be effectively implemented on a timely basis, if at all, and such failures could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Because we derive substantially all of our revenue from our automation platform, failure of this platform to satisfy customer demands could adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects.
We derive and expect to continue to derive substantially all of our revenue from our automation platform. As such, market adoption of our automation platform is critical to our continued success. Demand for our automation platform may be affected by a number of factors, many of which are beyond our control, including continued market acceptance and integration of our platform into our customers’ operations, the continued volume, variety, and velocity of automated tasks that are generated through use of our platform, timing of development, and release of new offerings by our competitors, technological change, and the rate of growth in our market. Additionally, the utility of our automation platform and products relies in part on the ability of our customers to use our automation products in connection with other third-party software products that are important to our customer’s business. If these third-party software providers were to modify the terms of their licensing arrangements with our customers in a manner that would reduce the utility of our products, or increase the cost to use our products in connection with these third-party software products, then our customers may no longer choose to adopt our automation platform or continue to use our products. If we are unable to continue to meet the demands of our customers and the developer community, our business operations, financial results, and growth prospects will be materially and adversely affected.
Our business depends on our existing customers renewing their licenses and purchasing additional licenses and products from us and our channel partners. Declines in renewals or the purchase of additional licenses by our customers could harm our future operating results.
Part of our growth strategy relies on our ability to deliver significant value in a short time to our customers, so that our customers will scale the use of our platform throughout their enterprise. Accordingly, our future success depends in part on our ability to exhibit this value and sell additional licenses and products to our existing customers, and our customers renewing their licenses with us and our channel partners when the contract term expires. Our license agreements primarily have annual terms, and some of our license agreements have multi-year terms. We generally do not sell standalone licenses with a term of less than one year. However, during the term of an annual contract or the last year of a multi-year contract, our customers may enter into an additional license agreement with a termination date that is coterminous with the anniversary date of such annual contract. Our customers have no obligation to renew their licenses for our products after the expiration of their license period. We also provide some customers the opportunity to use our automation platform and products for free prior to purchasing a license. We also work with our customers to identify opportunities for follow-on sales to increase our footprint within their businesses.
In order for us to maintain or improve our results of operations, it is important that our customers renew or expand their licenses with us and our channel partners. We cannot accurately predict our renewals and dollar-based net retention rate given the diversity of our customer base, in terms of size, industry, and geography. Our renewals, dollar-based net retention rate, and dollar-based gross retention rate may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, many of which are outside our control, including the business strength or weakness of our customers, customer usage, including the ability of our customers to quickly integrate our products into their businesses and continually find new uses for our products within their businesses, customer satisfaction with our products and platform capabilities and customer support, the utility of our platform to cost-effectively integrate with third-party software products, our prices, the capabilities and prices of competing products, mergers and acquisitions affecting our customer base, consolidation of affiliates’ multiple paid business accounts into a single paid business account or loss of business accounts in their entirety, the effects of global economic conditions, or reductions in our customers’ spending on information technology, or IT, solutions or their spending levels generally, perceived security or data privacy risks from the use of our products, changes in regulatory regimes that effect our customers or our ability to sell our products, or the views of the industry and public with regard to our products and robotic process automation, or RPA, products generally, including as a result of increased automation and displacement of human workforces. These factors may also be exacerbated if, consistent with our growth strategy, our customer base continues to grow to encompass larger enterprises, which may also require more sophisticated and costly sales efforts. If our customers do not purchase additional licenses and products from us or our customers fail to renew their licenses, our revenue may decline and our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be harmed.
If we are unable to attract new customers, our business, financial condition, and results of operations will be adversely affected.
To increase our revenue, we must continue to attract new customers. Our success will depend to a substantial extent on the widespread adoption of our platform and products as an alternative to existing solutions, including as an alternative to traditional systems relying on manual tasks and processes. Many enterprises have invested substantial personnel and financial resources to integrate traditional human-driven processes into their business architecture and, therefore, may be reluctant or unwilling to migrate to an automation solution. Accordingly, the adoption of automation solutions may be slower than we anticipate. A large proportion of our target market still uses traditional systems relying on manual tasks and processes for the major part of their operations. This market may need further education on the value of automation solutions in general and our platform and products in particular, and on how to integrate them into current operations. A lack of education as to how our automation solutions operate may cause potential customers to prefer more traditional methodologies, to be cautious about investing in our platform and products, or to have difficulty integrating our platform and products into their business architecture. If we are unable to educate potential customers and change the market’s readiness to accept our technology, we may experience slower than projected growth.
In addition, as our market matures, our products evolve, and competitors introduce lower cost or differentiated products that are perceived to be alternatives to our platform and products, our ability to sell licenses for our products could be impaired. Similarly, our license sales could be adversely affected if customers or users within these organizations perceive that features incorporated into competitive products reduce the need for our products or if they prefer to purchase other products that are bundled with solutions offered by other companies that operate in adjacent markets and compete with our products. As a result of these and other factors, we may be unable to attract new customers, which may have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
The markets in which we participate are competitive and, if we do not compete effectively, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be harmed.
Our platform and products provide automation solutions that our customers can integrate throughout their businesses. Accordingly, we compete with companies that provide RPA and other automation solutions, including Appian Corporation, Automation Anywhere, Inc., Blue Prism Group PLC, Celonis Inc., EdgeVerve Systems Limited, Kofax Inc., Kyron Systems Inc., Microsoft Corporation, NICE LTD., NTT Ltd., Pegasystems Inc., and WorkFusion, Inc. In addition to RPA software providers, we compete with automation lifecycle technology providers, such as low-code, iBPMS, iPaaS, process mining, and test automation vendors, which develop and market automation capabilities as extensions of their core platforms, and enterprise platform vendors, which provide horizontal applications and productivity tools and are acquiring, building, or investing in RPA functionality or partnering with RPA providers. We also compete with companies that provide and support the traditional systems relying on manual tasks and processes that our platform and products are designed to replace, including companies that facilitate outsourcing of such tasks and processes to lower cost workers. Our customers may also internally develop their own automated solutions to address tasks particular to their business. Our market may need further education on the value of automation solutions and our platform and products, and on how to integrate them into current operations. A lack of education as to how our automation platform and products operate may cause potential customers to prefer more traditional methodologies or their limited, internally-developed automated processes, to be cautious about investing in our platform and products, or to have difficulty integrating our platform and products into their business architecture. If we are unable to educate potential customers and change the market’s readiness to accept our technology, then our business, results of operations, and financial condition may be harmed.
The RPA market is one of the fastest growing enterprise software markets and is increasingly competitive. With the introduction of new technologies and market entrants, we expect that the competitive environment will remain intense going forward. For instance, as our market becomes increasingly driven by cloud-based solutions, native cloud providers may enter this market and provide competitive offerings at lower prices. Additionally, open source alternatives for automation that are offered freely may impact our ability to sell our products to certain customers who may prefer to rely on these tools at no cost. Some of our actual and potential competitors have been acquired by other larger enterprises, have made or may make acquisitions, may enter into partnerships or other strategic relationships that may provide more comprehensive products than they individually had offered or may achieve greater economies of scale than us. In addition, new entrants not currently considered to be competitors may enter the market through acquisitions, partnerships, or strategic relationships. As we look to market and sell our products and platform capabilities to potential customers with existing internal solutions, we must convince their
internal stakeholders that our products and platform capabilities are superior to their current solutions. If we fail to do so, our business, results of operation and financial condition may be harmed.
If we fail to continue to differentiate our platform and products from those offered by our competitors, then our business, results of operations, and financial condition may be harmed.
Our competitors vary in size and in the breadth and scope of the products offered. Many of our competitors and potential competitors have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, more established customer relationships and installed customer bases, larger marketing budgets, and greater resources than we do. Further, other potential competitors not currently offering competitive solutions may expand their product or service offerings to compete with our products and platform capabilities. For instance, a number of our potential competitors already have close, integrated relationships with our customers and potential customers for other service offerings. If any of these potential competitors were to provide an automation solution within their current service offerings as a single, integrated solution, our customers and potential customers may choose to adopt the integrated solution due to administrative ease or other factors that are outside our control. Our current and potential competitors may also establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with third parties that may further enhance their resources and product offerings in our addressable market. Our competitors may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards, and customer requirements. An existing competitor or new entrant could introduce new technology that reduces demand for our products and platform capabilities. In addition to product and technology competition, we face pricing competition. Some of our competitors offer their on-premises or cloud solutions at a lower price, which has resulted in, and may continue to result in, pricing pressures.
For all of these reasons, we may not be able to compete successfully against our current or future competitors, and this competition could result in the failure of our platform to continue to achieve or maintain market acceptance, which would harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
If we fail to retain and motivate members of our management team or other key employees, or fail to attract additional qualified personnel to support our operations, our business and future growth prospects would be harmed.
Our success and future growth depend largely upon the continued services of our executive officers, particularly Daniel Dines, our Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, and Chairman, as well as our other key employees in the areas of research and development and sales and marketing. Additionally, many members of our management team have been with us for a short period of time or have served in their current roles for a short period of time, including Ashim Gupta, our Chief Financial Officer, who joined us in February 2018 and was promoted to the position of Chief Financial Officer in November 2019, Brad Brubaker, our General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer, who joined us in April 2019, Ted Kummert, our Executive Vice President of Product and Engineering, who joined us in March 2020, Thomas Hansen, our Chief Revenue Officer, who joined us in April 2020, and Bettina Koblick, our Chief People Officer, who joined us in April 2021. From time to time, there may be changes in our executive management team or other key employees resulting from hiring or the departure of these personnel. Our executive officers and other key employees are employed on an at-will basis, which means that these personnel could terminate their employment with us at any time. The loss of one or more of our executive officers, or the failure by our executive team to effectively work with our employees and lead our company, could harm our business. We also are dependent on the continued service of our existing software engineers because of the complexity of our products and platform capabilities.
In addition, to execute our growth plan, we must attract and retain highly-qualified personnel. Competition for these personnel is intense, especially for engineers experienced in designing and developing RPA, artificial intelligence, or AI, and machine learning, or ML, applications, and experienced sales professionals. If we are unable to attract such personnel in cities where we are located, we may need to hire in other locations, which may add to the complexity and costs of our business operations. From time to time, we have experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining employees with appropriate qualifications. We recently completed our initial public offering, or IPO, and potential candidates may not perceive our compensation package, including our equity awards, as favorably as employees hired prior to our IPO. In addition, our recruiting personnel, methodology, and approach may need to be altered to address a changing candidate pool and profile. We may not be able to identify or implement such changes in a timely manner.
Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel have greater resources than we have. If we hire employees from competitors or other companies, their former employers may attempt to assert that
these employees or we have breached their legal obligations, resulting in a diversion of our time and resources. In addition, prospective and existing employees often consider the value of the equity awards they receive in connection with their employment. If the perceived value of our equity awards declines, experiences significant volatility, or increases such that prospective employees believe there is limited upside to the value of our equity awards, it may adversely affect our ability to recruit and retain key employees. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects would be harmed.
We have a history of operating losses and have not been profitable in the past. We may not be able to reach and maintain profitability in the future.
We have experienced net losses in each fiscal year since inception. For the six months ended July 31, 2021 and 2020, we incurred net losses of $339.7 million and $47.9 million, respectively. As of July 31, 2021 and January 31, 2021, we had an accumulated deficit of $1,310.0 million and $970.4 million, respectively. While we have experienced significant revenue growth in recent periods, and have not been profitable in prior fiscal years, we are not certain whether we will obtain a high enough volume of sales to sustain or increase our growth or reach and maintain profitability in the future. We also expect our costs and expenses to increase in future periods, which could negatively affect our future results of operations if our revenue does not increase. In particular, we intend to continue to expend significant funds to further develop our platform, including by introducing new products and functionality, and to expand our inside sales team and enterprise sales force to drive new customer adoption, expand use cases and integrations, and support international expansion. We will also face increased compliance costs associated with growth, the expansion of our customer base, and being a public company. Our efforts to grow our business may be costlier than we expect, or the rate of our growth in revenue may be slower than we expect, and we may not be able to increase our revenue enough to offset our increased operating expenses. We may incur significant losses in the future for a number of reasons, including the other risks described herein, and unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, or delays, and other unknown events. If we are unable to sustain profitability, the value of our business and Class A common stock may significantly decrease.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and any related economic downturn could negatively impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may prevent us or our employees, customers, partners, suppliers, or vendors or other parties with whom we do business from conducting certain marketing and other business activities for an indefinite period of time, which could adversely impact our business, financial position, and results of operations. Further, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the emergence of new variant strains of COVID-19, many state, local, and foreign governments have put in place, and others in the future may put in place or reinstate, quarantines, executive orders, shelter-in-place orders, and similar government orders and restrictions in order to control the spread of the disease. The reaction to COVID-19, including as a result of such orders or restrictions (or the perception that such orders or restrictions could occur or reoccur), have resulted in business closures, work stoppages, slowdowns, and delays, work-from-home policies, travel restrictions, and cancellation of events, among other effects that could negatively impact productivity and disrupt our operations or those of our customers, partners, suppliers, or vendors or other parties with whom we do business.
In light of the uncertain and rapidly evolving situation relating to the spread of COVID-19, we have taken measures intended to help minimize the risk of the virus to our employees and the communities in which we participate. These measures included temporarily suspending all non-essential travel worldwide for our employees, canceling, postponing, or holding virtually any UiPath events and discouraging employee attendance at any industry events or in-person work-related meetings. Although we have recently reopened and may continue to selectively reopen certain of our offices, permit some travel, and hold certain in-person meetings and events in compliance with applicable government orders and public health guidelines, the majority of our employees continue to work remotely. We have a distributed workforce and our employees are accustomed to working remotely and working with others who are working remotely. However, the limitation on in-person travel and in-person meetings could negatively impact our marketing efforts, the length or variability of our sales cycles, our international operations and continued international operations, or the length of our average recruiting cycle for employees across the organization. Further, operational or other challenges could arise as we and our customers, partners, suppliers, and vendors and other parties with whom we do business continue to operate remotely. In addition, our management team has spent, and will likely continue to spend, significant time, attention, and resources monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic and seeking to manage its effects on our business and workforce. COVID-19 could also adversely affect workforces, economies, and financial markets globally, potentially leading to an economic downturn
and a reduction in customer spending on our products or an inability for our customers, partners, suppliers, or vendors or other parties with whom we do business to meet their contractual obligations.
While it is not possible at this time to predict the duration and extent of the impact that COVID-19 could have on worldwide economic activity and our business in particular, the continued spread of COVID-19, especially in light of the emergence of new variant strains of COVID-19, the timing, distribution, rate of public acceptance, and efficacy of vaccines and other treatments, and the measures taken by governments, businesses, and other organizations in response to COVID-19 could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations. In addition, as a public company we may provide guidance about our business and future operating results, which we expect will be based on assumptions, estimates, and expectations as of the date such guidance is given. Guidance is necessarily speculative in nature and is inherently subject to significant business, economic, and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are expected to be beyond our control, such as the global economic uncertainty and financial market conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. If we were to revise or fail to meet our announced guidance or expectations of analysts as a result of these factors, the price of our Class A common stock could be negatively affected. Moreover, to the extent the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affects our business, financial condition, and results of operations, it may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section, including, but not limited to, those related to our ability to expand within our existing customer base, acquire new customers, develop and expand our sales and marketing capabilities, and expand internationally.
Unfavorable conditions in our industry or the global economy, or reductions in IT spending, could limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our results of operations.
Our results of operations may vary based on the impact of changes in our industry or the global economy on us or our customers and potential customers. Unfavorable conditions in the economy both in the United States and abroad, including conditions resulting from changes in gross domestic product growth in the United States or abroad, financial and credit market fluctuations, international trade relations, political turmoil, natural catastrophes, outbreaks of contagious diseases (such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic), warfare, and terrorist attacks on the United States, Europe, the Asia Pacific region, or elsewhere, could cause a decrease in business investments, including spending on IT, disrupt the timing and cadence of key industry events, and negatively affect the growth of our business and our results of operations. For example, these types of unfavorable conditions have in the past and could in the future disrupt the timing of and attendance at key industry events, which we rely upon in part to generate sales of our products. If those events are disrupted in the future, our marketing investments, sales pipeline, and ability to generate new customers and sales of our products could be negatively and adversely affected. In addition, our competitors, many of whom are larger and have greater financial resources than we do, may respond to challenging market conditions by lowering prices in an attempt to attract our customers and may be less dependent on key industry events to generate sales for their products. In addition, the increased pace of consolidation in certain industries may result in reduced overall spending on our products. Further, to the extent there is a general economic downturn and our platform is perceived by customers and potential customers as costly, or too difficult to deploy or migrate to, our revenue may be disproportionately affected by delays or reductions in general IT spending. We cannot predict the timing, strength, or duration of any economic slowdown, instability, or recovery, generally or within any particular industry. If the economic conditions of the general economy or markets in which we operate worsen from present levels, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be adversely affected.
A limited number of customers represent a substantial portion of our revenue and ARR. If we fail to retain these customers, our revenue and ARR could decline significantly.
We derive a substantial portion of our revenue and ARR from sales to our top 10% of customers. As a result, our revenue and ARR could fluctuate materially and could be materially and disproportionately impacted by purchasing decisions of these customers or any other significant future customer. Any of our significant customers may decide to purchase less than they have in the past, may alter their purchasing patterns at any time with limited notice, or may decide not to continue to license our platform and products at all, any of which could cause our revenue and ARR to decline and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. If we do not further diversify our customer base, we will continue to be susceptible to risks associated with customer concentration.
We rely on our channel partners to generate a substantial amount of our revenue, and if we fail to expand and manage our distribution channels, our revenue could decline and our growth prospects could suffer.
Our success significantly depends upon maintaining and growing our relationships with a variety of channel partners and we anticipate that we will continue to depend on these partners in order to grow our business. Our channel partners enable us to extend our local and global reach, in particular with smaller customers and in geographies where we have less direct sales presence. For the three and six months ended July 31, 2021 and 2020, we derived a substantial amount of our revenue from sales through channel partners, and we expect to continue to derive a substantial amount of our revenue from channel partners in future periods. Our agreements with our channel partners are generally non-exclusive and do not prohibit them from working with our competitors or offering competing products, and many of our channel partners may have more established relationships with our competitors. If our channel partners choose to place greater emphasis on products of their own or those offered by our competitors, do not effectively market and sell our products, or fail to meet the needs of our customers, then our ability to grow our business and sell our products may be adversely affected. In addition, the loss of one or more of our larger channel partners, who may cease marketing our products with limited or no notice, and our possible inability to replace them, could adversely affect our sales. Moreover, our ability to expand our distribution channels depends in part on our ability to educate our channel partners about our platform and products, which can be complex. Our failure to recruit additional channel partners, or any reduction or delay in their sales of our products or conflicts between channel sales and our direct sales and marketing activities may harm our results of operations. Even if we are successful, these relationships may not result in greater customer usage of our products or increased revenue. We also bear the risk that our channel partners will fail to comply with U.S. or international anti-corruption or anti-competition laws, in which case we might be fined or otherwise penalized as a result of the agency relationship with such partners.
In addition, the financial health of our channel partners and our continuing relationships with them are important to our success. Some of these channel partners may be unable to withstand adverse changes in economic conditions, which could result in insolvency and/or the inability of such distributors to obtain credit to finance purchases of our products and services. In addition, weakness in the end-user market could negatively affect the cash flows of our channel partners who could, in turn, delay paying their obligations to us, which would increase our credit risk exposure. Our business could be harmed if the financial condition of some of these channel partners substantially weakened and we were unable to timely secure replacement channel partners.
If we and our channel partners fail to provide sufficient high-quality consulting, training, support, and maintenance resources to enable our customers to realize significant business value from our platform, we may see a decrease in customer adoption of our platform.
Our customers sometimes request consulting and training to assist them in integrating our platform into their business, and rely on our customer support personnel to resolve issues and realize the full benefits that our platform provides. As a result, an increase in the number of customers is likely to increase demand for consulting, training, support, and maintenance related to our products. Given that our customer base and products continue to grow, we will need to provide our customers with more consulting, training, support, and maintenance to enable them to realize significant business value from our platform. We rely on our ecosystem of partners that build, train, and certify skills on our technology, as well as deploy our technology on behalf of their customers. We have been increasing our channel partner and customer enablement through our UiPath Academy and other training initiatives designed to create an ecosystem of people that are skilled in the use and integration of our platform in business operations. However, if we and our channel partners are unable to provide sufficient high-quality consulting, training, integration, and maintenance resources, our customers may not effectively integrate our automation platform into their business or realize sufficient business value from our products to justify follow-on sales, which could impact our future financial performance. Additionally, if our channel partners fail to perform or if the brand for any of our channel partners is harmed, our customers may not choose to rely on our channel partners for consulting, training, integration, and maintenance resources as well. Further, some of our customers are industry leaders, and our contracts with them receive significant public attention. If we or our channel partners encounter problems in helping these customers implement our platform or if there is negative publicity regarding these engagements (even if unrelated to our services or products) our reputation could be harmed and our future financial performance could be negatively impacted. Finally, the investments required to meet the increased demand for our consulting services could strain our ability to deliver our consulting engagements at desired levels of profitability, thereby impacting our overall profitability and financial results.
If we are not able to introduce new features or services successfully and to make enhancements to our platform or products, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.
Our ability to attract new customers and increase revenue from existing customers depends in part on our ability to enhance and improve our platform and to introduce new features and services. To grow our business and remain competitive, we must continue to enhance our platform with features that reflect the constantly evolving nature of automation and AI technology and our customers’ evolving needs. The success of new products, enhancements, and developments depends on several factors including, but not limited to: our anticipation of market changes and demands for product features, including successful product design and timely product introduction and conclusion, sufficient customer demand, cost effectiveness in our product development efforts, and the proliferation of new technologies that are able to deliver competitive products and services at lower prices, more efficiently, more conveniently, or more securely. In addition, because our platform is designed to operate with a variety of systems, applications, data, and devices, we will need to continuously modify and enhance our platform to keep pace with changes in such systems. We may not be successful in developing these modifications and enhancements. Furthermore, the addition of features and solutions to our platform will increase our research and development expenses. Any new features that we develop may not be introduced in a timely or cost-effective manner or may not achieve the market acceptance necessary to generate sufficient revenue to justify the related expenses. It is difficult to predict customer adoption of new features. Such uncertainty limits our ability to forecast our future results of operations and subjects us to a number of challenges, including our ability to plan for and model future growth. If we cannot address such uncertainties and successfully develop new features, enhance our software, or otherwise overcome technological challenges and competing technologies, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.
We also offer professional services including consulting and training and must continually adapt to assist our customers in deploying our platform in accordance with their specific automation strategies. If we cannot introduce new services or enhance our existing services to keep pace with changes in our customers’ deployment strategies, we may not be able to attract new customers, retain existing customers, and expand their use of our software or secure renewal contracts, which are important for the future of our business.
We offer free trials and a free tier of our platform to drive awareness of our products, and encourage use and adoption. If these marketing strategies fail to lead to customers purchasing paid licenses, our ability to grow our revenue will be adversely affected.
To encourage awareness, use, familiarity, and adoption of our platform and products, we offer a community edition and enterprise trial version of our software, each of which provides free, online access to certain of our products. This “try-before-you-buy” strategy may not be successful in driving developer education regarding or leading customers to purchase our products. Many users of our free tier may not lead to others within their organization purchasing and deploying our platform and products. To the extent that users do not become, or we are unable to successfully attract paying customers, we will not realize the intended benefits of these marketing strategies and our ability to grow our revenue will be adversely affected.
We target enterprise customers, and sales to these customers involve risks that may not be present or that are present to a lesser extent with sales to smaller entities.
Our enterprise sales force focuses on sales to large enterprise, organizational, and government agency customers. As of July 31, 2021, we had 1,247 customers with ARR of $100 thousand or more and 118 customers with ARR of $1.0 million or more, which accounted for approximately 75% and 35% of our revenue, respectively, for the period then ended. As of July 31, 2020, we had 785 customers with ARR of $100 thousand or more and 59 customers with ARR of $1.0 million or more, which accounted for approximately 75% and 30% of our revenue, respectively, for the period then ended. See the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Key Performance Metric” for a description of ARR. Sales to large customers involve risks that may not be present or that are present to a lesser extent with sales to smaller entities, such as longer sales cycles, more complex customer requirements (and higher contractual risk as a result), substantial upfront sales costs, less favorable terms, and less predictability in completing some of our sales. For example, enterprise customers may require considerable time to evaluate and test our solution and those of our competitors prior to making a purchase decision and placing an order. A number of factors influence the length and variability of our sales cycle, including the need to educate potential customers about the uses and benefits of our automation platform and products, the discretionary nature of purchasing and budget cycles and, the competitive nature of evaluation and purchasing approval processes. As a result, the length of our sales cycle, from identification of the opportunity to deal closure, may vary significantly from customer to customer, with sales to large enterprises
typically taking longer to complete and requiring greater organizational resources. Moreover, large enterprise customers often begin to deploy our products on a limited basis, but nevertheless demand configuration, integration services, and pricing negotiations, which increase our upfront investment in the sales effort with no guarantee that these customers will deploy our products widely enough across their organization to justify our substantial upfront investment.
Real or perceived errors, failures, or bugs in our platform and products could adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects.
Our platform and products are complex and use novel technology. Undetected errors, failures, or bugs have occurred in our platform and products in the past and may occur in the future. Our platform and products are used throughout our customers’ business environments and with different operating systems, system management software, applications, devices, databases, servers, storage, middleware, custom and third-party applications and equipment, and networking configurations, which may cause errors or failures in the business environment into which our platform and products are deployed. This diversity of applications increases the likelihood of errors or failures in those business environments. Despite testing by us, real or perceived errors, failures, or bugs may not be found until our customers use our platform and products. Such failures or bugs can cause reputational damage, and in some cases can affect our revenue due to the impact of service level commitments that we offer to our customers, as described below.
Our platform and products also empower our customers to develop their own use cases for our automation platform and products. We cannot guarantee that these user-developed automations will be effective or that they do not include errors, failures, or bugs that then may be attributed, correctly or not, to our underlying technologies. For instance, our customers may use our products in a manner in which they were not intended and that could cause our platform or products to be implicated in any resulting errors or failures. Real or perceived errors, failures, or bugs in our platform and products could result in negative publicity, loss of or delay in market acceptance of our platform and products, regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, harm to our brand, weakening of our competitive position, claims by customers for losses sustained by them, or failure to meet the stated service level commitments in our customer agreements. In such an event, we may be required, or may choose, for customer relations or other reasons, to expend significant additional resources in order to help correct the problem. Any errors, failures, or bugs in our platform or products could also impair our ability to attract new customers, retain existing customers, or expand their use of our software, which would adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Incorrect or improper implementation or use of our platform and products could result in customer dissatisfaction and harm our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects.
Our automation platform and products and related services are designed to be deployed in a wide variety of technology environments, including in large-scale, complex technology environments across a wide range of use cases. We believe our future success will depend, at least in part, on our ability and the ability of our channel partners to support such deployments. Implementations of our platform may be technically complicated and it may not be easy to maximize the value of our platform without proper implementation and training. If our customers are unable to implement our platform successfully, or in a timely manner, or if our customers perceive that the implementation of our platform is too complex or time consuming, customer perceptions of our company and our software may be impaired, our reputation and brand may suffer, and customers may choose not to renew their licenses or increase their purchases of our related services.
We regularly train our customers and channel partners in the proper use of and the variety of benefits that can be derived from our automation platform and products to maximize its potential. We and our channel partners often work with our customers to achieve successful implementations, particularly for large, complex deployments. Our failure or the failure of our channel partners to train customers on how to efficiently and effectively deploy and use our platform and products, or our failure or the failure of our channel partners to provide effective support or professional services to our customers, whether actual or perceived, may result in negative publicity or legal actions against us. Also, as we continue to expand our customer base, any actual or perceived failure by us or our channel partners to properly provide these services will likely result in lost opportunities for follow-on sales of our related services.
We rely upon third-party providers of cloud-based infrastructure to host our cloud-based products. Any disruption in the operations of these third-party providers, limitations on capacity, or interference with our use could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our continued growth depends in part on the ability of our existing and potential customers to continue to adopt and utilize our cloud-based products in conjunction with our platform. We outsource substantially all of the infrastructure relating to our cloud-based products to third-party hosting services. Customers of our cloud-based products expect to be able to access these products at any time, without material interruption or degradation of performance. Our cloud-based products depend on protecting the virtual cloud infrastructure hosted by third-party hosting services by maintaining its configuration, architecture, features, and interconnection specifications, as well as the information stored in these virtual data centers, which is transmitted by third-party internet service providers. Any disruption as a result of cyber-attacks or similar issues, or any limitation on the capacity of our third-party hosting services, could impede our ability to onboard new customers or expand the usage of our existing customers or otherwise adversely affect our business, which could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. Due to the fact that we rely on third-party providers of cloud-based infrastructure to host our cloud-based products, it may become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve their performance, especially during peak usage times and as our cloud capabilities become more complex and our user traffic increases, because we do not control the infrastructure supporting these services. In addition, any incident affecting our third-party hosting services’ infrastructure that may be caused by cyber-attacks, natural disasters, fire, flood, severe storm, earthquake, power loss, telecommunications failures, outbreaks of contagious diseases, terrorist or other attacks, and other similar events beyond our control could negatively affect our cloud-based products. If our cloud-based products are unavailable or if our users are unable to access our cloud-based products within a reasonable amount of time or at all, we may experience a loss of customers, lost or delayed market acceptance of our platform and products, delays in payment to us by customers, injury to our reputation and brand, legal claims against us, and the diversion of our resources. We may also incur significant costs for using alternative equipment or taking other actions in preparation for, or in reaction to, events that damage the third-party hosting services we use.
In the event that our service agreements with our third-party hosting services are terminated, or there is a lapse of service, elimination of services or features that we utilize, interruption of internet service provider connectivity or damage to such facilities, we could experience interruptions in access to our cloud-based products as well as significant delays and additional expense in arranging or creating new facilities and services and/or re-architecting our cloud-based products for deployment on a different cloud infrastructure service provider, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We expect fluctuations in our financial results, making it difficult to project future results, and if we fail to meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors with respect to our results of operations, our stock price and the value of your investment could decline.
Our results of operations have fluctuated in the past and are expected to fluctuate in the future due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. As a result, our past results may not be indicative of our future performance. In addition to the other risks described herein, factors that may affect our results of operations include the following:
•fluctuations in demand for or pricing of our platform and products;
•fluctuations in usage of our platform and products;
•fluctuations in our mix of revenue from licenses and service arrangements;
•our ability to attract new customers;
•our ability to retain our existing customers;
•customer expansion rates and the pricing and quantity of licenses renewed;
•timing and amount of our investments to expand the capacity of our third-party cloud infrastructure providers;
•seasonality;
•the investment in new products and features relative to investments in our existing infrastructure and products;
•the timing of our customer purchases;
•fluctuations or delays in purchasing decisions in anticipation of new products or enhancements by us or our competitors;
•changes in customers’ budgets and in the timing of their budget cycles and purchasing decisions;
•our ability to control costs, including our operating expenses;
•the amount and timing of payment for operating expenses, particularly sales and marketing and research and development expenses, including commissions;
•the amount and timing of non-cash expenses, including stock-based compensation, goodwill impairments, and other non-cash charges;
•the amount and timing of costs associated with recruiting, training, and integrating new employees and retaining and motivating existing employees;
•the effects of acquisitions and their integration;
•general economic conditions, both domestically and internationally, as well as economic conditions specifically affecting industries in which our customers participate;
•the impact of new accounting pronouncements;
•changes in regulatory or legal environments that may cause us to incur, among other elements, expenses associated with compliance;
•changes in the competitive dynamics of our market, including consolidation among competitors or customers; and
•significant security breaches of, technical difficulties with, or interruptions to, the delivery and use of our products and platform capabilities.
Any of these and other factors, or the cumulative effect of some of these factors, may cause our results of operations to vary significantly. If our quarterly results of operations fall below the expectations of investors and securities analysts who follow our stock, the price of our Class A common stock could decline substantially, and we could face lawsuits that are costly and may divert management’s attention, including securities class action suits.
Seasonality may cause fluctuations in our sales and results of operations.
Historically, we have experienced seasonality in new and renewal customer bookings, as typically we enter into a higher percentage of license agreements with new customers and renewals with existing customers in the fourth quarter of our fiscal year. We believe that this seasonality results from the procurement, budgeting, and deployment cycles of many of our customers, particularly our enterprise customers. While we believe that this seasonality has affected and will continue to affect our quarterly results, our rapid growth has largely masked seasonal trends to date. We expect that this seasonality will become more pronounced as we continue to target larger enterprise customers and as our rapid growth begins to slow. Seasonal fluctuations in our sales means that our revenue may not be consistent from period to period. Accordingly, you should not expect our quarterly results to be predictive of any future period.
Our key operating metric, ARR, and certain other operational data in this report are subject to assumptions and limitations and may not provide an accurate indication of our future or expected results.
ARR is based on numerous assumptions and limitations, is calculated using our internal data that have not been independently verified by third parties, and may not provide an accurate indication of our future or expected results. We define ARR as annualized invoiced amounts per solution SKU from subscription licenses and maintenance obligations assuming no increases or reductions in their subscriptions. ARR does not include the costs we may incur to obtain such subscription licenses or provide such maintenance, and does not include invoiced amounts reported as perpetual licenses or professional services revenue in our condensed consolidated statements of operations. ARR is not a forecast of revenue and does not reflect any actual or anticipated reductions in invoiced value due to contract non-renewals or service cancellations other than for specific bad debt or disputed amounts. As a result, ARR and our other operational data may not reflect our actual performance, and investors should consider these metrics in light of the assumptions used in calculating such metrics and limitations as a result thereof. In addition, investors should not place undue reliance on these metrics as an indicator of our future or expected results. Moreover, these metrics may differ from similarly titled metrics presented by other companies and may not be comparable to such other metrics. See the sections titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial
If the estimates and assumptions we have used to calculate the size of our addressable market opportunity are inaccurate, our future growth rate may be limited.
We have estimated the size of our addressable market opportunity based on data published by third parties and on internally generated data and assumptions. While we believe our market size information is generally reliable, such information is inherently imprecise, and relies on our and third parties’ projections, assumptions, and estimates within our target market, which are necessarily subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to a variety of factors, including those described in this report. If such third-party or internally generated data prove to be inaccurate or we make errors in our projections, assumptions, or estimates based on that data, including how current customer data and trends may apply to potential future customers and the number and type of potential customers, our addressable target market opportunity and/or our future growth rate may be less than we currently estimate. In addition, these inaccuracies or errors may cause us to misallocate capital and other business resources, which could divert resources from more valuable alternative projects and harm our business.
The variables that go into the calculation of our market opportunity are subject to change over time, and there is no guarantee that any particular number or percentage of addressable users or companies covered by our addressable target market opportunity estimates will purchase our products at all or generate any particular level of revenue for us. Any expansion in our market depends on a number of factors, including the cost, performance, and perceived value associated with our platform and products and those of our competitors. Even if our target market meets our size estimates, our business could fail to grow at similar rates, if at all. Our growth is subject to many factors, including our success in expanding our international operations, continuing to expand the use of our products by our customers and otherwise implementing our business strategy, which are subject to many risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, the information regarding the size of our addressable market opportunity included in this report should not be taken as indicative of our future growth.
We may require additional capital to support the growth of our business, and this capital might not be available on acceptable terms, if at all.
We have funded our operations since inception primarily through customer payments and net proceeds from sales of equity securities. We cannot be certain when or if our operations will generate sufficient cash to fully fund our ongoing operations, our planned investments or the growth of our business. We also intend to continue to invest heavily to grow our business to take advantage of our market opportunity rather than optimize for profitability or cash flow in the near term. For example, in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 and in the current fiscal year, we have continued our focus on demonstrating the operational leverage in our business model, while prioritizing investments to allow us to continue to achieve best-in-class growth and business scale and to capitalize on our significant market opportunity. Our planned investments to drive growth may require us to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds. Additional financing may not be available on terms favorable to us, if at all. If adequate funds are not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to invest in future growth opportunities, which could harm our business, operating results, and financial condition. If we incur debt, the debt holders would have rights senior to holders of Class A common stock to make claims on our assets, and the terms of any future debt could restrict our operations, including our ability to pay dividends on our Class A common stock. Furthermore, if we issue additional equity securities, stockholders will experience dilution, and the new equity securities could have rights senior to those of our Class A common stock. Because our decision to issue securities in the future will depend on numerous considerations, including factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing, or nature of any future issuances of debt or equity securities. As a result, our stockholders bear the risk of future issuances of debt or equity securities reducing the value of our Class A common stock and diluting their interests.
If we fail to maintain and enhance our brand, our ability to expand our customer base will be impaired and our business, financial condition, and results of operations may suffer.
We believe that maintaining and enhancing the UiPath brand is important to support the marketing and sale of our existing and future products to new customers and expand sales of our platform and products to existing customers. We also believe that the importance of brand recognition will increase as competition in our market increases. Successfully maintaining and enhancing our brand will depend largely on the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, our ability to provide reliable products that continue to meet the needs of our customers at competitive prices, our ability to maintain our customers’ trust, our ability to show that our products improve
efficiency for our customers while improving engagement and satisfaction of their employees, our ability to continue to develop new functionality and use cases, our ability to successfully differentiate our products and platform capabilities from competitive products and our ability to adequately obtain and protect our trademarks and trade names. Our brand promotion activities may not generate customer awareness or yield increased revenue, and even if they do, any increased revenue may not offset the expenses we incur in building our brand.
Our ability to maintain and enhance our brand may also be subject to factors that are outside of our control. For instance, media stories regarding the potential effects on employment of automation and technologies that replace traditional, human-driven systems are commonplace. Unfavorable publicity regarding the impact automation may have on unemployment could harm our brand and reputation, even if unrelated to our products. Such negative publicity could also reduce the potential demand and size of the market for our products and decrease our revenue.
We may not be able to protect all of our registered or unregistered trademarks or trade names relevant to our brand and our rights may be challenged, infringed, circumvented, declared generic, lapsed, or determined to be infringing on or dilutive of other marks. If we are unable to protect our rights in these trademarks and trade names, third parties may file for registration of trademarks similar or identical to our trademarks, thereby impeding our ability to build brand identity and possibly leading to market confusion. If we fail to successfully promote and maintain our brand, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may suffer.
If we cannot maintain our company culture as we grow, our success and our business and competitive position may be harmed.
We believe our culture has been a key contributor to our success to date and that the critical nature of the technology that we develop promotes a sense of greater purpose and fulfillment in our employees. We have developed a culture in which our employees adhere to our core tenets of being humble, bold, immersed, and fast. As we continue to hire more employees to keep pace with our growth, it may become more difficult for us to find employees that exhibit these virtues or to instill them in our new employees. Any failure to preserve our culture could negatively affect our ability to retain and recruit personnel, which is critical to our growth, and to effectively focus on and pursue our corporate objectives. As we grow and develop the infrastructure of a public company, we may find it difficult to maintain these important aspects of our culture. If we fail to maintain our company culture, our business and competitive position may be harmed.
Indemnity provisions in various agreements to which we are party potentially expose us to substantial liability for infringement, misappropriation, or other violation of intellectual property rights, data protection, and other losses.
Our agreements with our customers and other third parties may include indemnification provisions under which we agree to indemnify or otherwise be liable to them for losses suffered or incurred as a result of claims of infringement, misappropriation, or other violation of intellectual property rights, data protection, damages caused by us to property or persons, or other liabilities relating to or arising from our software, services, or platform, our acts or omissions under such agreements, or other contractual obligations. Some of these indemnity agreements provide for uncapped liability and some indemnity provisions survive termination or expiration of the applicable agreement. Large indemnity payments could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Although we attempt to contractually limit our liability with respect to such indemnity obligations, we are not always successful and may still incur substantial liability related to them, and we may be required to cease use of certain functions of our platform or products as a result of any such claims. Any dispute with a customer or other third party with respect to such obligations could have adverse effects on our relationship with such customer or other third party and other existing or prospective customers, reduce demand for our products and services, and adversely affect our business, financial conditions, and results of operations. In addition, although we carry general liability and cyber security insurance, our insurance may not be adequate to indemnify us for all liability that may be imposed or otherwise protect us from liabilities or damages with respect to claims alleging compromises of customer data, and any such coverage may not continue to be available to us on acceptable terms or at all.
Acquisitions, strategic investments, partnerships, or alliances could be difficult to identify, pose integration challenges, divert the attention of management, disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value, and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We have in the past and may in the future seek to acquire or invest in businesses, joint ventures, products and platform capabilities, or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our services and platform capabilities, enhance our technical capabilities, or otherwise offer growth opportunities. Further, the proceeds from
our IPO increase the likelihood that we will devote resources to exploring larger and more complex acquisitions and investments than we have previously attempted. Any such acquisition or investment may divert the attention of management and cause us to incur various expenses in identifying, investigating, and pursuing suitable opportunities, whether or not the transactions are completed, and may result in unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. In particular, we may encounter difficulties assimilating or integrating the businesses, technologies, products and platform capabilities, personnel or operations of any acquired companies, particularly if the key personnel of an acquired company choose not to work for us, their software is not easily adapted to work with our platform, or we have difficulty retaining the customers of any acquired business due to changes in ownership, management, or otherwise. For instance, we previously acquired certain products to support our platform’s technology through third-party acquisitions, and we may similarly acquire additional technologies in the future to further support the development of our platform. If we cannot adequately integrate these technologies into our platform or if the acquired technologies do not perform as expected, it may harm our product development efforts. Additionally, these transactions may also disrupt our business, divert our resources, and require significant management attention that would otherwise be available for development of our existing business. Any such transactions that we are able to complete may not result in any synergies or other benefits we had expected to achieve, which could result in impairment charges that could be substantial. In addition, we may not be able to find and identify desirable acquisition targets or business opportunities or be successful in entering into an agreement with any particular strategic partner. These transactions could also result in dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of debt, which could adversely affect our results of operations. In addition, if the resulting business from such a transaction fails to meet our expectations, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be adversely affected or we may be exposed to unknown risks or liabilities.
Our business, financial condition, results of operations, or cash flows could be significantly hindered by the occurrence of a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or other catastrophic event.
Our business operations may be susceptible to outages due to fire, floods, unusual weather conditions, power loss, telecommunications failures, terrorist attacks, and other events beyond our control. Natural disasters including tornados, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes may damage the facilities of our customers or those of their suppliers or retailers or their other operations, which could lead to reduced revenue for our customers and thus reduced sales. In addition, a substantial portion of our operations rely on support from our headquarters in New York City and our office in Bucharest, Romania. To the extent that fire, floods, unusual weather conditions, power loss, telecommunications failures, terrorist attacks, and other events beyond our control materially impacts our ability to operate those offices, it may have a material impact on our business operations as a whole.
To the extent that such events disrupt our business or the business of our current or prospective customers, or adversely impact our reputation, such events could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Any future litigation against us could be costly and time-consuming to defend.
We are, and may in the future become, subject to legal proceedings and claims that arise in the ordinary course of business, such as claims brought by our customers in connection with commercial disputes or employment claims made by our current or former employees. Litigation might result in substantial costs and may divert management’s attention and resources, which might seriously harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Insurance might not cover such claims, might not provide sufficient payments to cover all the costs to resolve one or more such claims, and might not continue to be available on terms acceptable to us. A claim brought against us that is uninsured or underinsured could result in unanticipated costs, potentially harming our business, financial position, and results of operations.
Risks Related to Data Privacy and Cybersecurity
We are subject to stringent and changing laws, regulations and standards, information security policies, and contractual obligations related to data privacy and security.
We collect, receive, access, generate, store, disclose, share, make accessible, protect, secure, and dispose of, use, and otherwise process (collectively “Process” or “Processing”) business and personal information about individuals, customers and others and other sensitive and confidential information necessary to operate our business, for legal and marketing purposes, and for other business-related purposes. As a result, we may be subject to numerous federal, state, local, and international foreign laws orders, codes, regulations and regulatory guidance regarding privacy, data protection, information security, and the Processing and protection of personal
information and other content, or Data Protection Laws. We are also subject to the terms of our internal and external privacy and security policies codes, representations, certifications, industry standards, publications, and frameworks, or Privacy Policies, and obligations to third parties related to privacy, data protection, and information security (collectively, “Data Protection Obligations”).
Data privacy has become a significant issue in the United States, countries in Europe, including the European Union, or EU, and the United Kingdom, and in many other countries in which we operate and where we offer our platform for sale. The regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide is rapidly evolving and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Many government bodies and agencies have adopted or are considering adopting laws and regulations regarding the collection, use, storage, and disclosure of personal information and breach notification procedures. We are also required to comply with laws, rules, and regulations relating to data security. Interpretation of these Data Protection Laws and their application to our platform in applicable jurisdictions is ongoing and cannot be fully determined at this time.
In the United States, these include rules and regulations promulgated under the authority of the Federal Trade Commission, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, and other U.S. state and federal laws relating to privacy and data security. The CCPA requires covered businesses to provide new disclosures to California residents and to provide them new ways to opt-out of the sale of personal information, and provides a private right of action and statutory damages for data breaches. Although there are limited exemptions under the CCPA (for example, business-to-business communications), the CCPA could impact our business depending on how the CCPA will be interpreted and exemplifies the vulnerability of our business to the evolving regulatory environment related to personal information. The CCPA may increase our compliance costs and potential liability. In addition, California voters recently approved the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, or CPRA, which goes into effect on January 1, 2023. The CPRA expands the CCPA with additional data privacy compliance requirements that may impact our business, and establishes a regulatory agency dedicated to enforcing those requirements. It is expected that the CPRA would, among other things, give California residents the ability to limit the use of their sensitive information, provide for penalties for CPRA violations concerning California residents under the age of 16, and establish a new California Privacy Protection Agency to implement and enforce the law. Other jurisdictions in the United States are beginning to propose and enact laws that are similar to the CCPA, with potentially greater penalties, and more rigorous compliance requirements relevant to our business. For example, Virginia and Colorado have similarly enacted comprehensive privacy laws, the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act and Colorado Privacy Act, respectively, which emulate the CCPA and CPRA in many respects. The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act takes effect on January 1, 2023, and the Colorado Privacy Act takes effect on July 1, 2023. Compliance with any newly enacted privacy and data security laws or regulations may be challenging and cost- and time-intensive, and may require us to modify our data processing practices and policies and to incur substantial costs and potential liability in an effort to comply with such legislation, all of which could increase our potential liability and adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
As a result of our international operations, we must comply with a multitude of data security and privacy laws that may vary significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Virtually every jurisdiction in which we operate has established or is in the process of establishing data security and privacy legal frameworks with which we or our customers must comply. Our failure to comply with the laws of each jurisdiction may subject us to significant penalties. For example, the data protection landscape in Europe is currently unstable, resulting in possible significant operational costs for internal compliance and risk to our business. The European Economic Area, or EEA, and Switzerland adopted the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which went into effect in May 2018. Also, notwithstanding the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU, known as Brexit, the data protection obligations of the GDPR continue to apply to United Kingdom-related processing of personal data in substantially unvaried form under the so-called “UK GDPR” (i.e., the GDPR as it continues to form part of law in the United Kingdom by virtue of section 3 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, as amended (including by the various Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations)). Accordingly, references in this section to the GDPR are also deemed to be references to the UK GDPR in the context of the United Kingdom, unless the context requires otherwise.
The GDPR has “extra-territorial” reach in that it applies to any controller or processor of personal data that processes personal data in the context of an establishment in the EEA or United Kingdom (as applicable), or to a controller or processor with no establishment in the EEA or United Kingdom (as applicable) where their processing concerns the offering of goods or services to individuals in the EEA or United Kingdom (as applicable) and/or the monitoring of their behavior.
The GDPR has increased, and will continue to increase, our compliance burdens, including by introducing: increased accountability and record-keeping obligations; increased transparency obligations for data controllers; obligations to comply with data subjects’ exercise of an increased set of rights in certain circumstances (such as rights for individuals to be “forgotten,” rights to data portability, rights to object, etc., together with express rights to seek legal remedies in the event the individual believes his or her rights have been violated); a heightened and more-codified standard of data subject consent; and the obligation to notify certain significant personal data breaches to the relevant supervisory authority(ies) and affected individuals. Fines of up to 20 million euros or up to 4% of the annual global revenue (and/or in respect of the UK GDPR, fines of up to 17.5 million pounds or up to 4% of the annual global revenue) of the noncompliant company, whichever is greater, could be imposed for violations of certain of the GDPR’s requirements. The transposition of the GDPR into United Kingdom domestic law by way of the UK GDPR exposes us to two parallel regimes, each of which authorizes potential fines and other potentially divergent enforcement actions. Such penalties are in addition to any civil litigation claims by customers and data subjects. The GDPR requirements apply not only to third-party transactions, but also to transfers of information between us and our subsidiaries, including employee information.
The GDPR also provides that EEA member states may make their own national laws and regulations to introduce specific requirements, including in respect of the processing of “special categories of personal data,” including personal data related to health, as well as personal data related to criminal offenses or convictions. In the United Kingdom, the Data Protection Act 2018 complements the UK GDPR in this regard. This may lead to greater divergence in the application, interpretation and enforcement of the law that applies to the processing of personal data across the EEA and/or United Kingdom, compliance with which, as and where applicable, may increase our costs and could increase our overall compliance risk. Such country-specific regulations could also limit our ability to collect, use and share data in the context of our EEA and/or UK operations, and/or could cause our compliance costs to increase, ultimately having an adverse impact on our business and harming our business and financial condition.
On June 4, 2021, the European Commission published new versions of the Standard Contractual Clauses. These must be used for all new transfers of personal data from the EEA to third countries starting September 27, 2021, and all existing transfers of personal data from the EEA to third countries relying on the existing versions of the Standard Contractual Clauses must be replaced by December 27, 2022. The implementation of the new Standard Contractual Clauses will necessitate significant contractual overhaul of our data transfer arrangements with customers, sub-processors and vendors.
Use of both the existing and the new Standard Contractual Clauses must, following the Schrems II decision, now be assessed on a case-by-case basis taking into account the legal regime applicable in the destination country, in particular applicable surveillance laws and rights of individuals, and additional supplementary technical, organizational and/or contractual measures may need to be put in place.
European data protection laws including the GDPR also prohibit the transfer of personal data from Europe, including the EEA, United Kingdom, and Switzerland, to the United States and other countries, known as “third countries,” in respect of which the European Commission or other relevant regulatory body has not issued a so-called “adequacy decision,” unless the parties to the transfer have implemented specific safeguards to protect the transferred personal data. One of the primary safeguards used for transfers of personal data from the EU to the United States, namely, the Privacy Shield framework administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce, was invalidated in July 2020 by a decision, known as ‘Schrems II’, of the EU’s highest court. The Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner also subsequently opined that the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield is inadequate for transfers of data from Switzerland to the United States and the use of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield was also invalidated as a mechanism for lawful personal data transfers from the United Kingdom to the United States under the UK GDPR. The Schrems II decision also casts doubt on our ability to use one of the primary alternatives to the Privacy Shield, namely, the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, to lawfully transfer personal data from Europe to the United States and most other countries.
On June 4, 2021, the European Commission published new versions of the Standard Contractual Clauses. These must be used for all new transfers of personal data from the EEA to third countries starting September 27, 2021, and all existing transfers of personal data from the EEA to third countries relying on the existing versions of the Standard Contractual Clauses must be replaced by December 27, 2022. The implementation of the new Standard Contractual Clauses will necessitate significant contractual overhaul of our data transfer arrangements with customers, sub-processors and vendors.
Use of both the existing and the new Standard Contractual Clauses must, following the Schrems II decision, now be assessed on a case-by-case basis taking into account the legal regime applicable in the destination country, in particular applicable surveillance laws and rights of individuals, and additional supplementary technical, organizational and/or contractual measures may need to be put in place.
At present, there are few if any viable alternatives to the Standard Contractual Clauses, and there remains some uncertainty with respect to the nature and efficacy of such supplementary measures in ensuring an adequate level of protection of personal data. As such, our transferring of personal data from Europe to the United States and other third countries may not comply with European data protection law; may increase our exposure to the GDPR’s heightened sanctions for violations of its cross-border data transfer restrictions; and may reduce demand for our services from companies subject to European data protection laws. Loss of our ability to transfer personal data from Europe to the United States and other third countries may also require us to increase our data processing capabilities in those jurisdictions at significant expense. Inability to import personal information from Europe to the United States and other third countries may decrease demand for our products and services as our customers that are subject to the GDPR may seek alternatives that do not involve personal information transfers out of Europe. Additionally, other countries outside of Europe have enacted or are considering enacting similar cross-border data transfer restrictions and laws requiring local data residency, which could increase the cost and complexity of delivering our services and operating our business.
Furthermore, following Brexit, the relationship between the United Kingdom and the EEA in relation to certain aspects of data protection law remains somewhat uncertain. On June 28, 2021, the European Commission issued an adequacy decision under the GDPR which allows transfers (other than those carried out for the purposes of United Kingdom immigration control) of personal data from the EEA to the United Kingdom to continue without restriction for a period of four years ending June 27, 2025. After that period, the adequacy decision may be renewed, however, only if the United Kingdom continues to ensure an adequate level of data protection. During these four years, the European Commission will continue to monitor the legal situation in the United Kingdom and could intervene at any point if the United Kingdom deviates from the level of data protection in place at the time of issuance of the adequacy decision. If the adequacy decision is withdrawn or not renewed, transfers of personal data from the EEA to the United Kingdom will require a valid ‘transfer mechanism’ and we may be required to implement new processes and put new agreements in place, such as SCCs, to enable transfers of personal data from the EEA to the United Kingdom to continue.
In addition, while the UK data protection regime currently permits data transfers from the United Kingdom to the EEA and other third countries covered by a European Commission adequacy decision, and currently includes a framework to permit the continued use of the existing version of the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and binding corporate rules for personal data transfers from the United Kingdom to third countries, this is subject to change in the future, and any such changes could have implications for our transfers of personal data from the United Kingdom to the EEA and other third countries. In particular, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office has recently published a draft version of its own bespoke Standard Contractual Clauses and it is not clear whether the new Standard Contractual Clauses published by the European Commission will be accepted as a valid mechanism to permit the transfer of personal data from the United Kingdom to third countries and/or whether any UK version of Standard Contractual Clauses will supersede the existing and/or new EU Standard Contractual Clauses. This could necessitate the implementation of both UK and EU versions of Standard Contractual Clauses, which would require significant resources and necessitate significant cost, to implement and manage.
Additionally, countries outside of Europe, including without limitation Brazil that recently enacted the General Data Protection Law, or LGPD, are implementing significant limitations on the processing of personal information similar to those in the GDPR.
Complying with Data Protection Laws and Data Protection Obligations may cause us to incur substantial operational costs or require us to change our business practices. Despite our efforts to bring practices into compliance with these Data Protection Laws and Data Protection Obligations, we may not be successful in our efforts to achieve compliance either due to internal or external factors such as resource allocation limitations or a lack of vendor cooperation. Noncompliance could result in proceedings against us by governmental and regulatory entities, customers, data subjects or others. We may also experience difficulty retaining or obtaining new European or multi-national customers due to the legal requirements, compliance cost, potential risk exposure and uncertainty for these entities, and we may experience significantly increased liability with respect to these customers pursuant to the terms set forth in our engagements with them. In addition to government regulation, privacy advocates and industry groups may propose new and different self-regulatory standards that may apply to us. Because the
interpretation and application of Data Protection Laws and Data Protection Obligations are uncertain, it is possible that these Data Protection Laws and Data Protection Obligations may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our existing data management practices or the features of our platform or in a manner inconsistent across the various jurisdictions in which we operate. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, lawsuits, and other claims, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our platform, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Any inability to adequately address privacy concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable Data Protection Laws and Data Protection Obligations could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales, and adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Additionally, we publish Privacy Policies and other documentation regarding our Processing of personal information. Although we endeavor to comply with our Privacy Policies and other Data Protection Obligations, we may at times fail to do so or may be perceived to have failed to do so. Moreover, despite our efforts, we may not be successful in achieving compliance if our employees, contractors, service providers, or vendors fail to comply with our published policies and documentation. Such failures can subject us to potential foreign, federal, state, and local action if they are found to be deceptive, unfair, or misrepresentative of our actual practices. Claims that we have violated individuals’ privacy rights or failed to comply with Privacy Policies and other Data Protection Obligations, even if we are not found liable, could be expensive and time-consuming to defend and could result in adverse publicity that could harm our business.
If the security of the personal information that we (or our vendors) collect, store, or process is compromised or is otherwise accessed without authorization, or if we fail to comply with our commitments and assurances regarding the privacy and security of such information, our reputation may be harmed and we may be exposed to liability and loss of business.
We Process data about individuals and customers, including personally identifiable information, as well as other confidential or proprietary information. We may use third-party service providers and sub-processors to help us deliver services to our customers. These vendors may store or process personal information on our behalf.
Cyberattacks and other malicious internet-based activity continue to increase. In addition to traditional computer “hackers,” malicious code (such as viruses and worms), employee theft or misuse, and denial-of-service attacks, sophisticated nation-state and nation-state supported actors now engage in attacks (including advanced persistent threat intrusions). We cannot guarantee that our or our vendors’ security measures will be sufficient to protect against unauthorized access to or other compromise of personal information and our confidential or proprietary information. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our employees are temporarily working remotely, which may pose additional data security risks. While we and our third-party service providers have implemented security measures, technical controls, contractual precautions, and other significant measures designed to identify, detect, and guard against the type of activity that can lead to data breaches or other unauthorized Processing of our data, the techniques used to sabotage or to obtain unauthorized access to our or our vendors’ platforms, systems, networks and/or physical facilities in which data is stored or through which data is transmitted change frequently, and we or our vendors may be unable to implement adequate preventative measures or stop security breaches while they are occurring. The recovery systems, security protocols, network protection mechanisms, and other security measures that we have integrated into our platform, systems, networks, and physical facilities and any such measures implemented by our vendors, which are designed to protect against, detect, and minimize security breaches, may not be adequate to prevent or detect service interruption, system failure, or data loss. Our platform, systems, networks, and physical facilities, and those of our vendors, in the past have been, and in the future could be, breached and personal information has been and could be otherwise compromised. Third parties could attempt to fraudulently induce our employees or our customers to disclose information or usernames and/or passwords, or otherwise compromise the security of our platform, networks, systems, and/or physical facilities. Third parties have exploited in the past, and could exploit in the future, vulnerabilities in, or could obtain unauthorized access to, platforms, systems, networks, and/or physical facilities utilized by our vendors.
We are required to comply with laws, rules, regulations and other obligations that require us to maintain the security of personal information. We may have contractual and other legal obligations to notify relevant stakeholders of security breaches. We operate in an industry that is prone to cyber-attacks. We have previously and may in the future become the target of cyber-attacks by third parties seeking unauthorized access to such data, including our or our customers’ data or to disrupt our ability to provide our services. Failure to prevent or mitigate cyber-attacks could result in the unauthorized access to personal information. Most jurisdictions have enacted laws requiring companies to notify individuals, regulatory authorities, and others of security breaches involving certain types of
data. In addition, our agreements with certain customers and partners may require us to notify them in the event of a security breach. Such mandatory disclosures are costly, could lead to negative publicity, may cause our customers to lose confidence in the effectiveness of our security measures and require us to expend significant capital and other resources to respond to and/or alleviate problems caused by the actual or perceived security breach. A security breach of any of our vendors that processes personal information of our customers may pose similar risks. The costs to respond to a security breach and/or to mitigate any security vulnerabilities that may be identified could be significant, our efforts to address these issues may not be successful, and these issues could result in interruptions, delays, cessation of service, negative publicity, loss of customer trust, diminished use of our products and services as well as other harms to our business and our competitive position. Remediation of any potential security breach may involve significant time, resources, and expenses. Any security breach may result in regulatory inquiries, litigation or other investigations, and can affect our financial and operational condition.
A security breach may cause us to breach customer contracts. Our agreements with certain customers may require us to use industry-standard or reasonable measures to safeguard personal information. We also may be subject to laws that require us to use industry-standard or reasonable security measures to safeguard personal information. A security breach could lead to claims by our customers or other relevant stakeholders that we have failed to comply with such legal or contractual obligations. As a result, we could be subject to legal action or our customers could end their relationships with us. There can be no assurance that the limitations of liability in our contracts would be enforceable or adequate or would otherwise protect us from liabilities or damages, and in some cases our customer agreements do not limit our remediation costs or liability with respect to data breaches.
Litigation resulting from security breaches may adversely affect our business. Unauthorized access to our platform, systems, networks, or physical facilities, or those of our vendors, could result in litigation with our customers or other relevant stakeholders. These proceedings could force us to spend money in defense or settlement, divert management’s time and attention, increase our costs of doing business, or adversely affect our reputation. We could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our products and/or platform capabilities in response to such litigation, which could have an adverse effect on our business. If a security breach were to occur, and the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of personal information was disrupted, we could incur significant liability, or our platform, systems, or networks may be perceived as less desirable, which could negatively affect our business and damage our reputation.
We may not have adequate insurance coverage for security incidents or breaches. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceeds our available insurance coverage, or results in changes to our insurance policies (including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements), could have an adverse effect on our business. In addition, we cannot be sure that our existing insurance coverage and coverage for errors and omissions will continue to be available on acceptable terms or that our insurers will not deny coverage as to any future claim.
Risks Related to Regulatory Compliance and Governmental Matters
We are subject to anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, and similar laws and noncompliance with such laws can subject us to criminal or civil liability and harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, U.S. domestic bribery laws, the United Kingdom Bribery Act, and other anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws in the countries in which we conduct activities. Due to the international scope of our operations, we must comply with these laws in each jurisdiction where we operate. Additionally, many anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws, including the FCPA, have long-arm statutes that can expand the applicability of these laws to our operations worldwide. Accordingly, we must incur significant operational costs to support our ongoing compliance with anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws at all levels of our business. If we fail to comply with these laws we may be subject to significant penalties. Anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws have been enforced aggressively in recent years and are interpreted broadly to generally prohibit companies, their employees and their third-party intermediaries from authorizing, offering, or providing, directly or indirectly, improper payments or benefits to recipients in the public or private sector. As we increase our international sales and business and sales to the public sector, we may engage with business partners and third-party intermediaries to market our products and to obtain necessary permits, licenses, and other regulatory approvals. In addition, we or our third-party intermediaries may have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or state-owned or affiliated entities. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of these third-party intermediaries, our employees, representatives, contractors, partners, and agents, even if we do not explicitly authorize such activities.
While we have policies and procedures to address compliance with such laws, we cannot assure you that all of our employees and agents will not take actions in violation of our policies and applicable law, for which we may be ultimately held responsible. As we increase our international sales and business, our risks under these laws may increase.
Detecting, investigating, and resolving actual or alleged violations of anti-corruption laws can require a significant diversion of time, resources, and attention from senior management. In addition, noncompliance with anti-corruption, anti-bribery, or anti-money laundering laws could subject us to whistleblower complaints, investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, enforcement actions, fines, damages, other civil or criminal penalties or injunctions, suspension or debarment from contracting with certain persons, reputational harm, adverse media coverage, and other collateral consequences. If any subpoenas or investigations are launched, or governmental or other sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal proceeding, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be harmed. In addition, responding to any action will likely result in a materially significant diversion of management’s attention and resources and significant defense costs and other professional fees.
Sales to government entities and highly regulated organizations are subject to a number of challenges and risks.
We currently sell, and anticipate continuing to sell, to U.S. federal, state, and local, as well as foreign, governmental agency customers, as well as to customers in highly regulated industries such as financial services and healthcare. Sales to such customers are subject to a number of challenges and risks. Selling to such customers can be highly competitive, expensive, and time-consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that these efforts will generate a sale. These current and prospective customers may also be required to comply with stringent regulations in connection with purchasing and implementing our platform and products or particular regulations regarding third-party vendors that may be interpreted differently by different customers. In addition, regulatory agencies may impose requirements on third-party vendors generally, or our company in particular, that we may not be able to, or may not choose to, meet. In addition, government customers and customers in these highly regulated industries often have a right to conduct audits of our systems, products, and practices. In the event that one or more customers determine that some aspect of our business does not meet regulatory requirements, we may be limited in our ability to continue or expand our business. In addition, if our platform and products do not meet the standards of new or existing regulations, we may be in breach of our contracts with these customers, allowing them to terminate their agreements.
Government contracting requirements may also change and in doing so restrict our ability to sell into the government sector until we have attained the requisite approvals. Government demand and payment for our products are affected by public sector budgetary cycles and funding authorizations, with funding reductions or delays adversely affecting public sector demand for our products.
These customers may also be subject to a rapidly evolving regulatory framework that may implicate their ability to use our platform and products. Moreover, changes in the underlying statutory and regulatory conditions that affect these types of customers could harm our ability to efficiently provide them access to our platform and to grow or maintain our customer base. If we are unable to enhance our platform and products to keep pace with evolving customer requirements, or if new technologies emerge that are able to deliver competitive products at lower prices, more efficiently, more conveniently, or more securely than our platform, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected.
Further, governmental and highly regulated entities may demand contract terms that differ from our standard arrangements and are less favorable than terms agreed with private sector customers, including preferential pricing or “most favored nation” terms and conditions or are contract provisions that are otherwise time-consuming and expensive to satisfy. In the United States, applicable federal contracting regulations change frequently, and the President may issue executive orders requiring federal contractors to adhere to new compliance requirements after a contract is signed. If we undertake to meet special standards or requirements and do not meet them, we could be subject to significant liability from our customers or regulators. Even if we do meet these special standards or requirements, the additional costs associated with providing our platform to government and highly regulated customers could harm our operating results. In addition, engaging in sales activities to foreign governments introduces additional compliance risks specific to the FCPA, the United Kingdom Bribery Act, and other similar statutory requirements prohibiting bribery and corruption in the jurisdictions in which we operate.
Such entities may have statutory, contractual, or other legal rights to terminate contracts with us or our partners for convenience or for other reasons. Any such termination may adversely affect our ability to contract with other government customers as well as our reputation, business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could impair our ability to compete in international markets or subject us to liability if we violate the controls.
Our business activities are subject to various export, import, and trade and economic sanction laws and regulations, including, among others, the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, and economic and trade sanctions regulations maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which we refer to collectively as Trade Controls. Trade Controls may prohibit or restrict the sale or supply of certain products, including encryption items and other technology, and services to certain governments, persons, entities, countries, and territories, including those that are the target of comprehensive sanctions.
While we have implemented controls designed to promote and achieve compliance with applicable Trade Controls, our platform and products may have in the past, and could in the future, violate, or be provided in violation of, such laws, despite the precautions we take. Any failure to comply with applicable Trade Controls may materially affect us through reputational harm, as well as other negative consequences, including government investigations and penalties. Accordingly, we must incur significant operational costs to support our ongoing compliance with Trade Controls at all levels of our business.
Also, various countries, in addition to the United States, have enacted Trade Controls that could limit our ability to distribute our platform and products or could limit our customers’ ability to implement our platform and products in those countries. Changes in our platform or products or future changes in Trade Controls may create delays in the introduction of our platform and products in international markets or, in some cases, prevent the export or import of our platform and products to certain countries, governments, or persons altogether. Any change in Trade Controls could result in decreased use of our platform and products by, or in our decreased ability to export or sell our platform and products to, existing or potential customers. Any decreased use of our platform or products or limitation on our ability to export or sell our platform and products would adversely affect our business, results of operations, and growth prospects.
Risks Related to our Intellectual Property
Any failure to obtain, maintain, protect, or enforce our intellectual property and proprietary rights could impair our ability to protect our proprietary technology and our brand.
Our success depends to a significant degree on our ability to obtain, maintain, protect, and enforce our intellectual property rights, including our proprietary technology, know-how, and our brand. We rely on a combination of trademarks, trade secret laws, patents, copyrights, service marks, contractual restrictions, and other intellectual property laws and confidentiality procedures to establish and protect our proprietary rights. However, the steps we take to obtain, maintain, protect, and enforce our intellectual property rights may be inadequate. We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights if, for example, we are unable to enforce our rights against infringement or misappropriation, or if we do not detect unauthorized use of our intellectual property rights. If we fail to protect our intellectual property rights adequately, our competitors may gain access to our proprietary technology and develop and commercialize substantially identical products, services, or technologies and our business, financial condition, results of operations, or prospects may be harmed.
In addition, defending our intellectual property rights may entail significant expense. Any patent, trademark, or other intellectual property rights that we have or may obtain may be challenged or circumvented by others or invalidated or held unenforceable through administrative processes, including re-examination, inter partes review, interference, and derivation proceedings and equivalent proceedings in foreign jurisdictions (e.g., opposition, invalidation, and cancellation proceedings) or litigation. Moreover, there can be no assurance that our pending patent applications will result in issued patents. Even if we continue to seek patent protection in the future, we may be unable to obtain or maintain patent protection for our technology. In addition, any patents issued from pending or future patent applications or licensed to us in the future may not be sufficiently broad to protect our proprietary technologies, may not provide us with competitive advantages, or may be successfully challenged by third parties. The United States Patent and Trademark Office and various foreign governmental patent and trademark agencies also require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment, and other similar provisions during the patent and trademark application process and after a patent or trademark registration has issued. There
are situations in which noncompliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent, patent application, or trademark filing, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent or trademark rights in the relevant jurisdiction. If this occurs, our competitors might be able to enter the market.
Furthermore, legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability, and scope of protection of intellectual property rights are uncertain. Despite our precautions, it may be possible for unauthorized third parties to copy our brands, products and platform capabilities, and use information that we regard as proprietary to create brands and products that compete with ours. Effective patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret protection may not be available to us or commercially feasible in every country in which our products are available. Further, intellectual property law, including statutory and case law, particularly in the United States, is constantly developing, and any changes in the law could make it harder for us to enforce our rights. The value of our intellectual property could diminish if others assert rights in or ownership of our trademarks, patents, and other intellectual property rights, or adopt trademarks that are similar to our trademarks. We may be unable to successfully resolve these types of conflicts to our satisfaction. In some cases, as noted below, litigation or other actions may be necessary to protect or enforce our trademarks, patents, and other intellectual property rights against infringement or misappropriation. As we expand our international activities, our exposure to unauthorized copying and use of our products and platform capabilities and proprietary information will likely increase. Moreover, policing unauthorized use of our technologies, trade secrets, and intellectual property may be difficult, expensive, and time-consuming, particularly in foreign countries where the laws may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the United States and where mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be weak or inadequate. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may be unable to prevent third parties from infringing upon, misappropriating, or otherwise violating our intellectual property rights. Any of the foregoing could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We may become subject to intellectual property disputes, which are costly and may subject us to significant liability and increased costs of doing business.
We are from time-to-time subject to intellectual property disputes. Our success depends, in part, on our ability to develop and commercialize our products and services without infringing, misappropriating, or otherwise violating the intellectual property rights of third parties. However, we may not be aware that our products or services are infringing, misappropriating, or otherwise violating third-party intellectual property rights and such third parties may bring claims alleging such infringement, misappropriation, or violation. As one example, there may be issued patents of which we are not aware, held by third parties that, if found to be valid and enforceable, could be alleged to be infringed by our current or future technologies or products. There also may be pending patent applications of which we are not aware that may result in issued patents, which could be alleged to be infringed by our current or future technologies or products. Because patent applications can take years to issue and are often afforded confidentiality for some period of time there may currently be pending applications, unknown to us, that later result in issued patents that could cover our current or future technologies or products.
Lawsuits can be time-consuming and expensive to resolve and can divert management’s time and attention. The software industry in which we operate is characterized by the existence of a large number of patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and other intellectual and proprietary rights. Companies in the software industry are often required to defend against litigation claims based on allegations of infringement, misappropriation, or other violations of intellectual property rights. Our technologies may not be able to withstand any third-party claims against their use. In addition, many companies have the capability to dedicate substantially greater resources to enforce their intellectual property rights and to defend claims that may be brought against them, than we can. In a patent infringement claim against us, we may assert, as a defense, that we do not infringe the relevant patent claims, that the patent is invalid, or both. The strength of our defenses may depend on the patents asserted, the interpretation of these patents, or our ability to invalidate the asserted patents. However, we could be unsuccessful in advancing non-infringement and/or invalidity arguments in our defense. In the United States, issued patents enjoy a presumption of validity, and the party challenging the validity of a patent claim must present clear and convincing evidence of invalidity, which is a high burden of proof. Conversely, the patent owner need only prove infringement by a preponderance of the evidence, which is a lower burden of proof. We do not currently have a large number of issued patents, which could prevent us from deterring patent infringement claims through our own patent portfolio, and our competitors and others may now and in the future have significantly larger and more mature patent portfolios than we have. Any litigation may also involve patent holding companies or other adverse patent owners that have no relevant product revenue, and therefore, our patents may provide little or no deterrence as we would not be able to assert them against such entities or individuals.
An adverse result in any infringement or misappropriation proceeding could subject us to significant damages, injunctions, and reputational harm. If a third party is able to obtain an injunction preventing us from accessing such third-party intellectual property rights, or if we cannot license or develop alternative technology for any infringing aspect of our business, we may be forced to limit or stop sales of our relevant products and platform capabilities or cease business activities related to such intellectual property. Although we carry general liability and intellectual property insurance, our insurance may not cover potential claims of this type or may not be adequate to indemnify us for all liability that may be imposed. We cannot predict the outcome of lawsuits and cannot ensure that the results of any such actions will not have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations. Any intellectual property litigation to which we might become a party, or for which we are required to provide indemnification, may require us to do one or more of the following:
•cease selling or using products or services that incorporate the intellectual property rights that we allegedly infringe, misappropriate, or violate;
•make substantial payments for legal fees, settlement payments, or other costs or damages;
•obtain a license, which may not be available on reasonable terms or at all, to sell or use the relevant technology;
•redesign the allegedly infringing products to avoid infringement, misappropriation, or violation, which could be costly, time-consuming, or impossible;
•rebrand our products and services and/or be prevented from selling some of our products or services if third parties successfully oppose or challenge our trademarks or successfully claim that we infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate their trademarks or other intellectual property rights; and
•limit the manner in which we use our brands, or prevent us from using our brands in particular jurisdictions.
Even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor, these claims, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could divert the resources of our management and harm our business and operating results. Moreover, there could be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions, or other interim proceedings or developments and if securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the price of our common stock. The occurrence of infringement and misappropriation claims may grow as the market for our platform and products grows. Accordingly, our exposure to damages resulting from infringement claims could increase and this could further exhaust our financial and management resources. Any of the foregoing could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We may become involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our intellectual property, which could be expensive, time consuming, and unsuccessful.
Third parties, including our competitors, could be infringing, misappropriating, or otherwise violating our intellectual property rights. In order to protect our intellectual property rights, we may be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect our intellectual property rights. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights and to protect our trade secrets. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time-consuming, and distracting to management, and could result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property.
Further, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims, and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property rights and if such defenses, counterclaims, or countersuits are successful, we could lose valuable intellectual property rights. An adverse determination of any litigation proceedings could put our intellectual property at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and could put our related patents, patent applications, and trademark filings at risk of being invalidated, not issuing, or being cancelled. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential or sensitive information could be compromised by disclosure in the event of litigation. In addition, during the course of litigation there could be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions, or other interim proceedings or developments. If securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the price of our common stock. Our inability to protect our proprietary technology against unauthorized copying or use, as well as any costly litigation or diversion of our management’s attention and resources, could delay further sales or the implementation of our products and platform capabilities, impair the functionality of our products and
platform capabilities, delay introductions of new solutions, result in our substituting inferior or more costly technologies into our products, or injure our reputation. Any of the foregoing could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets, our business and competitive position would be harmed.
We rely heavily on trade secrets and confidentiality agreements to protect our unpatented know-how, technology, and other proprietary information, and to maintain our competitive position. However, trade secrets and know-how can be difficult to protect. We seek to protect these trade secrets and other proprietary technology, in part, by entering into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to them, such as our employees, consultants, and other third parties, including suppliers and other partners. However, we cannot guarantee that we have entered into such agreements with each party that has or may have had access to our proprietary information, know-how, and trade secrets. Moreover, no assurance can be given that these agreements will be effective in controlling access to, distribution, use, misuse, misappropriation, reverse engineering, or disclosure of our proprietary information, know-how, and trade secrets. Further, these agreements may not prevent our competitors from independently developing technologies that are substantially equivalent or superior to our products and platform capabilities. These agreements may be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies for any such breach. For example, past employees have sought to misappropriate source code relevant to certain of our products. While we have taken steps to enjoin misappropriation that we are aware of, such steps may not ultimately be successful and we may not be aware of all such misappropriation. Any of the foregoing could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We may be subject to claims that our employees, consultants, or advisors have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of their current or former employers or claims asserting ownership of what we regard as our own intellectual property.
Many of our employees and consultants are currently or were previously employed at other companies in our field, including our competitors or potential competitors. Although we try to ensure that our employees and consultants do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or these individuals have used or disclosed intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of any such individual’s current or former employer. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management.
In addition, while it is our policy to require our employees and contractors who may be involved in the conception or development of intellectual property to execute agreements assigning such intellectual property to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who, in fact, conceives or develops intellectual property that we regard as our own. The assignment of intellectual property rights may not be self-executing, or the assignment agreements may be breached, and we may be forced to bring claims against third parties, or defend claims that they may bring against us, to determine the ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property. Any of the foregoing could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We use open source software in our products, which could negatively affect our ability to sell our services or subject us to litigation or other actions.
We use open source software in our products and we expect to continue to incorporate open source software in our services in the future. Few of the licenses applicable to open source software have been interpreted by courts, and there is a risk that these licenses could be construed in a manner that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our products. Moreover, we cannot ensure that we have not incorporated additional open source software in our products in a manner that is inconsistent with the terms of the applicable license or our current policies and procedures. If we fail to comply with these licenses, we may be subject to certain requirements, including requirements that we offer our products that incorporate the open source software for no cost, that we make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon, incorporating, or using the open source software and that we license such modifications or derivative works under the terms of applicable open source licenses. In addition, although we employ open source software license screening measures, if we were to combine our proprietary software products with open source software in a certain manner we could, under certain open source licenses, be required to release the source code of our proprietary
software products. If an author or other third party that distributes such open source software were to allege that we had not complied with the conditions of one or more of these licenses, we could be required to incur significant legal expenses defending against such allegations and could be subject to significant damages, enjoined from the sale of our products that contained the open source software and required to comply with onerous conditions or restrictions on these products, which could disrupt the distribution and sale of these products.
From time to time, there have been claims challenging the ownership rights in open source software against companies that incorporate it into their products and the licensors of such open source software provide no warranties or indemnities with respect to such claims. As a result, we and our customers could be subject to lawsuits by parties claiming ownership of what we believe to be open source software. Litigation could be costly for us to defend, have a negative effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations, or require us to devote additional research and development resources to change our products. Some open source projects have known vulnerabilities and architectural instabilities and are provided on an “as-is” basis, which, if not properly addressed, could negatively affect the performance of our product. If we inappropriately use or incorporate open source software subject to certain types of open source licenses that challenge the proprietary nature of our products, we may be required to re-engineer such products, discontinue the sale of such products, or take other remedial actions, any of which could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
If we cannot license rights to use technologies on reasonable terms, we may be unable to license rights that are critical to our business.
In the future we may identify additional third-party intellectual property that we may need to license in order to engage in our business, including to develop or commercialize new products or services. However, such licenses may not be available on acceptable terms or at all. The licensing or acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and several more established companies may pursue strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider attractive or necessary. These established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, capital resources, and greater development or commercialization capabilities. In addition, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us. Even if such licenses are available, we may be required to pay the licensor substantial royalties based on sales of our products and services. Such royalties are a component of the cost of our products or services and may affect the margins on our products and services. If we are unable to enter into the necessary licenses on acceptable terms or at all, it could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Risks Related to our International Operations
Our current operations are international in scope, and we plan further geographic expansion, creating a variety of operational challenges.
We currently operate internationally, and a component of our growth strategy involves the further expansion of our operations and customer base internationally. Customers outside the United States generated 58% and 59% of our revenue for the three months ended July 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively, and 59% and 63% of our revenue for the six months ended July 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. Beyond the United States, we have operational presence internationally, including, among others, in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. We are continuing to adapt to and develop strategies to further address international markets, but there is no guarantee that such efforts will have the desired effect. For example, we anticipate that we will need to establish relationships with new partners in order to expand into certain countries, and if we fail to identify, establish, and maintain such relationships, we may be unable to execute on our expansion plans. As of July 31, 2021, the majority of our full-time employees were located outside of the United States. We expect that our international activities will continue to grow for the foreseeable future as we continue to pursue opportunities in existing and new international markets, which will require significant dedication of management attention and financial resources.
Our current and future international business and operations involve a variety of risks, including:
•slower than anticipated availability and adoption of our platform and products by international businesses;
•changes in a specific country’s or region’s political, regulatory, or economic conditions;
•the need to adapt and localize our products for specific countries;
•greater difficulty collecting accounts receivable and longer payment cycles;
•potential changes in trade relations, regulations, or laws;
•unexpected changes in laws, regulatory requirements, or tax laws;
•more stringent regulations relating to privacy and data security and the unauthorized use of, or access to, commercial and personal information, particularly in Europe;
•differing and potentially more onerous labor regulations, especially in Europe, where labor laws are generally more advantageous to employees as compared to the United States, including deemed hourly wage and overtime regulations in these locations;
•challenges inherent in efficiently managing, and the increased costs associated with, an increased number of employees over large geographic distances, including the need to implement appropriate systems, policies, benefits, and compliance programs that are specific to each jurisdiction;
•potential changes in laws, regulations, and costs affecting our U.K. operations and local employees due to Brexit;
•difficulties in managing a business in new markets with diverse cultures, languages, customs, legal systems, alternative dispute systems, and regulatory systems;
•increased travel, real estate, infrastructure, and legal compliance costs associated with international operations;
•currency exchange rate fluctuations and the resulting effect on our revenue and expenses and the cost and risk of entering into hedging transactions if we chose to do so in the future;
•limitations on our ability to reinvest earnings from operations in one country to fund the capital needs of our operations in other countries;
•laws and business practices favoring local competitors or general market preferences for local vendors;
•limited or insufficient intellectual property protection or difficulties obtaining, maintaining, protecting, or enforcing our intellectual property rights, including our trademarks and patents;
•political instability or terrorist activities;
•an outbreak of a contagious disease, which may cause us or our third-party providers and/or customers to temporarily suspend our or their respective operations in the affected city or country;
•exposure to liabilities under anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws, including the FCPA, U.S. bribery laws, the United Kingdom Bribery Act, and similar laws and regulations in other jurisdictions;
•exposure to anti-competition laws in foreign jurisdictions that may conflict with or be more restrictive than similar U.S. anti-competition laws; and
•adverse changes to domestic and foreign tax law and the burdens of foreign exchange controls that could make it difficult to repatriate earnings and cash.
If we invest substantial time and resources to further expand our international operations and are unable to do so successfully and in a timely manner, our business and results of operations will suffer.
Risks Related to Tax and Accounting Matters
We and our independent registered public accounting firm identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting in the past, and any failure to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting could harm us.
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting. Internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. Under standards established by the United States Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control
over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis.
Prior to changing the end of our fiscal year from December 31 to January 31, we and our independent registered public accounting firm identified a material weakness in our internal controls over financial reporting related to revenue recognition for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018, which resulted in the improper allocation of stand-alone selling price and certain errors in deferred revenue and contract assets. The material weakness was caused by, among other things, a lack of oversight and technical competence and experience within our finance department to identify such errors. We have completed the following steps to address this material weakness:
•engaged third-party service providers to assist in technical accounting matters;
•increased oversight and reviews of technical accounting assessments performed by outside consultants;
•designed and implemented internal controls related to revenue recognition accounting; and
•hired experienced professionals to key revenue recognition accounting positions.
We believe that this material weakness has been remediated through the steps we have taken as noted above, and we did not incur any material costs related to this remediation. However, neither we nor our independent registered public accounting firm have tested the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting and we cannot assure you that we will not suffer from this or other material weaknesses in the future.
Subsequent to our IPO, we are required to document and test our internal controls over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404, or Section 404, of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, so that our management can certify as to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting. Likewise, our independent registered public accounting firm will be required to provide an attestation report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting at such time as we cease to be an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the Jumpstart our Business Startups Act of 2012, or the JOBS Act. At such time, our independent registered public accounting firm may issue a report that is adverse if a material weakness is identified.
We have recently commenced the costly and challenging process of compiling the system and processing documentation necessary to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404, but we may not be able to complete our evaluation, testing and any required remediation in a timely fashion once initiated. Our compliance with Section 404 will require that we incur substantial expenses and expend significant management efforts. We will need to hire additional accounting and financial staff with appropriate public company experience and technical accounting knowledge and compile the system and process documentation necessary to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404.
If our management is unable to conclude that we have effective internal controls over financial reporting, or to certify the effectiveness of such controls, or if our independent registered public accounting firm cannot render an unqualified opinion on management’s assessment and the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, or if material weaknesses in our internal controls are identified in the future, we could be subject to regulatory scrutiny and a loss of public confidence, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and our stock price. In addition, if we do not maintain adequate financial and management personnel, processes and controls, we may not be able to manage our business effectively or accurately report our financial performance on a timely basis, which could cause a decline in our common stock price and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates, which could negatively affect our results of operations.
While our sales contracts are denominated predominantly in U.S. dollars, we also have sales contracts representing a large portion of our revenue denominated in foreign currencies. Therefore, a portion of our revenue is subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Additionally, for our foreign sales contracts denominated in U.S. dollars, a strengthening of the U.S. dollar could increase the real cost of our products and platform capabilities to these customers outside of the United States, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
Further, an increasing portion of our operating expenses are incurred outside the United States. We conduct our business and incur costs in the local currency of most countries in which we operate. We incur currency transaction risk whenever one of our operating subsidiaries enters into either a purchase or a sales transaction using a different currency from the currency in which it operates, or holds assets or liabilities in a currency different from its functional currency. Changes in exchange rates can also affect our results of operations when the value of sales and expenses of foreign subsidiaries are translated to U.S. dollars. We cannot accurately predict the impact of future exchange rate fluctuations on our results of operations. If we are not able to successfully hedge against the risks associated with currency fluctuations, our results of operations could be adversely affected. Further, given the volatility of exchange rates, we may not be able to effectively manage our currency risks, and any volatility in currency exchange rates may increase the price of our products in local currency to our foreign customers or increase the manufacturing cost of our products, either of which may have an adverse effect on our financial condition, cash flows, and profitability.
Our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements cause us to be subject to the tax laws of various jurisdictions, and we could be obligated to pay additional taxes, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.
We have been rapidly expanding our international operations and personnel to support our business in numerous international markets. We generally conduct our international operations through directly or indirectly wholly-owned subsidiaries, and we are or may be required to report our taxable income in various jurisdictions worldwide with increasingly complex tax laws based upon our business operations in those jurisdictions. Our intercompany relationships and agreements are subject to complex transfer pricing regulations administered by tax authorities in various jurisdictions with potentially divergent tax laws. Tax authorities may disagree with tax positions that we have taken. For example, the U.S Internal Revenue Service, or the IRS, or another tax authority could challenge our allocation of income by tax jurisdiction and the amounts paid between our affiliated companies pursuant to our intercompany arrangements and transfer pricing policies, including amounts paid with respect to our intellectual property in connection with our intercompany research and development cost sharing arrangement and legal structure.
The amount of taxes we pay in different jurisdictions may depend on the application of the tax laws of the various jurisdictions, including the United States, to our international business activities, changes in tax rates, new or revised tax laws or interpretations of existing tax laws and policies, and our ability to operate our business in a manner consistent with our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements. The authorities in these jurisdictions could review our tax returns or require us to file tax returns in jurisdictions in which we are not currently filing and could impose additional tax, interest, and penalties. In addition, the authorities could claim that various withholding requirements apply to us or our subsidiaries, assert that benefits of tax treaties are not available to us or our subsidiaries, or challenge our methodologies for valuing developed technology or intercompany arrangements, including our transfer pricing. If such a challenge or disagreement were to occur, and our position was not sustained, we could be required to pay additional taxes, interest, and penalties, which could result in one-time tax charges, higher effective tax rates, reduced cash flows, and lower overall profitability of our operations. Our financial statements could fail to reflect adequate reserves to cover such a contingency. Furthermore, we are subject to periodic audits in the various jurisdictions in which we operate, which if determined aversely could have an adverse impact on our financial conditions.
Changes in tax laws or tax rulings could materially affect our financial position, results of operations, and cash flows.
The tax regimes we are subject to or operate under, including income and non-income taxes, may be subject to significant change. Changes in tax laws, regulations, or rulings, or changes in interpretations of existing laws and regulations, could materially affect our financial position and results of operations. For example, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or the Tax Act, made broad and complex changes to the U.S. tax code, including changes to U.S. federal tax rates, additional limitations on the deductibility of interest, both positive and negative changes to the utilization of future net operating loss, or NOL, carryforwards, allowing for the expensing of certain capital expenditures and putting into effect the migration from a “worldwide” system of taxation to a territorial system. The Tax Act and issuance of additional regulatory or accounting guidance related to the Tax Act could materially affect our tax obligations, deferred tax assets, and effective tax rate in the period issued and in the future. In addition, many countries in Europe, as well as a number of other countries and organizations, have recently proposed or recommended changes to existing tax laws or have enacted new laws that could significantly increase our tax
obligations in the countries where we do business or require us to change the manner in which we operate our business.
During the course of his campaign and after his election, President Biden proposed to increase the tax rate for corporations and high-income individuals, double the tax rate on global intangible low-taxed income, and impose a new 15% minimum tax on global book income and other tax measures. If such proposals are passed, they may have a material impact on our financial statements.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, has been working on a Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, or BEPS, and issued a report in 2015, an interim report in 2018, and is expected to continue to issue guidelines and proposals that may change various aspects of the existing framework under which our tax obligations are determined in many of the countries in which we do business. While this project is in an advanced stage, we cannot predict what its outcome will be or what potential impact it may have on our tax obligations and operations. In July of 2021, the OECD/G-20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS released a statement outlining a political agreement on the general rules to be adopted for taxing the digital economy, specifically with respect to nexus and profit allocation (Pillar One) and rules for a global minimum tax (Pillar Two). Further details regarding implementation of these rules are expected to be finalized by October 2021. These rules, should they implemented via domestic legislation of countries or via international treaties, could have a material impact on our financial statements.
The European Commission and several countries have issued proposals that would change various aspects of the current tax framework under which we are taxed. These proposals include changes to the existing framework to calculate income tax, as well as proposals to change or impose new types of non-income taxes, including taxes based on a percentage of revenue. The Council of the European Union stated publicly that an EU digital levy may be designed as a measure separate from the OECD framework, which could represent a significant departure from the understanding to date regarding digital services taxes serving as a backstop to such framework. In addition, several countries have proposed or enacted taxes applicable to digital services, which could apply to our business.
Due to the large and expanding scale of our international business activities, these types of changes to the taxation of our activities could increase our worldwide effective tax rate, increase the amount of taxes imposed on our business, and harm our financial position. Such changes may also apply retroactively to our historical operations and result in taxes greater than the amounts estimated and recorded in our financial statements.
Changes in our effective tax rate or tax liability may have an adverse effect on our results of operations.
We are subject to income taxes in the United States and various foreign jurisdictions. The determination of our worldwide provision for income taxes and other tax liabilities requires significant judgment by management, and there are many transactions where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. We believe that our provision for income taxes is reasonable, but the ultimate tax outcome may differ from the amounts recorded in our consolidated financial statements and may materially affect our financial results in the period or periods in which such outcome is determined.
Our effective tax rate could increase due to several factors, including:
•changes in the relative amounts of income before taxes in the various jurisdictions in which we operate that have differing statutory tax rates;
•changes in tax laws, tax treaties, and regulations or the interpretation of them, including the Tax Act and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act;
•changes to our assessment about our ability to realize our deferred tax assets that are based on estimates of our future results, the prudence and feasibility of possible tax planning strategies, and the economic and political environments in which we do business;
•the outcome of current and future tax audits, examinations, or administrative appeals;
•changes international tax frameworks; and
•the effects of acquisitions.
Any of these developments could adversely affect our results of operations.
We could be required to collect additional sales or indirect taxes or be subject to other tax liabilities that may increase the costs our customers would have to pay for our products and adversely affect our results of operations.
We currently collect and remit applicable sales and indirect taxes and other applicable transfer taxes in jurisdictions where we, through our employees or economic activity, have a presence and where we have determined, based on applicable legal precedents, that sales or licensing of our products are classified as taxable. We do not currently collect and remit state and local excise, utility user and ad valorem taxes, fees, or surcharges in jurisdictions where we believe we do not have sufficient “nexus.” There is uncertainty as to what constitutes sufficient nexus for a state or local jurisdiction to levy taxes, fees and surcharges for sales made over the internet, and there is also uncertainty as to whether our characterization of our products as not taxable in certain jurisdictions will be accepted by state and local tax authorities.
An increasing number of states have considered or adopted laws that attempt to impose tax collection obligations on out-of-state companies. Additionally, the Supreme Court of the United States recently ruled in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. et al, or Wayfair, that online sellers can be required to collect sales and use tax despite not having a physical presence in the buyer’s state. In response to Wayfair, or otherwise, states or local governments may adopt, or begin to enforce, laws requiring us to calculate, collect, and remit taxes on sales in their jurisdictions. A successful assertion by one or more states requiring us to collect taxes where we presently do not do so, or to collect more taxes in a jurisdiction in which we currently do collect some taxes, could result in substantial tax liabilities, including taxes on past sales, as well as penalties and interest. The imposition by state governments or local governments of sales tax collection obligations on out-of-state sellers could also create additional administrative burdens for us, put us at a competitive disadvantage if they do not impose similar obligations on our competitors, and decrease our future sales, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
Our ability to use our NOLs to offset future taxable income may be subject to certain limitations.
Our net operating losses, or NOLs, could expire unused and be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities because of their limited duration or because of restrictions under U.S. or foreign tax law. NOLs generated in taxable years beginning before January 1, 2018 are permitted to be carried forward for only 20 taxable years under applicable U.S. federal income tax law. Under the Tax Act, as modified by the CARES Act, NOLs arising in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017, and before January 1, 2021 may be carried back to each of the five tax years preceding the tax year of such loss, and NOLs arising in tax years beginning after December 31, 2020 may not be carried back. Moreover, under the Tax Act as modified by the CARES Act, NOLs generated in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017 may be carried forward indefinitely, but the deductibility of such NOLs generally will be limited in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2020 to 80% of current year taxable income. The extent to which state income tax law will conform to the Tax Act and CARES Act is uncertain.
In general, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” (as defined under Section 382 of the Code and applicable Treasury Regulations) is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its pre-change NOLs to offset future taxable income. We have identified Section 382 ownership changes in April 2017 and July 2020 and, accordingly, our NOLs are subject to limitation. We do not believe, based on our preliminary analysis, that we experienced a subsequent ownership change in connection with the Series F Financing. We do not believe that any Section 382 limitations will prevent us from fully utilizing our NOLs. It is possible that we have in the past undergone and may in the future undergo, additional ownership changes that we have not identified and that could result in additional limitations on our NOLs. Furthermore, our ability to utilize NOLs of companies that we have acquired or may acquire in the future may be subject to limitations. There is also a risk that due to regulatory changes, such as suspensions on the use of NOLs or other unforeseen reasons, our existing NOLs could expire or otherwise be unavailable to reduce future income tax liabilities, including for state tax purposes. For these reasons, we may not be able to utilize a material portion of the NOLs reflected on our balance sheets, even if we attain profitability, which could potentially result in increased future tax liability to us and could adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.
Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in GAAP.
GAAP is subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. A change in these principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported results of operations and could affect the reporting of transactions already completed before the announcement of a change.
If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies prove to be incorrect, our results of operations could be adversely affected.
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in our consolidated financial statements. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. The results of these estimates form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, and equity, and the amount of revenue and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Significant estimates and judgments involve revenue recognition and the valuation of our stock-based compensation awards, including the determination of fair value of our common stock, among others. Our results of operations may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our results of operations to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the market price of our Class A common stock.
Our revenue recognition policy and other factors may distort our financial results in any given period and make them difficult to predict.
We derive our revenue from the sale of our software licenses for use of our proprietary software, maintenance and support for our licenses, right to access certain products that are hosted by us (i.e., software as a service, or SaaS), and professional services. Under Accounting Standards Update No. 2014-09 (Topic 606), Revenue from Contracts with Customers, we recognize revenue when a customer obtains control of promised goods or services are delivered. The amount of revenue recognized reflects the consideration that we expect to receive in exchange for these goods or services. Our licenses revenue is mainly derived from the sale of term-based licenses hosted on-premises, which is recognized when we transfer control of the respective license to the customer. Revenue from SaaS and revenue from maintenance and support are recognized ratably over time since control passes to our customers over the arrangement’s contractual period.
Furthermore, the presentation of our financial results requires us to make estimates and assumptions that may affect revenue recognition. In some instances, we could reasonably use different estimates and assumptions, and changes in estimates are likely to occur from period to period.
Given the foregoing factors, our actual results could differ significantly from our estimates. Comparing our revenue and operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful, and our past results may not be indicative of our future performance.
For more information on our revenue recognition policy, refer to Note 2, Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, included in Part I, Item 1 of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Class A Common Stock
The dual class structure of our common stock has the effect of concentrating voting control with our Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, and Chairman, which will limit your ability to influence the outcome of important decisions.
Our Class B common stock has 35 votes per share and our Class A common stock has one vote per share. Our Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, and Chairman, Daniel Dines, who, collectively with his controlled entities, holds all our outstanding shares of Class B common stock, and beneficially owned shares representing approximately 88% voting power of our outstanding capital stock as of July 31, 2021. As a result, Mr. Dines has the ability to control the outcome of matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors and approval of significant corporate transactions, such as a merger or other sale of our company or our assets, even if his stock ownership represents less than 50% of the outstanding aggregate number of shares of our capital stock. This concentration of ownership will limit the ability of other stockholders to influence corporate matters and may cause us to make strategic decisions that could involve risks to you or that may not be aligned with your interests. As a board member, Mr. Dines owes a fiduciary duty to our stockholders and is legally obligated to act in good faith and in a manner he reasonably believes to be in the best interests of our stockholders. As a stockholder, Mr. Dines is entitled to vote his shares in his own interests, which may not always be in the interests of our stockholders generally. Mr. Dines’ control may adversely affect the market price of our Class A common stock.
Further, future transfers by holders of our Class B common stock will generally result in those shares converting into shares of our Class A common stock, subject to limited exceptions, such as certain transfers effected for tax or estate planning purposes.
We have not elected to take advantage of the “controlled company” exemption to the corporate governance rules for publicly-listed companies but may do so in the future.
Because our Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, and Chairman, Daniel Dines, who, collectively with his controlled entities, holds all our outstanding shares of Class B common stock, and beneficially owns shares representing in excess of 50% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock, we are eligible to elect the “controlled company” exemption to the corporate governance rules for publicly-listed companies. We have not elected to do so. If we decide to become a “controlled company” under the corporate governance rules for publicly-listed companies, we would not be required to have a majority of our board of directors be independent, nor would we be required to have a compensation committee or an independent nominating function. If we choose controlled company status in the future, our status as a controlled company could cause our Class A common stock to be less attractive to certain investors or otherwise harm our trading price.
We cannot predict the impact our dual class structure may have on the market price of our Class A common stock.
We cannot predict whether our dual class structure, combined with the concentrated control of our Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, and Chairman, who holds all of the outstanding shares of our Class B common stock, will result in a lower or more volatile market price of our Class A common stock or in adverse publicity or other adverse consequences. Certain index providers have announced restrictions on including companies with multiple-class share structures in certain of their indexes. For example, in July 2017, FTSE Russell and Standard & Poor’s announced that they would cease to allow most newly public companies utilizing dual or multi-class capital structures to be included in their indices. Under the announced policies, our dual class capital structure would make us ineligible for inclusion in any of these indices. Given the sustained flow of investment funds into passive strategies that seek to track certain indexes, exclusion from stock indexes would likely preclude investment by many of these funds and could make our Class A common stock less attractive to other investors. As a result, the market price of our Class A common stock could be adversely affected.
Future sales of our Class A common stock in the public market could cause the market price of our Class A common stock to decline.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our Class A common stock in the public market in the future, or the perception that these sales might occur, could depress the market price of our Class A common stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. We are unable to predict the timing of or the effect that such sales may have on the prevailing market price of our Class A common stock.
In connection with the IPO, all of our directors and executive officers, the selling stockholders, and the holders of substantially all of our Class A common stock, Class B common stock and securities exercisable for, or convertible into, our Class A common stock, entered into lock-up agreements with the underwriters or are otherwise subject to agreements with market stand-off provisions with us pursuant to which they have agreed that they will not, and will not publicly disclose an intention to, during the period ending immediately prior to the opening of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on September 9, 2021 (such period, the “restricted period”), offer, pledge, sell, contract to sell, sell any option or contract to purchase, purchase any option or contract to sell, grant any option, right or warrant to purchase, lend, or otherwise transfer or dispose of, directly or indirectly, any of our shares of common stock, any options or warrants to purchase any of our shares of common stock or any securities convertible into or exchangeable for or that represent the right to receive shares of our common stock or enter into any swap or other arrangement that transfers to another, in whole or in part, any of the economic consequences of ownership of our common stock.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, on June 10, 2021, the restricted period terminated with respect to 87,172,130 shares of our Class A common stock and securities exercisable for, or convertible into, our Class A common stock. Prior to the opening of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on September 9, 2021, 397,217,247 shares of our Class A common stock, and securities exercisable for or convertible into our Class A common stock, will become eligible for sale upon expiration of the restricted period, subject to compliance with applicable securities laws and, in the case of vested stock options and restricted stock units, subject to exercise and settlement, respectively.
In addition, there were 56,159,328 shares of Class A common stock issuable upon the exercise of options and upon the vesting and settlement of restricted stock units outstanding as of July 31, 2021. We have filed a registration statement to register all of the shares of Class A common stock issuable upon exercise of outstanding options, the vesting and settlement of outstanding restricted stock units, and other equity incentives we may grant in the future, for public resale under the Securities Act. The shares of Class A common stock will become eligible for sale in the public market to the extent such options are exercised or restricted stock units vested and settled, subject to the lock-up agreements described above and compliance with applicable securities laws. Further, certain of our stockholders have rights, subject to some conditions, to require us to file registration statements covering the sale of their shares or to include their shares in registration statements that we may file for ourselves or other stockholders.
Sales, short sales, or hedging transactions involving our equity securities, whether or not we believe them to be prohibited, could adversely affect the price of our Class A common stock.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future and, as a result, your ability to achieve a return on your investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our Class A common stock.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock, and we do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors. Accordingly, you may need to rely on sales of our Class A common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on your investment.
We are an “emerging growth company,” and we cannot be certain if the reduced reporting and disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our Class A common stock less attractive to investors.
We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act, and we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not “emerging growth companies,” including the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. Pursuant to Section 107 of the JOBS Act, as an emerging growth company, we have elected to use the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. As a result, our consolidated financial statements may not be comparable to the financial statements of issuers who are required to comply with the effective dates for new or revised accounting standards that are applicable to public companies, which may make our Class A common stock less attractive to investors. In addition, if we cease to be an emerging growth company, we will no longer be able to use the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards.
We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of: (1) the last day of the fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of our IPO; (2) the last day of the first fiscal year in which our annual gross revenue is $1.07 billion or more; (3) the date on which we have, during the previous rolling three-year period, issued more than $1.0 billion in non-convertible debt securities; and (4) the last day of the fiscal year in which the market value of our Class A common stock held by non-affiliates exceeded $700 million as of July 31 of such fiscal year.
We cannot predict if investors will find our Class A common stock less attractive if we choose to rely on these exemptions. For example, if we do not adopt a new or revised accounting standard, our future results of operations may not be as comparable to the results of operations of certain other companies in our industry that adopted such standards. If some investors find our Class A common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our Class A common stock and our stock price may be more volatile.
Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of our company more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management and limit the market price of our Class A common stock.
In addition to the effects of our dual class structure, provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control or changes in our management. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws include provisions that may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our
current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management.
In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which generally, subject to certain exceptions, prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any of a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder. Any of the foregoing provisions could limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our Class A common stock, and they could deter potential acquirers of our company, thereby reducing the likelihood that you would receive a premium for your shares of our Class A common stock in an acquisition.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the exclusive forums for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or employees.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for the following types of actions or proceedings under Delaware statutory or common law:
•any derivative claim or cause of action brought on our behalf;
•any claim or cause of action asserting a breach of fiduciary duty;
•any claim or cause of action against us arising under the Delaware General Corporation Law;
•any claim or cause of action arising under or seeking to interpret our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws; and
•any claim or cause of action against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine.
The provisions would not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. Furthermore, Section 22 of the Securities Act creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all such Securities Act actions. Accordingly, both state and federal courts have jurisdiction to entertain such claims. To prevent having to litigate claims in multiple jurisdictions and the threat of inconsistent or contrary rulings by different courts, among other considerations, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause or causes of action arising under the Securities Act, including all causes of action asserted against any defendant to such complaint. For the avoidance of doubt, this provision is intended to benefit and may be enforced by us, our officers and directors, the underwriters to any offering giving rise to such complaint, and any other professional entity whose profession gives authority to a statement made by that person or entity and who has prepared or certified any part of the documents underlying the offering.
While the Delaware courts have determined that such choice of forum provisions are facially valid, a stockholder may nevertheless seek to bring a claim in a venue other than those designated in the exclusive forum provisions. In such instance, we would expect to vigorously assert the validity and enforceability of the exclusive forum provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation. This may require significant additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions and there can be no assurance that the provisions will be enforced by a court in those other jurisdictions.
These exclusive forum provisions may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits against us and our directors, officers, and other employees. If a court were to find either exclusive-forum provision in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur further significant additional costs associated with resolving the dispute in other jurisdictions, all of which could seriously harm our business.
General Risk Factors
Our stock price may be volatile, and the value of our Class A common stock may decline.
The market price of our Class A common stock may be highly volatile and may fluctuate or decline substantially as a result of a variety of factors, some of which are beyond our control, including:
•actual or anticipated fluctuations in our financial condition or results of operations;
•variance in our financial performance from expectations of securities analysts;
•changes in the pricing of licenses to our products;
•changes in our projected operating and financial results;
•changes in laws or regulations applicable to our platform and products;
•announcements by us or our competitors of significant business developments, acquisitions, or new products;
•significant data breaches, disruptions to or other incidents involving our software;
•our involvement in litigation or governmental investigations;
•future sales of our Class A common stock by us or our stockholders, as well as the anticipation of lock-up releases;
•changes in senior management or key personnel;
•the issuance of new or changed securities analysts’ reports or recommendations;
•the trading volume of our Class A common stock;
•changes in the anticipated future size and growth rate of our market;
•economic and market conditions in general, or in our industry in particular; and
•technical factors in the public trading market for our Class A common stock that may produce price movements that may or may not comport with macro, industry, or company-specific fundamentals, including, without limitation, the sentiment of retail investors, the amount and status of short interest in our securities, access to margin debt, trading in options and other derivatives on our common stock and other technical trading factors.
Accordingly, we cannot assure you of the liquidity of an active trading market, your ability to sell your shares of our Class A common stock when desired, or the prices that you may obtain for your shares of our Class A common stock. The lack of an active market may impair your ability to sell your shares at the time you wish to sell them or at a price that you consider reasonable. The lack of an active market may also reduce the fair value of your shares. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital to continue to fund operations by selling shares and may impair our ability to acquire other companies or technologies by using our shares as consideration.
Broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political, regulatory, and market conditions, may also negatively impact the market price of our Class A common stock. In addition, technology stocks have historically experienced high levels of volatility. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their securities have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future, which could result in substantial expenses and divert our management’s attention.
Our issuance of additional capital stock in connection with financings, acquisitions, investments, our equity incentive plans, or otherwise will dilute all other stockholders.
We expect to issue additional capital stock in the future that will result in dilution to all other stockholders. We expect to continue to grant equity awards to employees, directors, and consultants under our equity incentive plans. We may also raise capital through equity financings in the future. As part of our business strategy, we may acquire or make investments in companies, products, or technologies and issue equity securities to pay for any such acquisition or investment. Any such issuances of additional capital stock may cause stockholders to experience significant dilution of their ownership interests and the per share value of our Class A common stock to decline.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or publish unfavorable or inaccurate research about our business, the market price and trading volume of our Class A common stock could decline.
The market price and trading volume of our Class A common stock is heavily influenced by the way analysts interpret our financial information and other disclosures. We do not have control over these analysts. If few securities analysts commence coverage of us, or if industry analysts cease coverage of us, our stock price would be negatively affected. If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, downgrade our Class A common stock, or publish negative reports about our business, our stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of us or fail to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our Class A common stock could decrease, which might cause our stock price to decline and could decrease the trading volume of our Class A common stock.
We will incur increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management will be required to devote substantial time to compliance with our public company responsibilities and corporate governance practices.
As a public company, we have incurred, and expect to continue to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company, which we expect to further increase after we are no longer an “emerging growth company.” The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the listing requirements of the New York Stock Exchange and other applicable securities rules and regulations impose various requirements on public companies. Our management and other personnel devote a substantial amount of time to compliance with these requirements. Moreover, these rules and regulations will increase our legal and financial compliance costs and will make some activities more time-consuming and costly. We cannot predict or estimate the amount of additional costs we will incur as a public company or the specific timing of such costs.
Pursuant to the terms of our outstanding indebtedness, we may be limited in our ability to incur future debt.
In October 2020, we entered into a Senior Secured Credit Facility, or the Credit Facility, with HSBC Ventures USA Inc., Silicon Valley Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Mizuho Bank, LTD, which provided a $200.0 million senior secured revolving credit facility with a maturity date of October 30, 2023. Our obligations under the Credit Facility are secured by substantially all of our assets, except for our intellectual property.
Pursuant to the terms of the Credit Facility, we are limited in our ability to incur additional indebtedness other than on the terms and conditions thereof. In addition, a failure to comply with the covenants under the Credit Facility could result in an event of default by us and an acceleration of amounts due. If an event of default occurs that is not waived by the lenders, and the lenders accelerate any amounts due, we may not be able to make accelerated payments, and the lender could seek to enforce their security interests in the collateral securing such indebtedness, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
Item 2. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities, Use of Proceeds, and Issuer Purchase of Equity Securities
Recent Sales of Unregistered Equity Securities
On June 30, 2021 we issued an additional 376 shares of Class A common stock with an immaterial aggregate fair value to the owners of Cloud Elements, Inc. as a part of the consideration for the related acquisition completed on March 19, 2021.
The sale of securities described above was deemed to be exempt from registration under the Securities Act in reliance on Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act or Regulation D promulgated thereunder as transactions by an issuer not involving a public offering. The recipients of the securities in this transaction represented their intention to acquire the securities for investment only and not for sale in connection with any distribution thereof, and had adequate access to information about us, through their relationships with us or otherwise.
Use of Proceeds from Initial Public Offering of Class A Common Stock
In April 2021, we completed our IPO, in which we issued and sold 13.0 million shares of our Class A common stock, including 3.6 million shares pursuant to the exercise in full of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares, and the selling stockholders sold an additional 14.5 million shares, at a public offering price of $56.00 per share, resulting in net proceeds to us of $687.9 million after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses. We did not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders. All of the
shares issued and sold in the IPO were registered under the Securities Act pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-254738), which was declared effective by the SEC on April 20, 2021. There has been no material change in the planned use of proceeds from our IPO from those disclosed in the Final Prospectus.
Issuer Purchase of Equity Securities
The following table presents our repurchases of Class A common stock during the three months ended July 31, 2021:
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Period
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Total Number of Shares
Purchased (1)
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Average Price Paid Per
Share
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May 1 – 31
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907
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79.82
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June 1 – 30
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2,291
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67.93
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July 1 – 31
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15,021
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$
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63.06
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Total
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18,219
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$
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64.51
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(1) Represents the number of shares withheld to satisfy employee tax obligations associated with net settlement of equity awards
Item 3. Defaults Upon Senior Securities.
None.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.
Not applicable.
Item 5. Other Information.
None.
Item 6. Exhibits.
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Exhibit
Number
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Description
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101.SCH
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XBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document
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101.CAL
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XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document
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101.DEF
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XBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document
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101.LAB
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XBRL Taxonomy Extension Label Linkbase Document
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101.PRE
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XBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document
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104
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Cover Page Interactive Data File (formatted as Inline XBRL and contained in Exhibit 101)
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___________________
* Filed herewith.
† Indicates management contract or compensatory plan.
^ The certifications furnished in Exhibits 32.1 and 32.2 hereto are deemed to accompany this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and are not deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Exchange Act, or otherwise subject to the liability of that section, nor shall they be deemed incorporated by reference into any filing under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act, irrespective of any general incorporation language contained in such filing.