IDAI T Stamp Inc

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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 10-K

☒  Annual Report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021

☐  Transition Report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

For the transition period from __________ to __________

Commission file number 001-41252

T Stamp Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

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3017 Bolling Way NE, Floors 1 and 2, Atlanta, GA 30305

(Address of registrant’s principal executive offices) (Zip code)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code (404) 806-9906

Securities registered under Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None.

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the issuer (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or has for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 USC. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes ☐ No ☒

The registrant’s Class A Common Stock began trading on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange on January 31, 2022. The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates of the registrant, computed by reference to the price at which the registrant’s Class A Common Stock was last sold on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange on such date was $63.4 million (9,743,000 at a closing price per share of $6.51). Shares of Class A common stock outstanding— 23,530,021 shares at April 6, 2022.

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Business Model

Trust Stamp’s business model is that of a technology licensing company – we license our products to companies that in turn integrate our technology into products and services which they either sell or use for their own purposes. We focus on licensing ARR generating pay-per-use services including:

In addition, we have developed an encrypted e-mail product (Trusted Mail ® www.trustedmail.pro) using our facial recognition technology. This technology is held in a majority owned subsidiary entity: Trusted Mail Inc.

The Market

Trust Stamp considers itself to be in the identity authentication market which is primarily comprised of biometric authentication providers. Trust Stamp’s key sub-markets are identity authentication for the purpose of account opening, access and fraud detection and the creation of tokenized identities to facilitate financial & societal inclusion. Management has evaluated the market potential for its services in part by reviewing the following reports and articles, none of which were commissioned by the Company and none are to be incorporated by reference:

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According to a September 2019 article published by Forbes magazine on providing banking services to underserved populations:

One of the biggest contributors to current authentication problems is the use of passwords. Static passwords (i.e. the type of password that we typically use to login to various accounts and services every single day that, for the most part, remains the same from the moment it is created) have a number of weaknesses:

According to a 2015 report published by Oxford University Department of Computer Sciences and Mastercard, 21% of users forget passwords within 2 weeks, 25% of users fail to remember at least 1 password per day, and 1 out of 3 online transactions are abandoned at checkout due to a forgotten password.

On top of this, stored biometric images and templates represent a growing and unquantified financial, security and PR liability and are the subject of growing governmental, media and public scrutiny, since biometric data cannot be “changed” once they are hacked, as they are intimately linked to the user’s physical features and/or behaviors.

With biometric technologies becoming nearly ubiquitous, a range of risks are becoming more prevalent. The popularity of biometric authentication across financial services, employment, travel and healthcare settings inevitably means biometric databases are becoming more accessible to criminals, and the motivation to take over biometric credentials is booming. Even when operating as intended, biometric technology raises privacy concerns which have led to close attention from regulators. Multiple jurisdictions have placed biometrics in a special or sensitive category of personal data and demand much stronger safeguards around collection and safekeeping.

To address this unprecedented danger, Trust Stamp has developed its IT² solutions.

Principal Products and Services

Trust Stamp’s most important technology is the Irreversible Identity Token ^TM (also known as the IT^2TM_, Evergreen Hash^TM, EgHash^TM and MyHash^TM) combined with a data architecture that can use one or multiple sources of biometric or other identifying data. Once a “hash translation” algorithm is created, like-modality hashes are comparable regardless of their origin. The IT² protects against system and data redundancy providing a lifelong “digital-DNA” that can store (or pivot to) any type of KYC or relationship data with fields individually hashed or (salted and) encrypted, facilitating selective data sharing. Products utilizing the IT² are Trust Stamp’s primary products, accounting for the majority of its revenues during the year ended December 31, 2021.

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IT² Solutions

The IT² (for Irreversibly Transformed Identity Token) replace biometric templates and scans with meaningless numbers, letters and symbols in order to remove sensitive data from the reach of criminals using a proprietary process by which a deep neural network irreversibly converts biometric and other identifying data, from any source, into the secure tokenized identity. This IT² is unique to the user, is different every time generated from a live subject and cannot be reverse engineered and rebuilt into the user’s face or other original identity data.

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Each token can be stored and compared to all other tokens from the same modality allowing the Company’s AI-powered analytics to predict if a single subject has generated two or more tokens, even if the subject has passed conventional KYC using, e.g., falsified identity documents. Using this technology, the users’ IT² can be used for re-authentication purposes including account recovery, password-less login, new account creation, and more across the organization or even within a consortium of organizations, all in a low-cost and low friction delivery that is fast and secure.

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Our technology is being used for enhanced due diligence, KYC/AML compliance and “second chance” approval for customer onboarding and account access together with the delivery of humanitarian and development services. The solution allows organizations to approve more users, keep bad actors from accessing systems and services, and retain existing users with a superior user experience.

Our hashing and matching technology can maximize the effectiveness of all types of identity data while rendering it safer to use, store and share. Whatever the source of identity data, it can be stored and compared as an IT². See the chart below for examples.

Distribution

Through licensing we allow customers to utilize our technology in a wide variety of applications. Uses can include (e.g.):

Trust Stamp enters into licensing agreements, typically as a hosted offering, on-premise solution or both, with its customers, pursuant to which the customer pays for the initial product development plus a license fee for the use of Trust Stamp’s technologies on a periodic and/or volume-based basis. In addition to consuming and paying for Trust Stamp’s services for their own use, some key customers also serve as channel partners by offering Trust Stamp products to their own customer base whether as stand-alone products or integrated into their own services as upgraded product offerings.

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Competition

We can work with any identity data from any source, potentially breaking vendor, and modality lock-in, but our primary market target is the biometric service industry which is growing exponentially while being threatened by a consumer, media, and legislative backlash against storing biometric data. The IT² can potentially be overlaid on any biometric or other identity data provider.

In general, we compete for customer budget with any company in the identity authentication industry and our business plan calls for our capturing a fraction of one percent of the projected expenditure for biometric authentication services. Major competitors in this space include companies such as NEXT Biometrics, Gemalto, IDEMIA, Synaptics, Cognitec, Innovatrics, Suprema, FaceTec, Rank One Computing, Acuant, Jumio, Onfido and Mitek. However, we believe that, due to the uniqueness of our technology solution, the Company does not at this time have any direct competitors for the core IT² solutions upon which the growth in our business plan is focused.

The commercial advantage of our solution is our ability to work across providers and modalities and we continue to pursue a first-mover advantage including our global-scale-partnership which is achieving a network-effect in the global Humanitarian and Development market. We believe that this combination will make it unattractive for a potential competitor to replicate the 6-years and multi-million dollars that we have already expended to try and circumvent our multiple (and continuing) patent filings and/or offer a parallel product based upon a different technology.

We believe that given sufficient time and resources, we can augment any biometric modalities including face, hand, iris, voice, gait, and behavior together with any other identifying data which places us in a unique position versus providers of biometric services.

We are unaware of any other provider being able to offer or support a proliferation of authentication modalities in this fashion, and therefore, we believe we there are no other companies that directly compete with us in this space. If our go-to-market strategy is successful, biometric service providers can be a channel distributer, and not necessarily a competitor.

Growth Strategy

Our business plan calls for our capturing a small fraction of one percent (1%) of the projected expenditure for biometric authentication services. Our strategy in this respect is to:

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Employees

Given the geographic diversity of its team and to facilitate cost-effective administration, Trust Stamp secures the services of its permanent team members through a variety of administrative structures that include wholly owned subsidiaries, professional employer organizations and consulting contracts. The Company currently has 13 full-time and 1 part-time team members that work out of the United States, as well as 28 full-time and 4 part-time team members that work out of Malta. We have 7 full-time team members in Poland and Central Europe and 5 full-time and 4 part-time team members in the United Kingdom as well as 1 full-time team member in the Isle of Man. We have 16 full-time team members working in the Philippines, 12 full-time team members working in Rwanda, 1 part-time team member working in the Netherlands and 7 full-time team members working remotely in India. Our permanent team is augmented as needed by contract development and other staff on both long and short-term basis.

Outsourcing

We design and develop our own products. We use an outsourcing company - 10Clouds - for additional development staff as needed. In addition, we also utilize SourceFit, a company in the Philippines, for PEO services, representing approximately 2-3% of our operating expenses in 2021. As we increase our in-house resources, we anticipate reducing our reliance upon development staff outsourcing. Amazon Web Services provides cloud hosting and processing services, representing approximately 2-3% of our operating expenses in 2021.

Key Customers

Historically, the Company generated most of its income through a relationship with a SP500 bank, in which services were provided pursuant to a Master Software Agreement and statements of work. The scope of services provided to the SP500 bank has grown throughout the relationship and additional growth has been seen in 2020 and 2021. In 2019, 2020 and continuing into 2021 the Company has also expanded its customer base to include relationships with Mastercard, FIS and other customers. In 2020 we engaged in accelerator programs and invested in new business development staff and systems which have led to new customer engagements in 2021 and, while we value the relationship highly, management believes that we are no longer financially dependent on our relationship with the SP500 bank. As an example, the SP500 bank and Mastercard made up 45% of total revenue during the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to 64% of total revenue during the year ended December 31, 2020.

The Company has continued to expand its customer base, such as its contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”). On September 23, 2021, the Company was awarded a $3,920,764 contract with ICE. This engagement required an investment in productization, business development, and satisfying extensive due diligence processes. Alongside the revenue implications of this specific contract, it is believed that a successful execution may lead to an extension and additional contracts of the same nature with ICE as well as creating an advantage for pursuing new customers. Effective March 27, 2022, Trust Stamp agreed to a bilateral modification of the fixed price purchase order announced in September 2021 with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), a federal agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The modification (which covers software development and services related to rapid enrolment in the ICE alternative to detention program) increases the total contract award value to $7,176,364 from the original $3,920,764 and extends the delivery period until September 26, 2022 (subject to a right of early termination by ICE).

Regulation

Our business is not currently subject to any licensing requirements in any jurisdiction in which we operate other than the requirement to hold a business license in the City of Atlanta (with which we are in compliance). This does not mean that licensing requirements may not be introduced in one or more jurisdiction in which we operate, and such requirements could be burdensome and/or expensive or even impose requirements that we are unable to meet.

We are subject to substantial governmental regulation relating to our technology and will continue to be for the lifetime of our Company. By virtue of handling sensitive PII and biometric data, we are subject to numerous statutes related to data privacy and additional legislation and regulation should be anticipated in every jurisdiction in which we operate. Example federal (US) and European statutes we could be subject to are:

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HIPAA and HITECH

Under the administrative simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act “HITECH”), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) issued regulations that establish uniform standards governing the conduct of certain electronic healthcare transactions and requirements for protecting the privacy and security of protected health information (“PHI”), used or disclosed by covered entities and business associates. Covered entities and business associates are subject to HIPAA and HITECH. Our subcontractors that create, receive, maintain, transmit, or otherwise process PHI on behalf of us are HIPAA “business associates” and must also comply with HIPAA as a business associate.

HIPAA and HITECH include privacy and security rules, breach notification requirements, and electronic transaction standards.

The privacy rules cover the use and disclosure of PHI by covered entities and business associates. The privacy rules generally prohibit the use or disclosure of PHI, except as permitted under certain limited circumstances. The privacy rules also set forth individual patient rights, such as the right to access or amend certain records containing his or her PHI, or to request restrictions on the use or disclosure of his or her PHI.

The security rules require covered entities and business associates to safeguard the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronically transmitted or stored PHI by implementing administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. Under HITECH’s Breach Notification Rule, a covered entity must notify individuals, the Secretary of the HHS, and in some circumstances, the media of breaches of unsecured PHI.

In addition, we may be subject to state health information privacy and data breach notification laws, which may govern the collection, use, disclosure, and protection of health-related and other personal information. State laws may be more stringent, broader in scope, or offer greater individual rights with respect to PHI than HIPAA, and state laws may differ from each other, which may complicate compliance efforts.

Entities that are found to be in violation of HIPAA as the result of a failure to secure PHI, a complaint about our privacy practices or an audit by HHS, may be subject to significant civil and criminal fines and penalties and additional reporting and oversight obligations if such entities are required to enter into a resolution agreement and corrective action plan with HHS to settle allegations of HIPAA non-compliance.

GDPR

The EU-wide General Data Protection Regulation imposes onerous accountability obligations requiring data controllers and processors to maintain a record of their data processing and policies. It requires data controllers to implement more stringent operational requirements for processors and controllers of personal data, including, for example, transparent and expanded disclosure to data subjects (in a concise, intelligible and easily accessible form) about how their personal information is to be used, imposes limitations on retention of information, increases requirements pertaining to health data and pseudonymized (i.e., key-coded) data, introduces mandatory data breach notification requirements and sets higher standards for data controllers to demonstrate that they have obtained valid consent for certain data processing activities. Fines for non-compliance with the GDPR will be significant—the greater of €20 million or 4% of global turnover. The GDPR provides that EU member states may introduce further conditions, including limitations, to make their own further laws and regulations limiting the processing of genetic, biometric or health data.

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Subsidiaries and Affiliates

Given the geographic diversity of our team and to facilitate cost-effective administration, Trust Stamp conducts various aspects of its operations through subsidiaries. All subsidiaries share resources across the entire Trust Stamp organization. The officers and directors of Trust Stamp have influence over the operations of all subsidiaries and employees across jurisdictions. Only one of our subsidiaries, Biometric Innovations Limited, has its own management team.

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T Stamp Inc. Corporate Structure Chart

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TStamp Incentive Holdings LLC. On April 9, 2019, management created a new entity, TStamp Incentive Holdings (“TSIH”) to which the Company issued 1,620,565 shares of Class A Common Stock that the Board of Directors of TSIH could use for employee stock awards in the future. The purpose of the entity was to provide an analogous structure to a traditional stock incentive plan. As of the date of this report, 282,565 shares of Class A Common Stock are still held by TSIH – however, all of these shares of Class A Common Stock have been allocated for issuance pursuant to RSUs that vested on January 2, 2022. The Company has no plans to issue additional equity securities to TSIH. As such, once these remaining shares are issued, it is expected this entity will become dormant going forward.

Sunflower Artificial Intelligence Technologies. Based out of Poland, this entity acted as the contracting entity for development contractors in Poland and Central Europe but is now being dissolved as the contractors have entered into direct contracts with T Stamp Inc.

Trusted Mail Inc. The developer of an encrypted e-mail product (Trusted Mail ®) using our Company’s facial recognition technology. The Trusted Mail technology is held by Trusted Mail, Inc., which is our majority-owned subsidiary.

Biometric Innovations Limited (formerly “Trust Stamp Fintech Limited”). Biometric Innovations is our Company’s United Kingdom operating subsidiary. It was established to act as the contracting entity for development contractors in the UK, and has its own board and management team. The purpose of this entity was to establish beachhead operations in the country in order to service a contract entered by the Company with the National Association of Realtors and Property Mark. This entity serves as a sales and marketing function for the product “NAEA” which was developed for the contract between the listed parties. On June 11, 2020, the Company entered into a stock exchange transaction with Biometric Innovations Limited, becoming a 100% owner of the entity. The stock exchange transaction was not pursuant to any formal written agreement.

Trust Stamp Cayman. Trust Stamp Cayman was established with the intention of taking advantage of enterprise grants which were offered by the Cayman National Government’s Enterprise Zone. No operations have been established at this entity as of the date of this report.

Trust Stamp Malta Limited. Trust Stamp Malta Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of T Stamp Inc. It operates an R&D Campus in the Republic of Malta, for which it has entered into a lease with a local commercial landlord in Malta, Vassallo Group Realty Ltd. The goal of Trust Stamp Malta Limited is to advance our biometric authentication technology. As part of the creation of this entity, we entered into an agreement with the government of Malta for a potential repayable advance of up to €800,000 to assist in covering the costs of 75% of the first 24 months of payroll costs for any employee who begins 36 months from the execution of the agreement on July 8, 2020.

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Trust Stamp Rwanda Limited. The Company opened an office in Rwanda, Africa in April 2021 and signed a one-year lease for office space commencing May 1, 2021 The Company has established an R&D center in Rwanda together with a back-office facility for the purpose of our expansion into Africa.

Metapresence Limited. Trust Stamp established Metapresence Limited on November 23, 2021 as a wholly-owned crypto-asset subsidiary in the Isle of Man. Metapresence Limited participates in The Digital Isle of Man Accelerator Program, which provides access to a range of government services including regulatory acceleration support and guided access into the regulatory sandbox, where flexible licensing conditions enable digital asset businesses to explore opportunities and adapt as the technology evolves.

Non-Operational Subsidiaries

AIID Payments Limited. Established by the Company to provide payments services to NGO’s and other non-profit and social-welfare entities and activities. As of the date of this report, the entity has no operations, and is essentially dormant.

T Avatar LLC. Established by the Company to provide anonymized age-verification tools for minors participating in online activities. As of the date of this report, the entity has no operations, and is essentially dormant.

Finnovation LLC. Established by the Company to provide an innovative FinTech, Blockchain and Digital Identity innovation incubator. As of the date of this report, this entity has no operations, and is essentially dormant.

T Stamp LLC. As described above, the Company was originally founded as “T Stamp LLC”, formed on November 9, 2015 as a Georgia limited liability company. In 2016, the Company effected a “hive down” business reorganization whereby the business of the Company was transferred into to a newly formed, wholly owned subsidiary, which was T Stamp Inc. (i.e. the Company). As of the date of this report, the Company is no longer a subsidiary of T Stamp LLC, and T Stamp LLC is no longer a majority owner of the Company. On January 6, 2022 all shares held by T Stamp LLC were distributed to its members on a pro rata basis according to their respective membership interests. As such, as of the date of this report, the entity has no operations, and is essentially dormant.

Available Information

Our website is www.truststamp.ai. Available on this website, free of charge, are our annual reports, quarterly reports, and current reports on form 8-K and all amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed or furnished to the SEC.

Alternatively, you may access these reports at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

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Risks Related to Our Company

We have a limited operating history upon which you can evaluate our performance and have not yet generated profits. Accordingly, our prospects must be considered in light of the risks that any new company encounters. Our Company was incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware on April 11, 2016, and we have not yet generated profits. The likelihood of our creation of a viable business must be considered in light of the problems, expenses, difficulties, complications, and delays frequently encountered in connection with the growth of a business, operation in a competitive industry, and the continued development of our technology and products. We anticipate that our operating expenses will increase for the near future, and there is no assurance that we will be profitable in the near future. You should consider our business, operations, and prospects in light of the risks, expenses and challenges faced as an emerging growth company.

We have historically operated at a loss, which has resulted in an accumulated deficit. For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, we incurred a net loss of $9.1 million, compared to a net loss of $10.7 million for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. There can be no assurance that we will ever achieve profitability. Even if we do, there can be no assurance that we will be able to maintain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. Failure to do so would continue to have a material adverse effect on our accumulated deficit, would affect our cash flows, would affect our efforts to raise capital and is likely to result in a decline in our Class A Common Stock price.

Our consolidated financial statements for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020 have been prepared on a going concern basis. We have not yet generated profits and have an accumulated deficit of $27.2 million as of December 31, 2021, compared to an accumulated deficit of $18.2 million as of December 31, 2020. We may not have enough funds to sustain the business until it becomes profitable. Even if we raise additional funding through future financing efforts, we may not accurately anticipate how quickly we may use such funds and whether such funds would be sufficient to bring the business to profitability.

Our technology continues to be developed, and it is unlikely that we will ever develop our technology to a point at which no further development is required. Trust Stamp is developing complex technology that requires significant technical and regulatory expertise to develop, commercialize and update to meet evolving market and regulatory requirements. If we are unable to successfully develop and commercialize our technology and products, it will significantly affect our viability as a company.

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If our security measures are breached or unauthorized access to individually identifiable biometric or other personally identifiable information is otherwise obtained, our reputation may be harmed, and we may incur significant liabilities. In the ordinary course of our business, we may collect and store sensitive data, including protected health information (“PHI”), personally identifiable information (“PII”), owned or controlled by ourselves or our customers, and other parties. We communicate sensitive data, including patient data, electronically, and through relationships with multiple third-party vendors and their subcontractors. These applications and data encompass a wide variety of business-critical information, including research and development information, patient data, commercial information, and business and financial information. We face a number of risks relative to protecting this critical information, including loss of access risk, inappropriate use or disclosure, inappropriate modification, and the risk of our being unable to adequately monitor, audit, and modify our controls over our critical information. This risk extends to the third-party vendors and subcontractors we use to manage this sensitive data. As a custodian of this data, Trust Stamp therefore inherits responsibilities related to this data, exposing itself to potential threats. Data breaches occur at all levels of corporate sophistication (including at companies with significantly greater resources and security measures than our own) and the resulting fallout stemming from these breaches can be costly, time-consuming, and damaging to a company’s reputation. Further, data breaches need not occur from malicious attack or phishing only. Often, employee carelessness can result in sharing PII with a much wider audience than intended. Consequences of such data breaches could result in fines, litigation expenses, costs of implementing better systems, and the damage of negative publicity, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business operations and financial condition.

We are subject to substantial governmental regulation relating to our technology and will continue to be for the lifetime of our Company. By virtue of handling sensitive PII and biometric data, we are subject to numerous statutes related to data privacy and additional legislation and regulation should be anticipated in every jurisdiction in which we operate. Examples of federal (US) and European statutes we could be subject to are:

Any such access, breach, or other loss of information could result in legal claims or proceedings, liability under federal or state laws that protect the privacy of personal information under HIPAA and/or “HITECH”. Notice of breaches must be made to affected individuals, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), and for extensive breaches, notice may need to be made to the media or state attorneys general. Penalties for violations of these laws vary. For instance, penalties for failure to comply with a requirement of HIPAA and HITECH vary significantly, and include significant civil monetary penalties and, in certain circumstances, criminal penalties with fines up to $250,000 per violation and/or imprisonment. A person who knowingly obtains or discloses individually identifiable health information in violation of HIPAA may face a criminal penalty of up to $50,000 and up to one-year imprisonment. The criminal penalties increase if the wrongful conduct involves false pretenses or the intent to sell, transfer or use identifiable health information for commercial advantage, personal gain, or malicious harm.

Further, various states, such as California, have implemented similar privacy laws and regulations, such as the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, that impose restrictive requirements regulating the use and disclosure of health information and other personally identifiable information. Where state laws are more protective, we have to comply with the stricter provisions. In addition to fines and penalties imposed upon violators, some of these state laws also afford private rights of action to individuals who believe their personal information has been misused. California’s patient privacy laws, for example, provide for penalties of up to $250,000 and permit injured parties to sue for damages. The interplay of federal and state laws may be subject to varying interpretations by courts and government agencies, creating complex compliance issues for us and data we receive, use and share, potentially exposing us to additional expense, adverse publicity, and liability. Further, as regulatory focus on privacy issues continues to increase and laws and regulations concerning the protection of personal information expand and become more complex, these potential risks to our business could intensify. Changes in laws or regulations associated with the enhanced protection of certain types of sensitive data, such as PII or PHI, along with increased customer demands for enhanced data security infrastructure, could greatly increase our cost of providing our services, decrease demand for our services, reduce our revenues and/or subject us to additional liabilities.

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Compliance with U.S. and international data protection laws and regulations could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices and compliance procedures in a manner adverse to our business. Moreover, complying with these various laws could require us to take on more onerous obligations in our contracts, restrict our ability to collect, use and disclose data, or in some cases, impact our ability to operate in certain jurisdictions. We rely on our customers to obtain valid and appropriate consents from data subjects whose biometric samples and data we process on such customers’ behalf. Given that we do not obtain direct consent from such data subjects and we do not audit our customers to ensure that they have obtained the necessary consents required by law, the failure of our customers to obtain consents that are in compliance with applicable law could result in our own non-compliance with privacy laws. Such failure to comply with U.S. and international data protection laws and regulations could result in government enforcement actions (which could include civil or criminal penalties), private litigation and/or adverse publicity and could negatively affect our operating results and business. Claims that we have violated individuals’ privacy rights, failed to comply with data protection laws, or breached our contractual obligations, even if we are not found liable, could be expensive and time consuming to defend, could result in adverse publicity and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We anticipate sustaining operating losses for the foreseeable future. It is anticipated that we will sustain operating losses into 2022 as we continue to expand our team, continue with research and development, and strive to gain customers for our technology and gain market share in our industry. Our ability to become profitable depends on our ability to expand our customer base, consisting of companies willing to license our technology. There can be no assurance that this will occur. Unanticipated problems and expenses are often encountered in offering new products which may impact whether the Company is successful. Furthermore, we may encounter substantial delays and unexpected expenses related to development, technological changes, marketing, regulatory requirements and changes to such requirements or other unforeseen difficulties. There can be no assurance that we will ever become profitable. If the Company sustains losses over an extended period of time, it may be unable to continue in business.

If our products do not achieve broad acceptance both domestically and internationally, we will not be able to achieve our anticipated level of growth. Our revenues are derived from licensing our identity authentication solutions. We cannot accurately predict the future growth rate or the size of the market for our technology. The expansion of the market for our solutions depends on a number of factors, such as

Even if our technology gains wide market acceptance, our solutions may not adequately address market requirements and may not continue to gain market acceptance. If authentication solutions generally or our solutions specifically do not gain wide market acceptance, we may not be able to achieve our anticipated level of growth and our revenues and results of operations would suffer.

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We operate in a highly competitive industry that is dominated by multiple very large, well-capitalized market leaders and is constantly evolving. New entrants to the market, existing competitor actions, or other changes in market dynamics could adversely impact us. The level of competition in the identity authentication industry is high, with multiple exceptionally large, well-capitalized competitors holding a majority share of the market. Currently, we are not aware of any direct competitors of the Company able to offer our main technological offering. Nonetheless, many of the companies in the identity authentication market have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, significantly greater financial, technological, sales, marketing, and other resources than we do. At any point, these companies may decide to devote their resources to creating a competing technology solution which will impact our ability to maintain or gain market share in this industry. Further, such companies will be able to respond more quickly than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards, or client requirements, more quickly develop new products or devote greater resources to the promotion and sale of their products and services than we can. Likewise, their greater capabilities in these areas may enable them to better withstand periodic downturns in the identity management solutions industry and compete more effectively on the basis of price and production. In addition, new companies may enter the markets in which we compete, further increasing competition in the identity management solutions industry.

We believe that our ability to compete successfully depends on a number of factors, including the type and quality of our products and the strength of our brand names, as well as many factors beyond our control. We may not be able to compete successfully against current or future competitors, and increased competition may result in price reductions, reduced profit margins, loss of market share and an inability to generate cash flows that are sufficient to maintain or expand the development and marketing of new products, any of which would adversely impact our results of operations and financial condition.

We face competition from companies with greater financial, technical, sales, marketing, and other resources, and, if we are unable to compete effectively with these competitors, our market share may decline, and our business could be harmed. We face competition from well established companies. Many of our competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, significantly greater financial, technological, sales, marketing, and other resources than we do. As a result, our competitors may be able to respond more quickly than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards, or client requirements, more quickly develop new products or devote greater resources to the promotion and sale of their products and services than we can. Likewise, their greater capabilities in these areas may enable them to better withstand periodic downturns in the identity management solutions industry and compete more effectively on the basis of price and production. In addition, new companies may enter the markets in which we compete, further increasing competition in the identity management solutions industry.

We believe that our ability to compete successfully depends on a number of factors, including the type and quality of our products and the strength of our brand names, as well as many factors beyond our control. We may not be able to compete successfully against current or future competitors, and increased competition may result in price reductions, reduced profit margins, loss of market share and an inability to generate cash flows that are sufficient to maintain or expand the development and marketing of new products, any of which would adversely impact our results of operations and financial condition.

The Company may be unable to effectively protect its intellectual property. To date, the Company has been issued eleven patents related to its products and technology. The Company has many more pending patent applications as of the date of this report. There is no guarantee that the Company will ever be issued patents on the applications it has submitted. In addition, in order to control costs, we have filed patent applications only in the United States. This may result in our having limited or no protection in other jurisdictions. Our success depends to a significant degree upon the protection of our products and technology. If we are unable to secure patents for our products and technology, or are otherwise are unsuccessful at protecting our technology, other companies with greater resources may copy our technology and/or products, or improve upon them, putting us at a disadvantage to our competitors.

Successful infringement claims against us could result in significant monetary liability or prevent us from selling some of our products. We believe our products and technology may be highly disruptive to a very large and growing market. Our competitors are well capitalized with significant intellectual property protection and resources and they (and/or patent trolls) may initiate infringement lawsuits against our Company. Such litigation could be expensive and could also prevent us from selling our products, which would significantly harm our ability to grow our business as planned.

Our failure to attract and retain highly qualified personnel in the future could harm our business. As the Company grows, it will be required to hire and attract additional qualified professionals, additional staff for research and development, regulatory professionals, sales and marketing professionals, accounting, legal, and finance experts. The Company may not be able to locate or attract qualified individuals for such positions, which will affect the Company’s ability to grow and expand its business.

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We rely on third party service providers. Our third-party partners provide a variety of essential business functions, including distribution, manufacturing, and many others. It is possible that some of these third parties will fail to perform their services or will perform them in an unacceptable manner. If we encounter problems with one or more of these parties and they fail to perform to expectations, it could have a material adverse impact on the Company.

We currently have four customers that account for substantially all of our revenues. During the Company’s development, we have focused on developing relationships with a few partners and customers. As such, our historical financial results identify that we generated substantially all of our revenue from two customers – which relatively recently has increased to four. In total, Trust Stamp increased the concentration of non-affiliated customers generating significant revenue from 3 customers in the year ended December 31, 2020 to 6 customers in the year ended December 31, 2021. As we grow, we intend to expand the number of customers from which we generate revenues. In the opinion of our management, we would be able to continue operations without our current customers. However, the unanticipated loss of the Company’s current customers could have an adverse effect on the company’s financial position.

Our future success is dependent on the continued service of our small management team. Eight directors and four executive officers provide leadership to Trust Stamp. Two of the directors are also executive officers. Our success is dependent on their ability to manage all aspects of our business effectively. Because we are relying on our small management team, we lack certain business development resources that may hurt our ability to grow our business. Although we are currently growing our board and management team, there is no guarantee that newly added board and management team members will contribute to Trust Stamp as we hope. Any loss of key members of our executive team could have a negative impact on our ability to manage and grow our business effectively. We do not maintain a key person life insurance policy on any of the members of our senior management team. As a result, we would have no way to cover the financial loss if we were to lose the services of our directors or officers.

We expect to raise additional capital through equity and/or debt offerings to support our working capital requirements and operating losses. In order to fund future growth and development, the Company will likely need to raise additional funds in the future by offering shares of its Common or Preferred Stock and/or other classes of equity, or debt that convert into shares of common or Preferred Stock, any of which offerings would dilute the ownership percentage of investors in this report. See “Dilution”. In order to issue sufficient shares in this regard, we may be required to amend our certificate of incorporation to increase our authorized capital stock, which would be require us to obtain a consent of a majority of our shareholders. Furthermore, if the Company raises capital through debt, the holders of our debt would have priority over holders of common and Preferred Stock and the Company may be required to accept terms that restrict its ability to incur more debt. We cannot assure you that the necessary funds will be available on a timely basis, on favorable terms, or at all, or that such funds if raised, would be sufficient. The level and timing of future expenditure will depend on a number of factors, many of which are outside our control. If we are not able to obtain additional capital on acceptable terms, or at all, we may be forced to curtail or abandon our growth plans, which could adversely impact the Company, its business, development, financial condition, operating results, or prospects.

We are and may continue to be significantly impacted by the worldwide economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus, or COVID-19, was reported to have surfaced in Wuhan, China. COVID-19 has spread to many countries, including the United States, and was declared to be a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 have intensified and the U.S., Europe and Asia have implemented severe travel restrictions and social distancing. The impacts of the outbreak are unknown and rapidly evolving. A widespread health crisis has adversely affected and could continue to affect the global economy, resulting in an economic downturn that could negatively impact the operations of the Company, which could negatively impact your investment in our securities.

The continued spread of COVID-19 has also led to severe disruption and volatility in the global capital markets, which could increase our cost of capital and adversely affect our ability to access the capital markets in the future. It is possible that the continued spread of COVID-19 could cause a further economic slowdown or recession or cause other unpredictable events, each of which could adversely affect our business, results of operations or financial condition.

The extent to which COVID-19 affects our financial results will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including new information which may emerge concerning the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak and the actions to contain the outbreak or treat its impact, among others. Moreover, the COVID-19 outbreak has had and may continue to have indeterminable adverse effects on general commercial activity and the world economy, and our business and results of operations could be adversely affected to the extent that COVID-19 or any other pandemic harms the global economy generally.

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We are subject to risks related foreign currency exchange rates. We operate on a global basis. We have operations (through our subsidiaries and/or directly) in many foreign countries and territories, including, but not limited to, Great Britain, Poland, Rwanda, and the Republic of Malta. The translation from any currencies to United States Dollars for financial statement presentation resulted in a foreign currency loss of $159,270 for the year ended December 31, 2021, and $81,137 gain for the year ended December 31, 2020, but it could lead to a loss in the future. Such foreign currency translation losses could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We are an emerging growth company, and the reduced reporting requirements applicable to emerging growth companies could make our Class A Common Stock less attractive to investors. We are an emerging growth company, as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. For as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, we may take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies, including not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, exemptions from the requirements of holding nonbinding advisory votes on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved, and an exemption from compliance with the requirement of the PCAOB regarding the communication of critical audit matters in the auditor’s report on the financial statements. We could be an emerging growth company for up to five years following the year in which we completed our IPO, although circumstances could cause us to lose that status earlier. We will remain an emerging growth company until the earlier of (1) the last day of the fiscal year (a) following the fifth anniversary of the date of the closing of our IPO, (b) in which we have total annual gross revenue of at least $1.07 billion or (c) in which we are deemed to be a large accelerated filer, which requires the market value of our common stock that are held by non-affiliates to exceed $700.0 million as of the prior June 30th, and (2) the date on which we have issued more than $1.0 billion in non-convertible debt during the prior three-year period.

In addition, the JOBS Act provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of an extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards. This allows an emerging growth company to delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We have elected to use this extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards that have different effective dates for public and private companies until the earlier of the date we (i) are no longer an emerging growth company or (ii) affirmatively and irrevocably opt out of the extended transition period provided in the JOBS Act. As a result, our financial statements may not be comparable to companies that comply with new or revised accounting pronouncements as of public company effective dates.

We cannot predict if investors will find our Class A Common Stock less attractive because we may rely on the reporting exemptions and the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting 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 share price may be more volatile.

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*On August 18, 2021, by written consent of the stockholders, the Company effected a 5-for-1 forward stock split. The prices listed in the table above have been retroactively restated to reflect the stock split. The stock split was effective for trading on the market opening of both Euronext Growth and OTCQX on August 23, 2021.

Performance Graph

We are a smaller reporting company, as defined by Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act, and are not required to provide the information required under this item.

Dividend Policy

To date, we have not paid any dividends on our Class A Common Stock and do not anticipate paying any dividends in the foreseeable future. The declaration and payment of dividends on the Class A Common Stock is at the discretion of our Board of Directors and will depend on, among other things, our operating results, financial condition, capital requirements, contractual restrictions or such other factors as our Board of Directors may deem relevant. We currently expect to use all available funds to finance the future development and expansion of our business and do not anticipate paying dividends on our Class A Common Stock in the foreseeable future.

Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans

On April 9, 2019, management created a new entity, TStamp Incentive Holdings (“TSIH”) to which the Company issued 1,620,565 shares of Class A Common Stock that the Board of Directors of TSIH could use for employee stock awards in the future. As of December 31, 2020, 282,565 of these shares were outstanding, and 282,565 remained available for issuance. The purpose of the entity was to provide an analogous structure to a traditional stock incentive plan. Any equity compensation approved by the Company would be issued by TSIH. As of the date of this report, 282,565 shares of Class A Common Stock are still held by TSIH – however, all of these shares of Class A Common Stock have been allocated for issuance pursuant to RSUs that vested on January 2, 2022. The Company has no plans to issue additional equity securities to TSIH. As such, once these remaining shares are issued, it is expected this entity will become dormant going forward.

The Company expects to adopt another equity compensation plan in the near future, but has not yet done so as of the date of this report.

Executive Compensation Philosophy

Our Board of Directors determines the compensation given to our executive officers in their sole discretion. Our Board of Directors reserves the right to pay our executives or any future executives a salary, and/or issue them shares of Class A Common Stock issued in consideration for services rendered and/or to award incentive bonuses which are linked to our performance, as well as to the individual executive officer’s performance. This package may also include long-term stock-based compensation to certain executives, which is intended to align the performance of our executives with our long-term business strategies. Additionally, the Board of Directors has granted and reserves the right to grant performance-based equity awards in the future, if the Board of Directors in its sole determination believes such grants would be in our best interests.

Incentive Bonus

The Board of Directors may grant incentive bonuses to our executive officers and/or future executive officers in its sole discretion, if the Board of Directors believes such bonuses are in our best interest, after analyzing our current business objectives and growth, if any, and the amount of revenue we are able to generate each month, which revenue is a direct result of the actions and ability of such executives.

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Long-Term, Stock Based Compensation

In order to attract, retain and motivate executive talent necessary to support our long-term business strategy we may award our executives and any future executives with long-term, stock-based compensation in the future, at the sole discretion of our Board of Directors.

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It was publicly announced in September 2021 that Mastercard’s Community Pass is being implemented for a project between Mastercard and Paycode, with a goal of servicing 30 million customers that are underserved and unbanked in Africa. Given that Trust Stamp’s IT2 and Facial Recognition technologies are utilized within the Mastercard Community Pass platform on a pay-per-use basis, it is anticipated that the implementation will generate substantial pay-per-use revenue over and above guaranteed minimum revenue under the software agreement.

In 2021, we pursued the award of a significant contract with the ICE which required an investment in productization, business development and satisfying extensive due diligence processes. The $3,920,764 contract was awarded September 23, 2021 for commencement of services on September 27, 2021. The Company is performing its obligations under this contract as of the date of this report and during the year ended December 31, 2021 recognized $1.7 million in net sales related to this agreement. Alongside the revenue implications of this specific contract, it is believed that a successful execution will lead to extended and additional contracts of the same nature in addition to increasing Trust Stamp’s corporate visibility, reputation, and trust in associated markets.

Trust Stamp continues to expand a robust sales pipeline in the Company’s key markets and the velocity of pipeline growth has increased in 2021. Our pipeline included 55 potential revenue contracts and projects as of December 31, 2021.

During the year ended December 31, 2021, the Company contracted with a third-party software developer to meet the need for additional research and development resources over and above internal resources.

During the year ended December 31, 2021, the cost of those services was the largest single expense other than internal employment costs. We have continued scaling our development team in Malta and have established a new development team in Rwanda. The expansion of our internal development teams has required additional hiring, onboarding, training and equipment costs in 2021 but will going forward allow us to substantially increase the percentage of contracts that are serviced internally with an estimated 60% reduction in our per-hour development costs versus contracted services.

Trust Stamp’s key sub-markets are identity authentication for the purpose of account opening, access and fraud detection and the creation of tokenized identities to facilitate financial & societal inclusion.

Key Business Measure

In addition to the measures presented in our consolidated financial statements, we use the following key non-GAAP business measure to help us evaluate our business, identify trends affecting our business, formulate business plans and financial projections, and make strategic decisions.

Adjusted EBITDA

This discussion includes information about Adjusted EBITDA that is not prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Adjusted EBITDA is not based on any standardized methodology prescribed by U.S. GAAP and is not necessarily comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. A reconciliation of this non-GAAP measure is included below.

Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure that represents U.S. GAAP net income (loss) adjusted to exclude (1) interest expense, (2) interest income, (3) provision for income taxes, (4) depreciation and amortization, (5) changes in assets and liabilities, and (6) certain other items management believes affect the comparability of operating results.

Management believes that Adjusted EBITDA, when viewed with our results under U.S. GAAP and the accompanying reconciliations, provides useful information about our period-over-period results. Adjusted EBITDA is presented because management believes it provides additional information with respect to the performance of our fundamental business activities and is also frequently used by securities analysts, investors and other interested parties in the evaluation of comparable companies. We also rely on Adjusted EBITDA as a primary measure to review and assess the operating performance of our Company and our management, and it will be a focus as we invest in and grow the business.

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Adjusted EBITDA has limitations as an analytical tool and you should not consider it in isolation from, or as a substitute for, analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. Some of these limitations are:

Due to these limitations, adjusted EBITDA should not be considered as a measure of discretionary cash available to us to invest in the growth of our business. We compensate for these limitations by relying primarily on our U.S. GAAP results and using Adjusted EBITDA only as a supplement to our U.S. GAAP results.

Adjusted EBITDA (non-GAAP) loss for the year ended December 31, 2021, decreased by 0.33%, to $5.36 million from $5.38 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. The overall increase/decrease in adjusted EBITDA loss was driven primarily by a $1.40 million increase in gross margin during the year ended December 31, 2021, offset by an increase in selling, general and administrative expenses of $1.94 million during the year ended December 31, 2021. See “Results of Operations” below for further discussion on the drivers behind the increase in gross margin and selling, general and administrative expenses during the year ended December 31, 2021.

Gross sales (non-GAAP)

This discussion includes information about gross sales hat is not prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Gross sales is not based on any standardized methodology prescribed by U.S. GAAP and is not necessarily comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. A reconciliation of this non-GAAP measure is included below.

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Gross sales for the year ended December 31, 2021 increased 40% to $4.0 million compared to $2.9 million for year ended December 31, 2020. The increase of gross sales in the year ended December 31, 2021 is primarily attributable to new sales of $1.7 million generated through the execution of the ICE contract, which is further discussed in the “Key Customer” section of Part 1, Item 1. Due to GAAP requirements, we did not include the third-party costs for web hosting in net sales, but instead, reduced Cost of Services.

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Net sales for the three months ended December 31, 2021 made up 56.99% of total net sales recognized for the year ended December 31, 2021. This uptick in the fourth quarter is primarily attributable to $1.68 million of recognized revenue from the new $3.92 million ICE contract entered into in September 2021 with an initial term of 6 months. Further, during the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2021, the percentage of revenue associated with our other Key Business Measures (loss from operations, adjusted free cash flow, net loss, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA per share, diluted, and net loss per share, diluted) has significantly decreased when compared to the year ended December 31, 2021. The sharp improvement in these margins is primarily attributable to the cost margins associated with the ICE contract being much lower than those associated with the majority of our other revenue agreements. This is indicative of the Company’s transition to lower cost margin contracts which involve semi-customized solutions versus semi-customized solutions which are implemented using semi-customized existing internal-use software.

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Adjusted free cash flow margin improved from 203.45% for the year ended December 31, 2021 to 75.40% for the quarter ended December 31, 2021. This improvement is primarily attributable to the margin generated on the new ICE revenue contract, which had services commence during the fourth quarter of 2021. The recognized margin associated with this contract during the fourth quarter was $1.59 million, or 95%, which is significantly higher than our gross margin during the year ended December 31, 2021 of $2.53 million, or 69%.

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Adjusted EBITDA margin improved from 145.78% for the year ended December 31, 2021 to 29.23% for the quarter ended December 31, 2021. This margin improvement is primarily attributable to margin generated on the new ICE revenue contract, which had services commenced during the fourth quarter of 2021.

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Net sales

We derive our revenue primarily from professional services. Most of the revenue is derived from the contract with ICE which amounts to $1.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2021.

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Cost of services provided

Cost of services provided generally consists of the cost of hosting fees and cost of labor associated with professional services rendered. Depreciation and amortization expense is not included in cost of services provided.

Further, several projects that were originally in the research and development stage became feasible projects, shifting the allocation of cost from research and development into cost of services provided in the current year as client specific products were implemented using the technologies. This increase of expense allocation is a result of our prior decision to invest more money in research and development in prior periods and our goal of accelerating our product roadmap coming to fruition.

We expect that cost of services provided will increase in absolute dollars as our revenue grows and will vary from period-to-period as a percentage of revenue.

Research and development

Research and development expenses (“R&D”) consist primarily of personnel costs, including salaries and benefits. Personnel costs are allocated to R&D for time spent working on the preliminary project stage and post-implementation maintenance as well as time spent on bug fixes associated with internal-use software activities, front-end application development in which technological feasibility has not been established, and services rendered to customers under funded software-development arrangements.

We plan to continue to invest in personnel to support our research and development efforts. As a result, we expect that research and development expenses will increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future as we continue to invest to support these activities.

Selling, general, and administrative

Selling, general, and administrative (“SG&A”) expenses were generally composed of payroll, legal, and professional fees, including an increase in sales commission expense incurred because of new statements of work.

We expect that sales and marketing expenses will increase in absolute dollars as we continue to invest in our potential and current customers, in growing our business and enhancing our brand awareness.

Depreciation and amortization

The increase in depreciation and amortization is primarily due to a continued investment in internally developed software which will be used for future productization.

Interest income (expense)

Interest income (expense) consists primarily of interest expense accrued on a promissory notes payable. Additionally, the Company earned interest income in the form of cash back by using its corporate line of credit.

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Warrant expense

The warrant expense relates to the warrants issued during the periods presented. For more information on warrants, see Issuances of Equity, Notes, Warrants and SAFEs section below in the document.

Impairment of investment in related party

The impairment of investment in related party relates to Emergent wherein we were informed in April 2021 that Emergent wound up and ceased operations in December 2020 therefore, the investment was written off as a non-operating expense. We note that all purchase orders related to Emergent were fully delivered prior to it winding up and no further obligation to them exists.

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Net sales

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Net sales increased by $1.03 million, or 38.9%, for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the year ended December 31, 2020. The increase was driven by revenue contracts executed by newly acquired and existing customers. Total net sales from new revenue contracts signed in 2021 produced $2.51 million, consisting of  $1.68 million from ICE, $211 thousand from an SP500 bank, a statement of work (“SOW”) from Mastercard for $334 thousand, $224 thousand from FIS, and the remaining $61 thousand from various other new SOW.

Additionally, the Company saw large increases in revenue from SOW that existed in 2020, specifically a 400% increase from an SOW with an SP500 bank, and SOW 6 and 10 with Mastercard that increased by 33.33% and 50.00%, respectively. Finally, and most notably, during the third quarter 2021, the Company executed a 6-month, $3.92 million revenue contract with ICE, which launched in the fourth quarter of 2021 and provides six monthly payments of $653 thousand until its completion on March 27, 2022.

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Cost of services provided (“COS”) decreased by $369 thousand, or 24.3%, for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the year ended December 31, 2020. This decrease was primarily driven by the completion of a contract with Emergent Technology Holdings (“Emergent”) in the year ended December 31, 2020, which accounted for $781 thousand or 51.35% of COS for the year ended December 31, 2020. The reduction of year-over-year (“YOY”) COS, due to the completion of the Emergent contract, was offset in 2021 by a 55.6% increase in COS related to new and existing customer implementations.

During the year ended December 31, 2021, gross profit increased by 124.0% or $1.40 million from $1.13 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 to $2.53 million for the year ended December 31, 2021. Gross margins improved by 26.1% from 42.6% for the year ended December 31, 2020 to 68.7% for the year ended December 31, 2021.

This considerable improvement in gross profit and margin is a result of the Company’s revenue mix transition. Historically, revenue contracts consisted mostly of services-based SOW to build fully customized solutions, which as a result, funded the development of the Company’s internal-use software or microservices. These microservices can be arranged in various ways to deliver semi-customizable solutions for many customers over time. As the Company transitions its revenue mix from fully-custom to semi-custom solutions, using its existing technology, margins improve dramatically as there is a relatively nominal cost to implementing existing technology, which is currently evident in the gross profit margin of the ICE revenue contract. Additionally, during the year ended December 31, 2021, the ICE revenue contract enjoyed even higher margins than expected due to certain performance obligations that were not fulfilled as of December 31, 2021. The Company anticipates it will incur higher costs in fiscal year 2022 related to other performance obligations under the ICE contract not yet delivered as of December 31, 2021, therefore, the ICE revenue contract is expected to experience lower margins in the first quarter of 2022.

Research and development expense decreased by $213 thousand, or 7.8%, for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the year ended December 31, 2020. The decrease is driven by the $1.00 million in non-cash equity compensation that was awarded to R&D team members for 2019 services and vested on December 8th, 2020 upon the Company’s public listing on Euronext Growth Exchange. This one-off award caused an unusual spike in R&D expenses for 2020. The 2021 R&D expense increases that offset the YOY variance due to the 2019 award spike were driven by the Company’s continued investment in R&D mostly by ramping up headcount during the fiscal years 2020 and 2021. In 2021, the Company’s R&D subsidiary, Trust Stamp Malta Limited, grew its headcount from 23 to 40 full-time equivalents (“FTE”). Additionally, the Company opened its African R&D center, Trust Stamp Rwanda Limited in Rwanda, staffing 11 FTE by the end of 2021. Finally, the Company added 3 new technical staff members in the US to service the ICE contract.

Selling, general and administrative expense increased by $1.94 million, or 30.4%, for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the year ended December 31, 2020. The increase is driven mostly by the 64.9% growth in team member headcount and associated overhead for 57 to 94 FTE. Similarly, the addition of new personnel resulted in an increase of $808 thousand in non-cash, stock-based compensation which accounted for 41.7% of the increase. YOY stock-based compensation was driven, in part, by the Company’s stock price input which is used in accounting estimates to determine the non-cash expense for equity contracts. As the Company’s stock price increased from $1.56 to $4.00 YOY, the associated expense increased exponentially.

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Depreciation and amortization expense increased by $168 thousand, or 41.2%, for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the year ended December 31, 2020. The increase was primarily attributable to depreciation and amortization charged amounting to $67 thousand for the year ended December 31, 2021 on assets purchased in Malta to establish research and development center as compared to depreciation and amortization amounting to $9 thousand for the year ended December 31, 2020. The increase is further attributable to three new patent issuances during the year ended December 31, 2021 which resulted in $34 thousand in additional amortization.

Interest expense decreased by $143 thousand, or 78.1%, for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the year ended December 31, 2020. The decrease was primarily attributable to conversion of the SixThirty Cyberfund note in June 2020 which produced a one time beneficial conversion expense of $100 thousand. Additionally, Company paid off its promissory note entered with Second Century Ventures (“SCV”) in April 2021.

The Company recognized a change in fair value of warrant liability for the year ended December 31, 2021 of $87 thousand based on the fair value assessment and adjustment for one warrant liability as described in Note 4 to the financial statements provided under Item 8 of this report.

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Warrant expense for the year ended December 31, 2021 is due to sale of warrants to SCV which resulted in a one time non-cash warrant expense of $1.41 million as described below in the “Liquidity and Capital Resources” section of this report.

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