Investing in our Class A common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should consider and read carefully all of the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information contained in this Form 10-Q, including our condensed consolidated financial statements and related notes and Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in this Form 10-Q and including our consolidated financial statements and related notes and Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in our 2025 Annual Report, before making an investment decision related to our Class A common stock. The risks described below are not the only ones 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, and you may lose some or all of your original investment.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
Our revenue and results of operations are highly dependent on the growth and expansion of CTV, and performance marketers using CTV, as well as the continued growth and expansion of our PTV platform. If adoption of CTV by customers develops more slowly than we expect, or performance marketing spend on CTV grows more slowly than we expect, our results of operations and growth prospects could be adversely affected.
CTV is a relatively new and rapidly evolving industry, and the success of this model of consuming TV content is critical to the success and development of our platform. The growth of the CTV industry and the level of demand and market acceptance for CTV products are subject to a high degree of uncertainty. We believe that the continued growth of streaming, and AVOD in particular, as an alternative to entertainment mediums other than TV will depend on the availability of cost-effective broadband Internet access, the quality of broadband content delivery, the quality and reliability of CTV technology, and the cost and appeal for users as compared to other sources of content. Customers, content publishers or marketers may find CTV less attractive than alternative entertainment mediums, which would adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our business depends on the growth and expansion of performance marketing in the CTV medium and, in particular, the continued growth in performance marketing based spend through our PTV platform. If marketers choose to dedicate budgets to alternative marketing channels such as paid search or paid social, or reduce their overall performance marketing spending, our revenue and results of operations will be directly affected. In addition, various macro factors could cause customers to reduce their marketing budgets. See the risk factor titled “Our revenue and results of operations are highly dependent on the overall demand for advertising. Factors that affect the level of demand, and resulting amount of spend on general advertising, and to a lesser extent digital advertising, such as a change in macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical regional conflicts, can make it difficult to predict our revenue and could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.”
Furthermore, the success of our efforts to advance new services for increased advertising automation will depend upon adoption of our platform by customers in lieu of their traditional methods of order placement. It is difficult to predict adoption rates, demand for our platform, the future growth rate and size of the digital advertising solutions market or the entry of competitive solutions.
Growth in the performance marketing market using CTV is dependent on a number of factors, including the pace of cord-cutting (the replacement of traditional TV for CTV streaming), the continued proliferation of digital content and CTV providers, the continued movement from subscription-based models to advertising-based models and the rate of shift of performance marketing dollars from traditional performance marketing channels, and of brand advertising dollars from traditional TV advertising channels, each to performance marketing using CTV. If the market for performance ad-supported CTV develops more slowly than we expect or fails to develop as a result of these or other factors, our results of operations and growth prospects could be adversely affected.
39
Table of Contents
Any expansion of the market for digital advertising solutions more generally depends on a number of factors, including social and regulatory acceptance, the growth of the overall digital advertising market and the growth of specific sectors including social, mobile, video, and out-of-home as well as the actual or perceived technological viability, quality, cost, performance and value associated with emerging digital advertising solutions. If digital marketing does not develop in the manner we expect, our business and financial condition could be adversely affected.
If we fail to attract new customers, or if our existing customers do not expand their usage of our platform, our growth will suffer.
In order to grow the usage of our platform, we need to attract new customers, and expand our relationships with existing customers. We must continue to develop new and improve our current technology to compete effectively, and customers have not always embraced our offerings, or updates thereto, due to various factors. Although we believe we strive to provide superior attribution and performance when compared to our competitors, certain customers may place technological or financial demands that we are unable to meet. These and other factors may make it difficult for us to attract new customers, or increase our business with our existing customers, causing some customers to reduce their spending with us, or cause us to increase our costs of doing business, adversely affecting our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
As CTV continues its rapid adoption by consumers, we will seek to attract ad spend from new customers to support our continued growth. Additionally, as marketers increase their existing CTV spend and diversify their advertising budgets, we will seek to grow current levels of utilization with our existing customers to support our continued growth. However, if we are not able to attract ad spend from marketers increasing their existing CTV spend or diversifying their marketing to CTV, it will be difficult for us to sustain continued growth which may have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
In addition, our revenue growth may also depend on our ability to grow adoption of our platform by top national and global brands that often have existing agencies they use for marketing services. These brands have considerable marketing budgets but may be unwilling to abandon their existing relationships with agencies in order to adopt our self-serve, brand-direct platform. Furthermore, our revenue growth may depend on our ability to extend our platform into adjacent channels and markets. We believe that these opportunities present a significant opportunity for long-term growth as technological advancements further disrupt CTV and performance marketing, and our inability to extend our platform to top national and global brands or expand internationally could impact our growth and adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
If we are not able to achieve our customers’ ROAS and other campaign goals, customers may reduce their overall ad spend.
Our success depends on our ability to achieve and maintain customers’ ROAS and other campaign goals and increase incremental usage on our platform. If we are not able to achieve our customers’ ROAS and other specific campaign goals, customers may reduce their overall advertising budgets and ad spend. Our platform allows customers to control specific targets and goals, which could impact the ROAS and other campaign goals a particular customer achieves. If a customer sets a goal that is unattainable due to circumstances beyond our control, and we do not achieve that ROAS or other campaign goals, customers may reduce their usage of our platform. Additionally, if we overestimate future usage, we may incur additional expenses in adding infrastructure without a commensurate increase in revenue. These factors could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
A limited number of customers account for a significant portion of our revenue.
While no customer accounted for more than 10% of our revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025 and the six months ended June 30, 2026, our top ten customers collectively accounted for approximately 17% and 20%, respectively, of our revenue for the same periods. We expect to continue to generate a significant portion of our revenue from these customers for the foreseeable future. At present, almost all of our customers are not subject to committed contracts with us. There are inherent risks whenever a large percentage of total revenues are concentrated with a limited number of customers. If any of our significant customers were to reduce or cease their usage of our platform, it may have an outsized effect on our revenue, thereby adversely affecting our business, results of operation, and financial condition.
We are also subject to the risk that any of our significant customers will experience financial difficulties that may prevent them from making payments to us on a timely basis or at all, which may have an outsized adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
40
Table of Contents
Our revenue and results of operations are highly dependent on our ability to effectively deliver our creative solutions to our customers and our customers to adopt them. Moreover, our creative solutions may not yield our intended or our customers’ desired results.
We have invested significant resources in our creative solutions and cannot be certain that our investment in developing our creative solutions will be adopted by customers. We offer creative solutions to our customers to reduce the friction of advertising on TV and to provide an option for customers to create and refresh ads quickly and cost effectively to increase their ROAS. These offerings include allowing customers (i) to bundle creative services in exchange for annual contracts with minimum spend requirements, (ii) to obtain creative based on certain spend thresholds, or (iii) to otherwise receive our creative solutions. However, our creative services may not ultimately reduce the friction of being able to advertise on TV, be quicker or more cost effective than other solutions, or increase ROAS for customers. We may not be able to accurately predict customer demand for our creative solutions or the level of usage of our creative solutions, develop appropriate creative solutions based on customer demand or effectively have these creative solutions yield our intended or our customers’ desired results. Further, we may not be able to generate enough revenue to offset our cost of the creative solutions, or may generate too much demand for our creative solutions, either of which may negatively impact our business, results of operations and financial condition. Any failure among our customers to adopt our creative solutions, whether due to customers losing confidence in the value or effectiveness of such solutions, customers being unwilling to leave their existing creative agencies and switch over to our creative solutions, or other causes, could impact our growth and adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our revenue and results of operations are highly dependent on the overall demand for advertising. Factors that affect the level of demand, and resulting amount of spend on general advertising, and to a lesser extent digital advertising, such as a change in macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical regional conflicts, can make it difficult to predict our revenue and could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our revenue and results of operations are highly dependent on the overall demand for advertising and on the economic health of our current and prospective marketers. Ad spend is closely tied to marketers’ financial performance and a downturn, either generally or in one or more of the industries in which our customers operate, could adversely impact the general advertising market. Various events beyond our control could cause marketers to reduce their advertising budgets or slow the growth of their ad spending, such as health epidemics, geopolitical events and regional conflicts, and global macroeconomic factors like labor shortages, inflation, interest rate volatility, changes in foreign currency exchange rates, instability in the global financial system, supply chain disruptions, increased tariffs and other trade barriers, other adverse economic conditions and general uncertainty about economic recovery or growth, instability in political or market conditions generally, and any changes in tax treatment of advertising expenses and the deductibility thereof. While these factors are less likely to have a pronounced effect on the effect of digital advertising performance and spend, they may nonetheless have a material adverse impact on our operating results. Reductions in overall ad spend as a result of these factors could make it difficult to predict our revenue and could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We believe that our team members have been able to work productively in an entirely remote environment and have continued to remain all-remote. The degree to which geopolitical conflicts and recent global macroeconomic conditions, including interest rate volatility, inflation, uncertainty with respect to the federal budget and debt ceiling and governmental shutdowns related thereto, and actual or perceived instability in the banking industry, impact our results will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted. Any worsening of global macroeconomic conditions in future periods would likely have a negative effect on our financial results, the magnitude of which is difficult to predict. In addition, continued inflation could result in an increase in our cost base relative to our revenue.
Additional or unforeseen effects from health pandemics and epidemics, geopolitical events and changes in global macroeconomic conditions may adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.
Our results of operations may fluctuate significantly and may not meet our expectations or those of securities analysts and investors.
Our results of operations have fluctuated in the past and are likely to continue to fluctuate in the future from quarter to quarter and year to year because of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. As a result, because our business is evolving, our historical results of operations may be of limited utility in assessing our future prospects. In addition to the other risk factors discussed in this section, factors that can cause our results of operations to fluctuate include:
•seasonality in demand for digital advertising among our customers that market to consumers or are e-commerce customers, as many such customers devote a disproportionate amount of their advertising budgets to the fourth quarter of the calendar year to coincide with increased holiday spending, and advertising inventory in the fourth quarter may be more expensive due to increased demand for advertising inventory;
41
Table of Contents
•changes in pricing of advertising inventory, changes in supply, improvements in technology and extension of automation to higher-value inventory, uncertainty regarding rate of adoption, changes in the allocation of spend by customers, changes in revenue mix, auction dynamics, or negotiations with customers and potential customers and other factors;
•diversification of our revenue mix to include new customers and solutions;
•the addition or loss of customers or sellers of advertising inventory;
•general economic conditions and the economic health of our current and prospective customers and sellers of advertising inventory;
•changes in the advertising strategies or budgets or financial condition of customers;
•the performance of our technology and the cost, timeliness, and results of our technology innovation efforts;
•marketing technology and digital media industry conditions and the overall demand for advertising, or changes and uncertainty in the regulatory environment for us or current or prospective customers or sellers of advertising inventory, including with respect to privacy regulation;
•the introduction of new technologies or service offerings by our competitors and market acceptance of such technologies or services;
•changes to the use of tracking pixels, which are snippets of code that are loaded when a user visits a website or opens an email (“pixels”), throughout the industry;
•our level of expenses, including investment required to support our technology development, scale our technology infrastructure and business expansion efforts, including hiring, acquisitions or expenses related to litigation;
•the impact of changes in our stock price on valuation of stock-based compensation or other instruments that are marked to market;
•the effectiveness of our financial, information technology and data privacy infrastructure and controls;
•geopolitical and social factors, such as inflation or future public health threats, concerns regarding negative, unstable or changing economic conditions in the countries and regions where we operate, global and regional recessions, political instability, and trade disputes;
•foreign exchange rate fluctuations; and
•changes in accounting policies and principles and the significant judgments and estimates made by management in the application of these policies and principles.
Any one or more of the factors above may result in significant fluctuations in our results of operations. You should not rely on our past results as an indicator of our future performance.
Because many of our expenses are based upon forecasted demand and may be difficult to reduce in the short-term, volatility in quarterly revenue could cause significant variations in quarterly results of operations. We may not forecast our revenue or expenses accurately, causing our results of operations to diverge from our estimates or the expectations of securities analysts, and investors. If we fail to meet or exceed such expectations for these or any other reasons, the trading price of our Class A common stock could fall, and we could face costly litigation, including securities class action lawsuits.
Seasonal fluctuations in the demand for the products of our consumer-facing and e-commerce customers could adversely affect our business, results of operations, or financial condition.
Our revenue may vary from quarter to quarter due to the seasonal nature of demand for many of our customers’ products or services that market to consumers and e-commerce customers. For example, digital marketers that market to consumers or market e-commerce products or services tend to devote a large portion of their budgets to campaigns in the fourth quarter of the year, to coincide with consumer holiday spending, and then have a significantly smaller advertising budget in the first calendar quarter. Seasonality in the fourth quarter of the calendar year has translated to our highest levels of platform activity and spend as fourth quarter revenue comprised 30.0% and 30.9% of our revenue for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, respectively. Seasonality in the first quarter of the calendar year has generally lead to our lowest levels of platform
42
Table of Contents
activity and spend with first quarter revenue comprised of 22.2% and 19.4% of our revenue for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, respectively.
Moreover, pricing of digital ad impressions that address these consumer markets in the fourth quarter is likely to be higher due to increased demand, and high-visibility events such as the Super Bowl and the FIFA Club World Cup, may cause fluctuations in ad spend and correspondingly, our revenue. We expect revenue to fluctuate in the future based on seasonal and event-driven factors described above, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our short operating history in PTV services makes it difficult to evaluate our business and prospects and may increase the risk associated with your investment.
We operate in an evolving industry with ever-changing customer needs, and, as a result, our business has evolved over time such that our operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our business and future prospects. We have a short operating history with PTV as our primary driver of revenue may not be indicative of future revenues or our future business. Although we have experienced substantial revenue growth, we may not be able to sustain this growth rate, current revenue levels or profitability. Moreover, we expect to face challenges, risks, and difficulties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly developing industries, including those relating to:
•innovating and developing new solutions that are adopted by and meet the needs of customers;
•further developing and maintaining our reputation for innovation and solutions that meet the needs of our customers;
•developing, maintaining, and expanding relationships with new and existing customers;
•distinguishing ourselves from competitors that offer alternative advertising solutions and distinguishing ourselves from new competitors in the PTV industry;
•responding to evolving industry standards and government regulations that impact our business, particularly in the areas of data protection and consumer privacy;
•preventing or otherwise mitigating failures or breaches of privacy or security;
•competing against companies in other advertising channels with a larger customer base or greater financial or technical resources;
•managing expenses as we invest in our infrastructure and technology to scale our business and operate as a public company; and
•recruiting, integrating, and retaining qualified and motivated employees, who we refer to as team members, particularly engineers.
If we are not successful in addressing these and other issues, our business may suffer, our revenue may decline and we may not be able to achieve further growth or sustain profitability.
If we do not manage our growth effectively, the quality of our platform may suffer, and our business, results of operations, and financial condition may be adversely affected.
The growth in our business may place demands on our infrastructure and our operational, managerial, administrative, and financial resources. Our success will depend on the ability of our management to manage growth effectively. Among other things, this will require us at various times to:
•strategically invest in the development and enhancement of our platform, including extending our platform into adjacent channels and international markets;
•strategically invest in the development and enhancement of our multiple creative solutions;
•strategically invest to acquire new customers, and increase our share of existing customers’ digital ad spend;
•improve coordination among our engineering, product, operations, and other support organizations;
•manage multiple relationships with various partners, customers, and other third parties;
43
Table of Contents
•develop our operating, administrative, legal, financial, and accounting systems and controls; and
•recruit, hire, train, and retain team members.
If we do not manage our growth well, the efficacy and performance of our platform may suffer, which could harm our reputation and reduce demand for our platform. Failure to manage future growth effectively could harm our business and have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Additionally, within our broader expansion plans, we may from time to time reduce our headcount based on operational objectives; for example, in April 2026, we approved a strategic restructuring plan designed to improve operational efficiencies and better position the Company for long-term sustainability and success, which included a reduction of the Company’s workforce. Efficiency initiatives, workforce reductions and changes to our workplace model may affect our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel, result in loss of institutional knowledge and expertise, cause attrition beyond our intended reduction in force or negatively impact team members’ morale. Internal restructurings may also divert management attention from our business and may negatively impact our culture.
Our sales and marketing efforts may require significant investments and, in certain cases and as we expand into new markets, involve long sales cycles, and may not yield the results we seek.
Our sales and marketing teams educate prospective customers about the use, technical capabilities, and benefits of our platform. Our sales cycle, from initial contact to execution and implementation, may take significant time with certain customers, and may be extended as we extend our platform to attract national and global brands (which are more likely to have established relationships with marketing agencies that serve as a barrier to adoption of our self-serve, brand-direct platform), into adjacent channels and markets. We are often required to explain how our platform can achieve the targeted ROAS or other specific campaign goals for a customer. We may spend substantial time and resources prospecting for new business (including national and global brands and in new markets) or responding to requests for proposals from potential customers, and it may not result in revenue. Following execution and implementation, ongoing sales cycles and account management may take significant time as we attempt to develop software solutions for national and global brands and as we seek to develop our international presence. We may not succeed in attracting new customers (including national and global brands, and in new markets) despite our significant investment in our business development, sales and marketing organizations, and it is difficult to predict when new customers will begin generating revenue through our platform, and the extent of that revenue. We may not succeed in forming relationships with national or global brands, or expanding relationships with existing customers (including in new markets), despite our significant investment in our sales, account management, and marketing organizations, and it is difficult to predict when additional solutions will generate revenue, and the extent of that revenue.
Our product development and innovation efforts may be inefficient or ineffective, which may impair our ability to attract customers. If we fail to make the right investment decisions in our platform, or if we fail to innovate and develop new solutions that are adopted by customers, we may not attract and retain customers, which could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We need to continuously update our platform and the technology we invest in and develop, including our proprietary algorithms, in order to attract customers and keep ahead of changes in technology, and evolving industry standards and regulatory requirements. Our future success will depend in part upon our ability to enhance our existing platform and to develop and introduce new solutions in a timely and cost-effective manner with features that meet evolving customer and market requirements. To be able to enhance our platform and to develop and introduce new solutions, we will depend on our ability to recruit, train, motivate, and retain key technology and engineering personnel. We are a software-driven company and the innovation and delivery of complex technology at massive scale upon which our success depends are technological and engineering problems. It is imperative that we have highly skilled engineers and engineering management, mathematicians, and computer scientists, and appropriately qualified personnel can be difficult to recruit and retain.
Additionally, our technology is complex and can require a significant investment of time and resources to develop, test, introduce, and enhance. These activities can take longer than we expect, and we may not make the right decisions regarding these investments. We schedule and prioritize our development efforts according to a variety of factors, including our perceptions of market trends, customer requirements, and resource availability; however, we may encounter unanticipated difficulties that require us to re-direct or scale back our efforts and we may need to modify our plans in response to changes in customer requirements, market demands, resource availability, regulatory requirements, or other factors. If development and maintenance of our platform and technologies become significantly more expensive due to changes in regulatory requirements, industry practices, competition for team members, performance problems or other factors, we could experience a loss of customers, reputational impact or other adverse effects on our business, results of operations and financial condition. We may also find ourselves at a disadvantage to larger competitors with more resources to devote to development. In
44
Table of Contents
addition, new demands from customers, superior offerings by competitors, changes in technology, new industry standards or regulatory requirements could render our platform less effective and require us to make unanticipated changes to our platform or business model. These factors place significant demands upon our engineering organization, require complex planning, and can result in acceleration of some initiatives and delay of others. To the extent we do not manage our development efforts efficiently and effectively, we may fail to produce services that respond appropriately to the needs of customers, and competitors may more successfully develop responsive offerings. If our platform is not competitive, customers can be expected to shift their business to competitors. Customers may also resist adopting our new solutions for various reasons, including reluctance to disrupt existing relationships and business practices. There is no guarantee that our investments in new platform and technology updates will succeed in attracting and retaining customers, and our product development and innovation efforts may be inefficient or ineffective.
We generally do not have fixed commitments with customers or sellers of advertising inventory. If customers or sellers of advertising inventory representing a significant portion of the demand or inventory in our marketplace decide to materially reduce the use of our platform, we could experience an immediate and significant decline in our revenue and profitability and harm to our business.
Generally, our customers are not obligated to provide us with any minimum volumes of business, may do business with our competitors as well as with us, may reduce or cancel their business with us, and may bypass us and transact directly with sellers of advertising inventory or through other intermediaries that compete with us. Accordingly, our business is highly vulnerable to changes in the global macroeconomic environment, price competition, and development of new or more compelling offerings by our competitors, which could reduce business generally or motivate customers or sellers of advertising inventory to migrate to competitors’ offerings.
Sellers of advertising inventory and customers may allocate their advertising inventory or demand to our competitors who provide advertising demand and supply to them on more favorable terms or whose offerings are considered more beneficial. Supply of advertising inventory is also limited for some sellers of advertising inventory, such as special sites or new technologies, and sellers of advertising inventory may request higher prices, fixed price arrangements or guarantees that we cannot provide as effectively as our competitors, or that would reduce the profitability of that business. In addition, sellers of advertising inventory sometimes place significant restrictions on the sale of their advertising inventory, such as strict security requirements, limitations on data sharing, prohibitions on ads from specific customers or specific industries, and restrictions on the use of specified creative content or format. Customers, in turn, may also prohibit the purchase of advertising inventory from specific sellers of advertising inventory or more generally from sellers of advertising inventory based on the nature of the content on their network, and are free to direct their spend to us or one or more of our competitors, and increasingly are seeking price concessions, rebates, or other consideration to direct more spend towards us.
We serve many customers, but certain large customers have accounted for and will continue to account for a disproportionate share of business transacted through our platform. See the risk factor titled “A limited number of customers account for a significant portion of our revenue.” If a customer or group of customers representing a significant portion of the demand in our marketplace, or a seller or group of sellers representing a significant portion of the inventory in our marketplace decides to materially reduce use of our platform, it could cause an immediate and significant decline in our revenue and profitability and harm to our business. In addition, loss of substantial inventory or demand could degrade our marketplace. Loss of important unique inventory could reduce fees from demand that cannot be shifted to other sellers of advertising inventory and make it harder to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. The number of large customers and sellers of advertising inventory in the market is finite, and it could be difficult for us to replace the losses from any customers or sellers of advertising inventory whose relationships with us diminish or terminate. Additionally, if we overestimate future usage, we may incur additional expenses in adding infrastructure without a commensurate increase in revenue, which would harm our profitability and other results of operations.
Because of these factors, we seek to expand and diversify our customer relationships. Additionally, as part of our strategy to increase the volume of advertising inventory on our exchange, we are continuing relationships with aggregators of inventory and with large sources of supply that have their own monetization capabilities but also allow third parties to connect to their exchanges and bid on their inventory. These relationships represent additional risks in terms of inventory quality, transaction discrepancies, and collections, and may be less profitable because we may be required to compensate these partners or share the fees available for intermediaries in these transactions, and may incur higher serving costs relative to revenue.
As part of our creative solutions, we intend to enter into contracts with customers that provide for minimum spend obligations and have a fixed term. We may not be successful in generating interest in and adoption of creative solutions among new and existing customers.
45
Table of Contents
Our platform could be susceptible to errors, defects, or unintended performance problems that could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We depend upon the sustained and uninterrupted performance of our platform to operate our business. Software bugs, faulty algorithms, technical or infrastructure problems, or system updates could lead to an inability to process data to place ads or price inventory effectively, or cause ads to display improperly or be placed in proximity to inappropriate content, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition. These risks are compounded by the complexity of our technology, the rate at which we adopt updates to our platform and other technologies and the large amounts of data we utilize. Because our software is complex, undetected material defects, errors and failures may occur. Despite testing, errors or bugs in our software may not be found until the software is in our live operating environment. Errors or failures in our platform, even if caused by the implementation of changes by customers or partners to their systems, could also result in negative publicity, damage to our reputation, loss of or delay in market acceptance of our platform, increased costs or loss of revenue, or loss of competitive position. In such an event, we may be required or choose to expend additional resources to help mitigate any problems resulting from defects, errors, disruptions and other performance problems in our software. As a result, defects, errors, disruptions and other performance problems in our products or services could harm our reputation, result in significant costs to us, impair the ability of customers to purchase inventory and impair our ability to fulfill obligations with customers and partners. Any significant interruptions could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We are subject to laws, regulations and industry requirements related to data privacy, data protection, information security, and consumer protection across different markets where we conduct our business, including in the United States, and such laws, regulations, and industry requirements are constantly evolving and changing. Developments in and/or our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could have an adverse effect on our ability to collect, use and disclose data, our business, results of operations, and/or financial condition.
We receive, store, and process data about or related to consumers in addition to data about or related to our customers, team members, and services providers. Our handling of this data is subject to a variety of federal, state, and foreign laws and regulations and is subject to regulation by various government authorities. Our data handling also is subject to contractual obligations and certain industry standards. In general, there is no guarantee that regulators or consumers will agree with our approach to compliance and any actual, or perceived failure, to comply with applicable laws, regulations or requirements, may adversely affect our business.
Various state, federal and foreign governments have adopted or proposed limitations on the collection, distribution, use, storage, and processing of data relating to individuals, including the use of contact information and other data for marketing, advertising and other communications with individuals and businesses. In the United States, various laws and regulations apply to the collection, processing, disclosure, and security of certain types of data. Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) and many state attorneys general interpret federal and state consumer protection laws as imposing standards for the online collection, use, dissemination, and security of data. If we fail to comply with any such laws or regulations, we may be subject to enforcement actions that may not only expose us to litigation, fines, and civil and/or criminal penalties, but also require us to change our business practices as well as have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
The regulatory framework for data privacy issues worldwide is continually evolving and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. The occurrence of unanticipated events often rapidly drives the adoption of legislation or regulation affecting the use, collection, or other processing of data and manner in which we conduct our business. Restrictions could be placed upon the collection, management, aggregation, and use of data, which could result in a material increase in the cost of collecting or otherwise obtaining certain kinds of data and could limit the ways in which we may collect, use or disclose data. In particular, interest-based advertising, or the use of data to draw inferences about a user’s interests and deliver relevant advertising to that user, and similar or related practices (sometimes referred to as behavioral advertising or personalized advertising), such as cross-device data collection and aggregation, steps taken to de-identify personal data, and to use and distribute the resulting data, including for purposes of personalization and the targeting of ads, have come under increasing scrutiny by legislative, regulatory, and self-regulatory bodies across multiple jurisdictions, including the United States, with a focus on consumer protection and data privacy. Much of this scrutiny has focused on the use of cookies and similar technologies that collect data about Internet users’ online browsing activity on web browsers, mobile devices, and other devices, to associate such data with user or device identifiers or de-identified identities across devices and channels. In addition, providers of Internet browsers have engaged in, and may continue or expand, efforts to provide increased visibility into, and certain controls over, cookies and similar technologies and the data collected using such technologies (including sharing of such data). Because we, and our customers, rely upon collecting large volumes of data through such technologies (other than cookies), these efforts may have a substantial impact on our ability to collect and use data from Internet users, and it is essential that we monitor developments in this area domestically and globally, and engage in responsible privacy
46
Table of Contents
practices, including providing consumers with notice of the types of data we collect, the method of collection, and how we use and share that data to provide our services.
In the United States, Congress and state legislatures, along with federal and state regulatory authorities have increased their attention on matters concerning the collection and use of consumer data, including for advertising related purposes, with state regulators increasing their focus on data collection practices involving CTV devices. Many authorities require companies to provide an “opt-out” for certain types of advertising. If such authorities start to require “opt-in” consent prior to the collection, use or disclosure of data, or adopt other more restrictive requirements, less data would be available, and the cost of data would be higher. This could impact our business and those of our customers and business partners.
Certain states have adopted new or modified privacy and security laws and regulations that apply and may apply to our business. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act and related regulations (“CCPA”) provide individual privacy rights for California residents and increase the privacy and security obligations of businesses handling personal information. The CCPA generally requires covered businesses to, among other things, provide disclosures to California consumers and afford California consumers abilities to opt-out of certain sales of personal information (a concept that is defined broadly), certain uses and disclosures of sensitive personal information, and the sharing of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. The CCPA is enforceable by the California Attorney General and the California Privacy Protection Agency. The California Privacy Protection Agency is continuously amending the CCPA regulations, building upon the requirements in the CCPA, including with respect to automated decision-making, risk assessment, and cybersecurity audits. In the event of an actual or perceived violation of the CCPA, these regulators could seek severe statutory damages, injunctive relief or agreed settlements providing for ongoing audit and reporting requirements. There is also a private right of action relating to certain data security incidents. The CCPA has required and will likely continue to require us to modify our data collection or processing practices and policies or our business model and to incur substantial costs and expenses in an effort to comply and increase our potential exposure to regulatory enforcement and/or litigation, which could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Following the passage of the CCPA, over a third of other states across the country have passed their own comprehensive consumer privacy laws, with even more states considering their own such laws, which creates a patchwork of overlapping but different state laws. These laws are similar to the CCPA, but also differ in a variety of ways, such as by requiring opt-in consent for the collection of sensitive personal information in some states. Laws relating to specific privacy and consumer protection issues have been passed and are continuing to be considered in other states, including laws governing the collection and use of personal information (including for advertising) about children and teenagers or consumer health information, and laws relating to the use or deployment of AI. Many other states are currently reviewing or proposing the need for greater regulation of the collection, sharing, use and other processing of personal information related to individuals for marketing purposes. At various points, different versions of comprehensive federal privacy bills have been proposed as well. Such legislation would add additional complexity, and may add variation in requirements, restrictions, and potential legal risk, require additional investment in resources to compliance and cybersecurity programs, could impact strategies and availability of previously useful data, could result in increased compliance costs and/or changes in business practices, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and operating results.
Additionally, governmental agencies like the FTC have adopted, or are considering adopting, regulations concerning personal data and data security. For example, the FTC has adopted updates to existing regulations governing collection of data from children online, has proposed making updates to existing regulations related to “commercial surveillance” generally, and has increased its focus on data privacy and security practices at digital companies, as evidenced by enforcement actions against companies regarding their alleged disclosure of sensitive data, including web browsing data or location data, to third-parties for advertising purposes, and by obtaining twenty-year consent decrees mandating enhanced and specific requirements for information security management programs and the handling of consumer information.
Further, if we expand our business outside the United States into the European Union (“EU”) and/or the United Kingdom (“UK”), other laws will become applicable, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“EU GDPR”) and the UK equivalent (the “UK GDPR”) (collectively, the “GDPR”) and the EU ePrivacy Directive and national data protection supplementing laws in these jurisdictions. The GDPR includes robust operational requirements for companies that collect, receive, share, disclose, transfer, process or otherwise use personal data of individuals located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) and the UK which are different than requirements under U.S. data privacy and security laws, including placing requirements and restrictions on the transfer of personal data outside the EEA and the UK. Laws, guidance and the enforcement landscape around these requirements, including international data transfers to the United States, is complicated and continuing to evolve, and we may incur costs in taking compliance measures and/or these requirements may affect the manner in which we provide our services, and could adversely affect our business, operations and financial condition.
Failure to comply with data privacy and protection laws and regulations outside the United States that are found to apply to our business may result in regulatory investigations, significant penalties (up to the greater of €20 million for the EU GDPR
47
Table of Contents
or £17.5 million for the UK GDPR, or up to 4% of an enterprise’s global annual revenue), reputational damage, orders to cease or change our processing of our data, enforcement notices, and/or assessment notices (for a compulsory audit) and, in certain countries civil claims including representative actions and other class action type litigation.
Further, regulators in certain countries outside the United States are increasingly focusing on compliance with requirements in the online behavioral advertising ecosystem alongside organizations’ use of cookies, pixels and similar targeting technologies. The GDPR and national EU and UK laws which transpose the ePrivacy Directive require informed consent for the placement of certain tracking technologies on an individual’s device, and impose specific conditions on how to obtain valid consent. Recent decisions from European courts and regulators are driving increased attention to cookies and similar technologies. For example, the French data protection regulator is increasingly active in enforcement in this area, as are other EU regulators as a result of actions by not-for-profit privacy activists that have made hundreds of complaints to European website operators regarding their cookie banners and referred a significant number of these to relevant national regulators, saying that it aims to seek enforcement on thousands of websites in Europe.
Some countries are also considering or have passed legislation implementing data protection requirements, are requiring local storage and processing of data, placing limits on data transfers to other countries, or similar requirements. These new areas of focus for regulators and legislators could require significant systems changes, increase the cost and complexity of delivering our services, adversely affect our margins, divert the attention of our technology personnel and subject us to additional liabilities. Further, any failure to achieve required data protection standards may result in lawsuits, regulatory fines, or other actions or liability, all of which may harm our results of operations. Because the interpretation and application of privacy and data protection laws and the related regulations and standards are uncertain, it is possible that these laws, regulations and standards may be interpreted and applied in manners that are, or are asserted to be, inconsistent with our data management practices or the technological features of our platform.
In addition to governmental regulation, privacy advocacy and industry groups may propose new and different self-regulatory standards that legally apply to us or our customers. We cannot yet determine the impact that such future standards may have on our business. We are members of self-regulatory bodies that impose additional requirements related to the collection, use, and disclosure of consumer data. We maintain membership with the Network Advertising Initiative (the “NAI”), a self-regulatory association dedicated to responsible data collection and its use for digital advertising, and the Digital Advertising Alliance (the “DAA”), an independent organization led by advertising and marketing trade associations that has established self-regulatory principles enforcing responsible privacy practices for digital advertising and consumer transparency. Under the requirements of these self-regulatory bodies, in addition to other compliance obligations, we are obligated to provide consumers with notice about our use of device identifiers and other technologies to collect consumer data and of our collection and use of consumer data for certain purposes, and to provide consumers with certain choices relating to the use of consumer data. Some of these self-regulatory bodies have the ability to discipline members or participants, which could result in fines, penalties, and/or public censure (which could in turn cause reputational harm). Additionally, some of these self-regulatory bodies might refer violations of their requirements to the FTC or other regulatory bodies. If we were to be subject to such an investigation, even if meritless, or found responsible for such a violation, it could adversely affect our reputation, as well as our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We make public statements about our use and disclosure of personal information through our privacy policy, information provided on our website and by e-mail to our customers. Although we endeavor to ensure that our public statements are complete, accurate and fully implemented, we may at times fail to do so or be alleged to have failed to do so. We may be subject to potential regulatory or other legal action if such policies or statements are found to be deceptive, unfair or misrepresentative of our actual practices. Further, any concerns about our data privacy and security practices (even if unfounded), or any failure, real or perceived, by us to comply with our posted privacy policies or with any legal or regulatory requirements, standards, certifications or orders or other privacy or consumer protection-related laws and regulations applicable to us, could cause our customers to reduce their use of our products and services.
Even though we believe we are, and will continue to deploy efforts to be, in material compliance with data privacy, data protection, information security, and consumer protection laws, these laws are in some cases relatively new, the interpretation and application of these laws are uncertain, regulatory guidelines are still crystallizing and, if we or our customers have any compliance issues as a result, or if our customers decide to cease using our platform in light of new regulatory requirements, this could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Finally, we depend on a number of third parties in relation to the operation of our business, a number of which process personal data on our behalf. With each such provider we take steps to attempt to mitigate the associated risks of depending on third parties, however, there is no guarantee that any contractual commitments from third parties regarding data privacy and security, or any data privacy and security-related safeguards and technical measures that we or third parties put in place, will protect us from risks associated with the third-party processing of such data. Any violation of data privacy or security requirements, or of our relevant measures and safeguards, by our third-party vendors and providers could have a material
48
Table of Contents
adverse effect on our business, result in the fines and penalties outlined above, damage our reputation and result in potential legal action, including civil claims. Further, we may not be able to recover any or all damages suffered as a result of such violations from such third-party providers.
Our business depends on our ability to collect, use, and disclose data to provide the platform, including to deliver and measure the effectiveness of ads. Any limitation imposed on our or our customers’ collection, use or disclosure of this data, including through consumer tools, legal/regulatory restrictions and technological limitations, could threaten our ability to use and disclose data, significantly diminish the value of our platform, have an adverse effect on our business and cause us to lose customers and revenue.
We depend on our ability to collect and process data in order to run our business. We collect and/or use large amounts of data about consumer shopping behavior, demographic and other interest data and key life events and produce large amounts of data regarding ads and ad placement, such as customer preferences for media and advertising content. Further, we collect and/or use data that does not directly identify an actual, identifiable consumer, including advertising identifier, IP address, location data, hashed email addresses, browser and device information, online browsing behavior, exposure to and interaction with ads, and inferential data about purchase intentions, and preferences. We use data from third-party sources, CRM data and data collected through other various means, including from first-party data (such as data collected through our pixels).
We aggregate this data and analyze it in order to enhance our services, including the pricing, placement, targeting and scheduling of ads. Our ability to collect, use and share data about advertising transactions and audience behavior, including to target and measure the effectiveness of ads, is critical to the value of our services. There are many technical challenges relating to our ability to collect, aggregate and associate data about individuals, and we cannot assure you that we will be able to do so effectively. As described above in the risk factor titled “We are subject to laws, regulations and industry requirements related to data privacy, data protection, information security, and consumer protection across different markets where we conduct our business, including in the United States, and such laws, regulations, and industry requirements are constantly evolving and changing. Developments in and/or our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could have an adverse effect on our and/or our ability to collect, use and disclose data, our business, results of operations, and/or financial condition,” legislatures and regulatory authorities have increased their attention and lawmaking activity on matters concerning the collection and use of consumer data, including the use of data in relation to online advertising.
These and other evolving regulatory standards could place restrictions on our, our customers’ and partners’ collection, management, aggregation and use of information, which could result in a material increase in the cost of collecting or otherwise obtaining certain kinds of data and could limit the ways in which we may use or disclose information. Internet users can, with increasing ease, implement practices or technologies, or exercise rights to “opt-out,” that may limit our ability to collect and use data to deliver ads, measure advertising performance and build custom audiences, or otherwise inhibit the effectiveness of our platform. Although our customers and partners generally permit us to aggregate and use data that we collect in performing and improving our services (subject to certain restrictions) customers and partners might decide to restrict our collection or use of their data.
Any limitations on data use, collection, or disclosure could impair our ability to deliver an effective platform, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
If the use of pixels or other similar technologies is restricted, including through consumer tools, legal/regulatory restrictions and technological limitations without similar or better alternatives, our platform’s effectiveness could be diminished and our business, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected.
As described above in the risk factor titled “Our business depends on our ability to collect, use, and disclose data to provide the platform, including to deliver and measure the effectiveness of ads. Any limitation imposed on our or our customers’ collection, use or disclosure of this data, including through consumer tools, legal/regulatory restrictions and technological limitations, could threaten our ability to use and disclose data, significantly diminish the value of our platform, have an adverse effect on our business and cause us to lose customers and revenue,” we, and many other digital advertising companies, use pixels placed on consumer devices when an Internet browser is used and similar technologies, to gather data that enables our platform to be more effective. Our pixels do not identify individual consumers directly, but record information such as when an individual visits a website, when an individual uses a mobile app, the individual’s IP address, hashed email address and browser or other device information. Our automated bidding software uses data from pixels and other similar technologies to determine whether to bid on, and how to price, an ad impression in a certain location, at a given time, for a particular individual. Without pixels and other first and third-party data, transactions processed through our platform would be executed with less insight into audience activity, reducing the precision of selecting impressions to purchase for an advertising campaign. This could make placement of advertising through our platform less valuable, undermine the effectiveness of our services and harm our revenue. If our ability to use pixels or other similar technologies is limited, we may be required to develop or obtain additional applications and technologies to compensate for the lack of pixels
49
Table of Contents
and other data from such technologies, which could be time consuming or costly to develop, less effective, and potentially subject to additional regulation.
In addition, from time to time, concerns may be expressed about whether our products and services compromise the privacy of our customers’ users and others. In the United States, there has been a noticeable uptick in class actions in which plaintiffs have utilized a variety of laws, including the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (“VPPA”) and state wiretapping laws, to challenge companies’ use of tracking technologies, including pixels, for advertising purposes.
For example, the California Invasion of Privacy Act (as amended, “CIPA”) has become the basis for a growing number of lawsuits against digital advertising companies. Plaintiffs have argued that CIPA prohibits certain forms of interception of communications and the use of pen registers or similar tracking devices without the consent of all parties to the communication. Plaintiffs in several recent cases have alleged that adtech intermediaries, including demand side platforms, have violated CIPA by participating in the interception of communications between consumers and websites through the use of tracking pixels, cookies, session replay scripts, or real-time bidding signals. While we have not been subject to such claims in connection with the use of our pixels to date, any litigation against our customers, or other publishers, alleging that the use of our pixels violates VPPA or state wiretapping laws may reduce demand for our technology and the results of such litigation may impact our business.
Because we do not have direct relationships with consumers, we rely on customers or our data partners to implement any notice or choice mechanisms and obtain the consent of the consumer on our behalf to process their data (to the extent required under applicable laws and regulations). If customers or data partners do not follow this process (and in any event as the legal requirements and guidance in this area continue to evolve and develop), we could have insufficient rights to process their personal data, and be subject to lawsuits, fines, or other actions or liability. We may not have adequate insurance to protect us against any such claims and losses, and this could adversely impact our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
If the use of digital advertising is rejected by audiences, through opt-in, opt-out or ad-blocking technologies or other means, it could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Consumers can, with increasing ease, implement technologies that limit the ability by us and other companies to collect and use data to deliver ads, or otherwise limit the effectiveness of our platform. For example, cookies can be deleted or blocked by Internet users who do not want information to be collected about them through cookies. The most commonly used Internet browsers—Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari—allow Internet users to modify their browser settings to prevent cookies from being accepted by their browsers and Internet users can delete cookies from their computers at any time. In addition, Apple launched its Intelligent Tracking Prevention (“ITP”) feature in its Safari browser. ITP blocks some or all third-party cookies by default on mobile and desktop and may continue to become increasingly restrictive over time. Apple’s related Privacy-Preserving Ad Click attribution, intended to preserve some of the functionality lost with ITP, would limit cross-site and cross-device attribution, prevent measurement outside a narrowly-defined attribution window, and prevent ad re-targeting and optimization. Firefox also blocks third-party cookies by default, and other browsers may block or limit third-party cookies in the future. Mobile devices allow users to opt-out of the use of mobile device IDs for targeted advertising, and some phone manufacturers, such as Apple, have implemented and may continue to implement changes, which may reduce the value of ad impressions on its iOS mobile application platform. For example, Apple uses an App Tracking Transparency framework that provides users of Apple products more control over the way their data is tracked in mobile applications and limits the ability of mobile applications to request an iOS device’s advertising identifier. Additionally, many applications and other devices allow audiences to avoid receiving ads by paying for subscriptions or other downloads.
While our platform is exclusive to CTV, privacy aspects of CTV are still developing. Technical or policy changes, including regulation or industry self-regulation and any extension of the “opt-in” privacy model to CTV devices could adversely affect our business. In addition, we rely on pixels and similar technologies on web browsers to enable our platform to be more effective. Mobile devices using Android, iOS and iPadOS operating systems limit our ability to identify audiences while such audiences are using applications other than their web browser on the device. Some audiences also download free or paid ad-blocking software on their computers or mobile devices, not only for privacy reasons, but also to counteract the adverse effect ads can have on the consumer experience, including increased load times, data consumption, and screen overcrowding.
New requirements relating to automated, browser-based, or one-stop / universal opt-out mechanisms (“UOOMs”), such as the “Global Privacy Control” signals, the opt-out mechanism for data brokers established under the California Delete Act, or other user-enabled universal UOOMs established in the future, may result in significantly larger numbers of consumers opting out of having their data collected, used and disclosed for targeted advertising purposes. Additionally, the DAA, NAI and their international counterparts have certain opt-out mechanisms for users to opt-out of the collection of their information via cookies. Ad-blocking technologies, opt-out mechanisms and other global privacy controls may prevent targeting technologies from being stored on a consumer’s computer or mobile device. Furthermore, California recently passed a law
50
Table of Contents
requiring web browser operators to provide users with a setting to send a UOOM that, when enabled, directs websites not to sell or share the user’s personal information. If use of the “Global Privacy Control,” or similar signals is adopted by many Internet users, or if such standard is imposed by even more states or by federal legislation, or is agreed upon by standard setting groups, we may not receive as much data, and may have to change our business practices.
Each of these measures may adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition, in particular if more Internet users adopt these settings or delete their cookies more frequently than they currently do, there are changes in technology or new developments in laws, regulations or industry standards, these measures become applicable to CTV devices or the measures become more widespread among audiences. In addition, ad-blocking technologies could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition if they reduce the volume or perceived effectiveness and value of digital advertising. Some ad-blocking technologies block only ads that are targeted through use of third-party data, while allowing ads based on first-party data. These ad blockers could place us at a disadvantage because we rely in part on third-party data, while some large competitors have troves of first-party data they use to direct advertising. Other technologies allow ads that are deemed “acceptable,” which could be defined in ways that place us or our customers at a disadvantage, particularly if such technologies are controlled or influenced by our competitors. Even if ad blockers do not ultimately have an adverse effect on our business, investor concerns about ad blockers could cause our stock price to decline.
If device identifiers are replaced by alternative mechanisms, our performance may decline and we may lose customers and revenue.
Industry participants in the advertising technology ecosystem have taken or may take action to eliminate or restrict the use of cookies and other device identifiers. For instance, Apple has restricted the use of mobile identifiers on its devices, and Google has announced that it plans to deprecate the mobile advertising identifier used on Android devices. Google is also utilizing various technologies under its label of “Privacy Sandbox,” which provide modified targeting and measurement functionality currently provided through the use of third-party cookies. It is possible that companies in our ecosystem may rely on proprietary algorithms or statistical methods to track web users without cookies, or may utilize log-in credentials entered by users, to track web usage, including usage across multiple devices, without cookies. Alternatively, such companies may build different and potentially proprietary user tracking methods into their widely-used web browsers. New identification solutions are unreleased and unproven, and may require substantial development and commercial changes for us to support such solutions. There is also further risk that the changes will disproportionately benefit the owners of these platforms or the businesses that have access to large amounts of first-party data. Even if current device identifiers are effectively replaced by open industry-wide tracking standards rather than proprietary standards, we may still incur substantial re-engineering costs to replace current device identifiers with these new technologies. This may also diminish the quality or value of our services to customers if such new technologies do not provide us with the quality or timeliness of the data that we currently generate from current device identifiers. If we are unable to successfully adapt to the replacement of these identifiers by alternative tracking systems, this could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We depend on third-party data centers, the disruption of which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We host our company-owned infrastructure at third-party data centers that may be less secure than our own facilities. Any damage to or failure of these third-party data centers generally would prevent us from operating our business. We rely on the Internet and, accordingly, depend upon the continuous, reliable, and secure operation of Internet servers, related hardware and software, and network infrastructure. While we control and have access to our servers and all of the components of our network that are located in our external data centers, we do not control the operation of these facilities. The owners of our data center facilities have no obligation to renew their agreements with us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. If we are unable to renew these agreements on commercially reasonable terms, or if one of our data center operators is acquired, we may be required to transfer our servers and other infrastructure to new data center facilities, and we may incur significant costs and possible service interruption in connection with doing so.
Problems faced by our third-party data center operations, with the telecommunications network providers with whom we or they contract, or with the systems by which our telecommunications providers allocate capacity among their customers, including us, could adversely affect the experience of customers. Additionally, improving our platform’s infrastructure and expanding its capacity in anticipation of growth in new channels and formats, as well as implementing technological enhancements to our platform to improve its efficiency and cost-effectiveness are key components of our business strategy, and if our data centers are unable to keep up with our growing needs for capacity, this could have an adverse effect on our business. Any changes in third-party service levels at our data centers or any errors, defects, disruptions, or other performance problems could adversely affect our reputation, expose us to liability, cause us to lose customers, or otherwise adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Service interruptions might reduce our revenue, trigger refunds to customers, subject us to potential liability, or adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
51
Table of Contents
The occurrence of a natural disaster, an act of terrorism, vandalism or sabotage, or other unanticipated problems at these facilities could result in interruptions in the availability of our platform. While we have disaster recovery arrangements in place, they have not been tested under actual disasters or similar events and may not effectively permit us to continue to provide our products and services in the event of any problems with respect to our data centers. Moreover, because we do not currently have full redundancy with respect to the services at each data center, if one of our data centers shuts down there may be a period of time that our products or services, or some of our products or services, will be unavailable to customers served by that data center. If any of these events were to occur to our business, our business, results of operations, or financial condition could be adversely affected.
We must increase the scale and efficiency of our technology infrastructure to support our growth and transaction volumes.
Our business depends on processing an increasingly large volume of data. Our PTV platform is built on a scalable software stack that includes support for audience targeting, programmatic bidding, ad serving, attribution, reporting and campaign setup.
Our technology must scale to process the increased advertising requests on our platform. We must continue to increase the capacity of our platform to support our high-volume strategy, to cope with increased data volumes and parties resulting from an increasing variety of advertising formats and platforms, and to maintain a stable service infrastructure and reliable service delivery. To the extent we are unable, for cost or other reasons, to effectively increase the capacity of our platform, continue to process transactions at fast enough speeds, and support emerging advertising formats or services preferred by customers, our revenue will suffer. We expect to continue to invest in our platform to meet increasing demand. Such investment may negatively affect our profitability and results of operations.
The use of increasing amounts of data and overall growth in impressions places growing demands upon our platform infrastructure. If we are unable to grow our platform to support substantial increases in the number of transactions and in the amount of data we process, including the speed at which we process such data, on a high-performance, cost-effective basis, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be adversely affected. We expect to continue to invest in our platform in order to meet these requirements, and such investment may adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Platform outages or disruptions, including any interruptions due to cyberattacks or other cybersecurity incidents, or our third-party providers’ failure to maintain adequate security and supporting infrastructure as we scale, could damage our reputation and our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
As we grow our business, we expect to continue to invest in our platform infrastructure, including hardware and software solutions, network services and database technologies, as well as potentially increase our reliance on open-source software (collectively, “IT Systems”). Without these improvements, our operations might suffer from unanticipated system disruptions, slow transaction processing, unreliable service levels, impaired quality or delays in reporting accurate information regarding transactions in our platform, any of which could negatively affect our reputation and ability to attract and retain customers. The steps we take to enhance the reliability, integrity and security of our platform as it scales are expensive and complex, and poor execution could result in operational failures.
We utilize IT Systems, applications and websites that allow for the storage and transmission of personal information about our customers, audiences, employees and other third parties, as well as proprietary and confidential business information. As such, we have been, and we and certain of our third-party providers may in the future be a target for cyberattacks and other cybersecurity incidents, and face numerous and evolving cybersecurity risks that threaten the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our and our third party providers’ IT Systems. In addition, measures we, our customers or third parties that host our data may implement, and the underlying IT Systems have been and may in the future be vulnerable to attacks. Such attacks can take a variety of forms, including, but not limited to, denial of service attacks, infrastructure attacks, botnets, malicious file attacks, cross-site scripting, credential abuse, ransomware attacks, bugs, viruses, worms, malicious software programs, data breaches, and other cybersecurity incidents. We have been subject to a cyber attack. Further, techniques are constantly evolving and becoming increasingly diverse and sophisticated and are often unrecognizable until launched against a target. Techniques involve, for example, denial-of-service attacks or other maneuvers that have the effect of disabling, degrading or disrupting the availability of services on our platform, which could seriously harm our reputation and business. As such, we cannot ensure that we will be able to anticipate, investigate, remediate, or recover from attacks or incidents, or to avoid material impacts to our IT Systems. Other types of attacks could harm us even if our platform operations are left undisturbed. For example, attacks may be designed to deceive team members into releasing control of their systems to a hacker, while others have introduced computer viruses or malware into our systems with a view to stealing confidential, proprietary or personal information. Additionally, we and our third-party providers may experience increased threats due to workforces operating remotely, including in light of our fully remote work environment. We are also vulnerable to
52
Table of Contents
unintentional errors or malicious actions by persons with authorized access to our systems that exceed the scope of their access rights, distribute data erroneously, or, unintentionally or intentionally, interfere with the intended operations of our platform. Any cyberattack or cybersecurity incident can give rise to a variety of losses and costs, including legal exposure, and regulatory fines, damages to reputation, amongst others.
Due to concerns about data security and integrity, a growing number of legislative and regulatory bodies have adopted breach notification and other requirements when certain personal information is accessed by unauthorized persons and additional regulation regarding security of such data is possible. For example, some of the laws described above in the risk factor titled “We are subject to laws, regulations and industry requirements related to data privacy, data protection, information security, and consumer protection across different markets where we conduct our business, including in the United States, and such laws, regulations, and industry requirements are constantly evolving and changing. Developments in and/or our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could have an adverse effect on our and/or our ability to collect, use and disclose data, our business, results of operations, and/or financial condition” have specific security and/or data breach notification requirements. Laws in all 50 U.S. states, the EU and the UK require businesses to provide notice to individuals in relation to certain data breaches, and the CCPA provides a private right of action for certain data breaches. We may need to notify governmental authorities and affected individuals with respect to such incidents. Complying with such numerous and complex regulations in the event of a data security breach would be expensive and difficult, and failure to comply with these regulations could subject us to regulatory scrutiny and additional liability. We may also be contractually required to notify customers or other counterparties of a security incident, including a data security breach. Regardless of our contractual protections, any actual or perceived data security breach, or breach of our contractual obligations, could harm our reputation and brand, expose us to potential liability or require us to expend significant resources on data security and in responding to any such actual or perceived breach. Further, we are required to disclose material cybersecurity incidents pursuant to disclosure rules promulgated by the SEC. Any public disclosure relating to a material cybersecurity incident could harm our reputation, result in litigation and adversely impact our business, operating results, and financial condition.
In addition, we may incur significant costs and operational consequences in connection with investigating, mitigating, remediating, eliminating, and putting in place additional measures designed to prevent future actual or perceived cybersecurity incidents, as well as in connection with complying with any notification or other obligation resulting from any cybersecurity incidents. Although we maintain insurance coverage, it may be insufficient to protect us against all losses and costs stemming from security breaches, cyberattacks and other types of unlawful activity, or any resulting disruptions from such events, and we cannot guarantee that applicable insurance will be available to us in the future or on economically reasonable terms. Further, we may not be able to recover any or all damages suffered as a result of such security breach or other security incident from such third-party providers. Outages and disruptions of our platform, including any caused by cyberattacks, may harm our reputation and our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
If we fail to detect or prevent fraud on our platform, or malware intrusion into the systems or devices of our customers and their audiences, customers could lose confidence in our platform, and we could face legal claims that could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We may be subject to fraudulent or malicious activities undertaken by persons seeking to use our platform for improper purposes. For example, someone may attempt to divert or artificially inflate customer purchases through our platform, or to disrupt or divert the operation of the systems, devices, and audiences of our customers in order to misappropriate information, generate fraudulent billings or stage cyberattacks, or for other illicit purposes. For example, sophisticated bot-nets and other complex forms of click fraud might be used to generate fraudulent impressions and divert advertising revenue from legitimate websites of customers. Those activities could also introduce malware through our platform in order to commandeer or gain access to information on customers’ computers.
Although we use third-party tools and proprietary technology to identify non-human traffic and malware, we may reduce or terminate relationships with customers that we find to be engaging in such activities and continuously assess the quality and performance of advertising on customers’ digital media properties. We rely on our own and third-party tools, as well as the controls of customers, and it may be difficult to detect fraudulent or malicious activity. Further, perpetrators of fraudulent impressions and malware frequently change their tactics and may become more sophisticated over time, requiring both us and third parties to improve processes for assessing the quality of customer inventory and controlling fraudulent activity. If we fail to detect or prevent fraudulent or malicious activity of this sort, our reputation could be damaged, customers may contest payment, demand refunds, or fail to give us future business, or we could face legal claims from customers. Even if we are not directly involved in fraud or malicious activity, any sustained failures of others in our industry to adequately detect and prevent fraud could generate the perception that programmatic trading is unsafe and lead our customers to avoid CTV advertising. See the risk factor titled “Platform outages or disruptions, including any interruptions due to cyberattacks or other cybersecurity incidents, or our third-party providers’ failure to maintain adequate security and supporting infrastructure as we scale, could damage our reputation and our business, results of operations, and financial condition.”
53
Table of Contents
We operate in an intensely competitive market that includes companies that have greater financial, technical and marketing resources than we do.
We face intense competition in the marketplace. We also compete for supply of advertising inventory against a variety of competitors, both in the CTV ad market and in paid search and social advertising more broadly. Some of our existing and potential competitors are better established, benefit from greater name recognition, may have offerings and technology that we do not have or have significantly more financial, technical, sales, and marketing resources than we do. In addition, some competitors, particularly those with greater scale or a more diversified revenue base and a broader offering, have greater flexibility than we do to compete aggressively on various terms, or to compete with us by including in their product offerings services that we may not provide. Some existing and potential customers have their own relationships with sellers or are seeking to establish such relationships, and many sellers are investing in capabilities that enable them to connect more effectively directly with customers. Our business suffers to the extent that customers and sellers purchase and sell advertising inventory directly from one another or through intermediaries other than us, reducing the amount of ad spend on our platform. New or stronger competitors may emerge through acquisitions and industry consolidation or through development of disruptive technologies. If our offerings are not perceived as competitively differentiated, we could lose customers, market share or be compelled to concede terms and conditions to our services, making it more difficult to grow our business profitably.
There has been rapid evolution and consolidation in the marketing technology industry, and we expect these trends to continue, thereby increasing the capabilities and competitive posture of larger companies, particularly those that are already dominant in various ways, and enabling new or stronger competitors to emerge. There is a finite number of large customers and sellers in our target markets, and any consolidation of customers or sellers may give the resulting enterprises greater bargaining power or result in the loss of customers and sellers that use our platform, and thus reduce our potential base of customers and sellers, each of which would lead to erosion of our revenue.
As technology continues to improve and market factors continue to attract investment, competition and pricing pressure may increase and market saturation may change the competitive landscape in favor of larger competitors with greater scale and broader offerings, including those that can afford to spend more than we can to grow more quickly and strengthen their competitive position. In addition, our competitors or potential competitors may adopt certain aspects of our business model, which could reduce our ability to differentiate our platform. Some of our competitors may also be able to sell products or services competitive to ours with more attractive value propositions given proprietary ownership of data, technical superiority, or economies of scale. Such introduction of competent, competitive products, or other technologies by our competitors that are superior to or that achieve greater market acceptance than our products and services could adversely affect our business. In such event, we could experience a decline in market share and revenues. Loss of existing or future market share to new competitors could substantially harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
For all of these reasons, we may not be able to compete successfully against our current and future competitors.
Our corporate culture has contributed to our success, and if we cannot maintain it as we grow or as we continue in an entirely remote work environment, we could lose the innovation, creativity, and teamwork fostered by our culture, and our business may be adversely affected.
We believe our corporate culture has been a critical component of our success as we believe it fosters innovation, creativity, and teamwork across our business, helping to drive our success. We intend to expand our overall headcount and operations both domestically and internationally over time, with no assurance that we will be able to do so while effectively maintaining our corporate culture. The difficulty of maintaining our culture is compounded by our entirely remote work environment, as any expansion is done without the inherent team-building features of a communal office atmosphere.
As we expand and change, in particular across multiple geographies or following acquisitions, it may be difficult to preserve our corporate culture, which could reduce our ability to innovate, create, and operate effectively. In turn, the failure to preserve our culture could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition by negatively affecting our ability to attract, recruit, integrate and retain team members, continue to perform at current levels, and effectively execute our business strategy.
Additionally, interviewing, hiring, and integrating new team members has been and will continue to be particularly challenging in an entirely remote work environment. We face heightened regulatory and tax requirements as a result of our entirely remote working culture and team member turnover, including changes in our management team, could disrupt our business. As part of our entirely remote working plans, we will devote increased efforts to maintaining our collaborative culture, including through the use of videoconferencing and other online communication and sharing tools, and to monitoring the health, safety, morale, and productivity of our team members, including new team members. However, there is no guarantee we will be able to maintain our corporate culture, and our business could be adversely affected.
54
Table of Contents
Future acquisitions or strategic investments could be difficult to identify and integrate, divert the attention of management, and could disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value and adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
As part of our growth strategy, we may acquire or invest in other businesses, assets or technologies that are complementary to and fit within our strategic goals. Any acquisition or investment may divert the attention of management and require us to use significant amounts of cash, issue dilutive equity securities or incur debt. We have limited experience in acquiring other businesses. In addition, the anticipated benefits of any acquisition or investment may not be realized, and we may be exposed to unknown risks, any of which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition, including risks arising from:
•difficulties in integrating the operations, technologies, product or service offerings, administrative systems, and personnel of acquired businesses, especially if those businesses operate outside of our core competency or geographies in which we currently operate;
•ineffectiveness or incompatibility of acquired technologies or solutions;
•potential loss of key team members of the acquired business;
•inability to maintain key business relationships and reputation of the acquired business;
•diversion of management attention from other business concerns;
•litigation arising from the acquisition or the activities of the acquired business, including claims from terminated team members, customers, former stockholders or other third parties;
•assumption of contractual obligations that contain terms that are not beneficial to us, require us to license or waive intellectual property rights, or increase our risk of liability;
•complications in the integration of acquired businesses or diminished prospects, including as a result of changes in macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical events, including uncertainty with respect to the federal budget and debt ceiling and governmental shutdowns related thereto, actual or perceived instability in the banking industry, supply chain shortages, interest rate volatility and inflation, geopolitical regional conflicts, terrorist attacks, and health epidemics or other contagious outbreaks;
•failure to generate the expected financial results related to an acquisition on a timely manner or at all;
•failure to accurately forecast the impact of an acquisition transaction; and
•implementation or remediation of effective controls, procedures, and policies for acquired businesses.
Additionally, to fund future acquisitions, we may pay cash or issue additional shares of our common stock, which could dilute our stockholders or diminish our cash reserves. For example, the consideration paid in connection with the QuickFrame Acquisition consisted of newly issued shares of our common stock and deferred cash. We also issued new shares of our common stock as consideration in connection with the acquisition of Maximum Effort Marketing and may issue additional shares of our Class A common stock as contingent consideration in the form of an earnout upon the satisfaction of certain conditions. Borrowing to fund an acquisition would result in increased fixed obligations and could also subject us to covenants or other restrictions that could limit our ability to effectively run our business.
Some of our customers have in the past, and may continue to have, or subsequently develop, high-risk credit profiles or otherwise pay us for advertising inventory after payment is due, which may result in credit risk to us or require additional working capital to fund our accounts payable.
Generally, we invoice and collect from customers and subsequently remit fees to sellers of advertising inventory. However, in some cases, we may be required or choose to pay sellers of advertising inventory for impressions delivered before we have collected, or even if we are unable to collect, from the customer of those impressions. We believe we have an adequate allowance for bad debts based on our historical experience of collecting fees from customers. Although we have not experienced material issues in collecting on invoices, there can be no assurances that we will not experience bad debt in the future, and write-offs for bad debt could have a materially negative effect on our results of operations for the periods in which the write-offs occur. Further, growth and increased competitive pressure in the digital advertising industry is causing customers to become more demanding, resulting in overall increased focus by all industry participants on transparency, and cash and collection cycles. The majority of our customers are required to pay us within 30 days of being invoiced. Some
55
Table of Contents
customers have experienced financial pressures that have motivated them to pay us after their payment is due. If customers pay us after their payment is due or our cash collections are significantly diminished as a result of these dynamics, our revenue and/or cash flow could be adversely affected and we may need to use working capital to fund our accounts payable pending collection from the customers. This may result in additional costs and cause us to forgo or defer other more productive uses of that working capital.
Risks Related to Our Legal and Regulatory Environment
We rely on customers to abide by our terms and conditions and relevant laws, rules, and regulations when using our platform, and legal claims or enforcement actions resulting from their actions could expose us to liabilities, damage our reputation, and be costly to defend.
We and our customers are subject to regulatory requirements by governments and standards bodies applicable to their activities and the services we offer on our platform. We may assume responsibility for satisfying or facilitating the satisfaction of some of these requirements through our terms and conditions. In addition, we may have responsibility for some acts or omissions of customers transacting business through our platform under applicable laws or regulations or as a result of common law duties, even if we have not assumed responsibility contractually. These responsibilities could expose us to significant liabilities, perhaps without the ability to impose effective mitigating controls upon, or to recover from, customers. We could be subject to litigation as a result of such actions, and, if we were sued, we would incur legal costs in our defense and cannot guarantee that a court would not attribute some liability to us.
Through our terms and conditions, we require our customers to abide by relevant laws, rules and regulations, and restrictions by their counterparties, when transacting on our platform, and we obtain representations from customers that the advertising they place through our platform complies with applicable laws and regulations and does not violate third-party intellectual property rights. We also receive representations from customers and data providers about their privacy practices and compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including their maintenance of adequate privacy policies that disclose and permit our data collection practices. Nonetheless, there are many circumstances in which it is difficult or impossible for us to monitor or evaluate their compliance. For example, we cannot control the content of customer’s media properties, and we are often unable to determine exactly what information a partner collects after an ad has been placed, and how the customer uses any such collected information. Moreover, we are unable to prevent technological intermediaries from aggregating bid requests from customers and directing it to their own buying platforms or even reselling such bid data to customers or third parties.
If customers’ data providers, or partners fail to abide by relevant laws, rules and regulations, or our terms and conditions, when transacting over our platform, or after such a transaction is completed, we could potentially face liability to audiences for such misuse. Potential sources of liability to audiences include malicious activities, such as the introduction of malware into audiences’ computers through ads served through our platform, and code that redirects audiences to sites other than the ones audiences sought to visit, potentially resulting in malware downloads or use charges from the redirect site. Customers often have terms of use in place with their audiences that disclaim or limit their potential liabilities to such audiences, or pursuant to which audiences waive rights to bring class-action lawsuits against the customers related to ads. Similarly, if such misconduct results in enforcement action by a regulatory body or other governmental authority, we could become involved in a potentially time-consuming and costly investigation or we could be subject to some form of sanction or penalty. We may not have adequate indemnity to protect us against, and our policies of insurance may not cover, such claims and losses.
In addition, both customers and sellers of advertising inventory are concerned about being associated with content they consider inappropriate, competitive or inconsistent with their consumers’ values, or illegal, and they are hesitant to spend money or make inventory available, respectively, without some guarantee of security. Consequently, our reputation depends in part on providing services that our customers and sellers of advertising inventory trust. We prohibit the misuse of our platform by our customers and sellers of advertising inventory and actively monitor inventory against our quality guidelines. Despite such efforts, we may provide access to inventory that is objectionable to our customers or serve advertising that contains objectionable content, which could harm our or our customers’ reputation, decrease their trust in our platform, and negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations. Furthermore, we may receive public pressure to discontinue working with certain sellers of advertising inventory or customers.
We are subject to anti-bribery, anti-corruption, and similar laws and non-compliance with such laws can subject us to criminal penalties or significant fines and harm our business and reputation.
We are subject to anti-bribery and similar laws, such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, or the FCPA, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the USA PATRIOT Act, U.S. Travel Act, the U.K. Bribery Act 2010 and Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and possibly other anti-corruption, anti-bribery, and anti-money laundering laws in countries in which we conduct activities. Anti-corruption laws have been enforced with great rigor in
56
Table of Contents
recent years and are interpreted broadly and prohibit companies and their employees and their agents from making or offering improper payments or other benefits to government officials and others in the private sector. The FCPA or other applicable anti-corruption laws may also hold us liable for acts of corruption or bribery committed by our third-party business partners, representatives, and agents, even if we do not authorize such activities. As we develop our international sales and business, and increase our use of third parties, our risks under these laws will increase. As a public company, the FCPA separately requires that we keep accurate books and records and maintain internal accounting controls sufficient to assure management’s control, authority, and responsibility over our assets.
We have adopted policies and procedures and conducted training designed to prevent improper payments and other corrupt practices prohibited by applicable laws, but cannot guarantee that improprieties will not occur. Noncompliance with these laws could subject us to investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, other enforcement actions, disgorgement of profits, significant fines, damages, other civil and criminal penalties or injunctions, suspension and/or debarment from contracting with specified persons, the loss of export privileges, reputational harm, adverse media coverage, and other collateral consequences. Any investigations, actions, and/or sanctions could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We are subject to governmental economic sanctions requirements and export and import controls that could impair our ability to compete in international markets or subject us to liability if we are not in compliance with applicable laws.
We are subject to various U.S. export control and trade and economic sanctions laws and regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations and the various sanctions programs administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (collectively, “Trade Controls”). Trade Controls may prohibit the shipment of specified products and services to certain countries, governments, and persons. Although we endeavor to conduct our business in compliance with Trade Controls, our failure to successfully comply may expose us to negative legal and business consequences, including civil or criminal penalties, governmental investigations, and reputational harm.
Furthermore, if we export our technology or software, the exports may require authorizations, including a license, a license exception, or other appropriate government authorization or regulatory requirements. Complying with Trade Controls may be time-consuming and may result in the delay or loss of opportunities.
In addition, various countries regulate the import of encryption technology, including the imposition of import permitting and licensing requirements, and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to offer our platform or could limit our customers’ ability to use our platform in those countries. Changes in our platform or future changes in export and import regulations may create delays in the introduction of our platform in international markets or prevent our customers with international operations from deploying our platform globally. Any change in export or import regulations, economic sanctions or related legislation, or change in the countries, governments, persons, or technologies targeted by such regulations, could result in decreased use of our platform by, or in our decreased ability to export our technology and services to, existing or potential customers with international operations. Any decreased use of our platform or limitation on our ability to export our platform would likely adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We may be subject to intellectual property rights claims by third parties, which may be costly to defend, could require us to pay significant damages and could limit our ability to use certain technologies.
Companies in the software and technology industries, including some of our current and potential competitors, own large numbers of patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property rights, and frequently enter into or threaten litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of their intellectual property rights. We have in the past and may in the future be subject to claims that we have misappropriated, misused or infringed the intellectual property rights of our competitors, non-practicing entities or other third parties. There can be no assurance that we will be successful in defending against these allegations or reaching a business resolution that is satisfactory to us. Additionally, we cannot be assured that we are not infringing or otherwise violating any third-party intellectual property rights.
The intellectual property portfolio of some of our competitors and potential competitors may be larger than ours, or may include patents with greater strategic value. Any such disparity between our intellectual property portfolio and the portfolio of our competitors may increase the risk that they may sue us for infringement and may limit our ability to defend such claims (including through counterclaims for patent infringement) or settle through cross-licenses. In addition, future assertions of patent rights by third parties, and any resulting litigation, may involve patent holding companies or other adverse patent owners who have no relevant product revenue and against whom our own patents may therefore provide little or no deterrence or protection.
Any intellectual property infringement claims, with or without merit, could be very time-consuming and expensive and could divert our management’s attention and other resources. These claims could also subject us to significant liability for damages,
57
Table of Contents
potentially including treble damages if we are found to have willfully infringed patents or copyrights. These claims could also result in our having to stop using technology or other intellectual property found to be in violation of a third party’s rights, some of which we have invested considerable effort and time to bring to market. We might be required to seek a license to continue operations if found to violate such rights, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, and may significantly increase our operating expenses. If a third party does not offer us a license to its intellectual property on reasonable terms, or at all, we may be required to develop alternative non-infringing technology, which could require significant effort and expense and may ultimately not be successful. If we cannot license or develop technology for any aspect of our business that may ultimately be determined to infringe on the intellectual property rights of another party, we could be forced to limit or stop sales of subscriptions to our software and may be unable to compete effectively. Any of these events could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our intellectual property rights may be difficult to enforce and protect, which could enable others to copy or use aspects of our technology without compensating us, thereby eroding our competitive advantages and having an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We take precautions designed to protect our intellectual property, including a combination of maintaining trade secrets, third-party confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements, additional contractual restrictions on disclosure and use, and pursuit of trademark, patent, and other intellectual property rights related to our proprietary technology.
We currently hold various Internet domain names related to our brand and business, including mountain.com, among others. Failure to protect our domain names could adversely affect our reputation and brand and make it more difficult for users to find our website. We may be unable, without significant cost or at all, to prevent third parties from acquiring domain names or using trademarks that are similar to, infringe upon or otherwise decrease the value of our trademarks and other proprietary rights.
While software and other of our proprietary works may be protected under copyright law, we have chosen not to register for statutory copyright protection in these works, as is typical for many software companies. In order to bring a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States, the copyright must be registered. Accordingly, the remedies and damages available to us for unauthorized use of our software may be limited.
Historically, we have prioritized keeping our technology architecture, trade secrets, and engineering roadmap private, and as a general matter, have obtained minimal patent protection for our proprietary technology and our patent strategy is still in its early stages. We may not be able to obtain any further patents, including with respect to any currently pending applications, and any issued patents may be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented, and any rights granted under these patents may not actually provide adequate defensive protection or competitive advantages to us. Additionally, the process of obtaining patent protection is expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to prosecute or maintain all necessary or desirable patents and patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. We may not seek patent protection for certain innovations and may choose not to pursue patent protection in certain jurisdictions. In addition, issuance of a patent does not guarantee that we have a right to practice the patented invention, or that we will be able to effectively exclude others from practicing the claimed invention, or prevent others from designing around our patents. Further, we have filed, and may continue in the future to file, trademark applications to protect certain of our names and brands; however, we cannot guarantee that we will be successful in registering our trademarks.
Intellectual property laws may change in the future. Any changes in the law may reduce the scope of the protection afforded to our intellectual property, or may render our intellectual property invalid or unenforceable. Changes in the law may additionally make new technology developed in the future harder to protect. In many of these cases, we may have to expend additional resources to understand the implications of any new laws and adapt our intellectual property strategy accordingly.
While it is our policy to protect and defend our rights to our intellectual property, we cannot predict whether steps taken by us to protect our intellectual property will be adequate to prevent infringement, misappropriation, dilution, or other violations of our intellectual property rights. Third parties may knowingly or unknowingly infringe our intellectual property rights. Unauthorized use of some aspects of our proprietary technology may be difficult to detect, which may reduce our ability to take timely action. Additionally, third parties may challenge intellectual property rights held by us. These claims may result in restrictions on our use of, or ability to protect, our intellectual property or the conduct of our business. In any of these cases, we may be required to expend significant time and expense to prevent infringement or to enforce our rights. We also cannot guarantee that others will not independently develop technology with the same or similar functions to any proprietary technology we rely on to conduct our business and differentiate ourselves from our competitors. Unauthorized parties may also attempt to copy or obtain, reverse engineer, or use our technology to develop applications with the same functionality as our platform, and policing unauthorized use of our technology and intellectual property rights is difficult and may not be effective. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those of the United States, and mechanisms for enforcement of our intellectual property rights in such countries may be inadequate. If
58
Table of Contents
we are unable to protect our intellectual property rights (including in particular, the proprietary aspects of our platform) we may find ourselves at a competitive disadvantage to others who have not incurred the same level of expense, time and effort to create, and protect their intellectual property.
We also endeavor to enter into agreements with our team members and contractors in order to limit access to and disclosure of our confidential information, as well as to clarify rights to intellectual property and technology associated with our business. While these agreements will give us contractual remedies upon any unauthorized use or disclosure of our confidential information, intellectual property or technology, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to detect such unauthorized activity, or if detected, that our rights under these agreements will be effective in controlling access to, or use and distribution of, our confidential information, intellectual property or technology. Furthermore, protecting our intellectual property is particularly challenging after our team members or our contractors end their relationship with us, and, in some cases, decide to work for our competitors. Enforceability of the non-compete agreements that we have in place is not guaranteed, and contractual restrictions could be breached without discovery or adequate remedies.
We may use AI Technologies offered by third parties to develop or assist in the development of our own software code. While use of such tools has the potential to make our development process more efficient, AI Technologies may generate content that is “substantially similar” to proprietary or open source code on which the AI tool was trained. If the AI Technologies we use generate code that is too similar to other proprietary code, or to software processes that are protected by patent, we could be subject to intellectual property infringement claims. We may also not be able to anticipate and detect security vulnerabilities in such artificial intelligence-generated software code. If these tools generate code that is too similar to open source code, we risk losing protection of our own proprietary code that is commingled with such code. Finally, to the extent we use third-party AI Technologies to develop software code, the terms of use of these tools may state that the third-party provider retains rights in the generated code.
We may rely on licenses to use the intellectual property rights of third parties to conduct our business.
Although we do not materially rely on any individual license agreements to operate our business, we rely, in part, on products, technologies, and intellectual property that we license from third parties for use in operating our business. We anticipate that we will continue to rely on such third-party products, technologies and intellectual property in the future. We cannot be assured that these third-party licenses, or support for such licensed products and technologies, will continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. We cannot be certain that our licensors are not infringing the intellectual property rights of others or that our suppliers and licensors have sufficient rights to the technology in all jurisdictions in which we may operate. Some of our license agreements may be terminated by our licensors for convenience or upon a change of control or upon expiration of their then-current terms. If we are unable to obtain or maintain rights to any of this technology because of intellectual property infringement claims brought by third parties against our suppliers and licensors or against us, or if we are unable to continue to obtain the technology or enter into new agreements on commercially reasonable terms, our ability to develop and offer our products and services incorporating such technology, and otherwise operate and expand our business, could be adversely affected. Many of the risks associated with the use of third-party products cannot be eliminated, and these risks could negatively affect our business.
If customers do not have sufficient rights to the content, technology, data, or other material that they provide or make available to us, our business and reputation may be adversely affected.
If customers do not have sufficient rights to the content, technology, data, or other materials associated with the advertising content that they provide, or if use of such items infringes or is alleged to infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties, we could be subject to claims from those third parties, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition. As a result, we may face potential liability for copyright, patent, trademark or other intellectual property infringement, or other claims. Litigation to defend these claims could be costly and have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. We cannot assure you that we are adequately insured to cover claims of these types or adequately indemnified for all liability that may be imposed on us as a result of these claims.
Our platform relies on third-party open-source software components. Failure to comply with the terms of the underlying open-source software licenses could expose us to liabilities, and the combination of open-source software with code that we develop could compromise the proprietary nature of our platform.
Our platform utilizes software licensed to us by third-party authors under “open-source” licenses and we expect to continue to utilize open-source software in the future. The use and distribution of open-source software may entail greater risks than the use of third-party commercial software, as open-source licensors generally do not provide support, warranties, indemnification or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code. To the extent that our platform depends upon the successful operation of the open-source software we use, any undetected errors or defects in this open-source software could prevent the deployment or impair the functionality of our platform, delay new solutions
59
Table of Contents
introductions, result in a failure of our platform, and injure our reputation. For example, undetected errors or defects in open-source software could render it vulnerable to breaches or security attacks, and, in conjunction, make our systems more vulnerable to data breaches. Furthermore, some open-source licenses contain requirements that we make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon the type of open-source software we use, or grant other licenses to our intellectual property as a condition of use. If we combine our proprietary software with open-source software in a specific manner, we could, under some open-source licenses, be required to release the source code of our proprietary software to the public. This would allow our competitors to create similar platforms with lower development effort and time and ultimately put us at a competitive disadvantage, or prevent us from enforcing our rights in our intellectual property against such competitors. From time to time, we may be subject to claims asserting licensed rights in, or demanding the release of, the source code for our proprietary software that was developed using such software, requiring us to provide attributions of any open-source software incorporated into our distributed software, or otherwise seeking to enforce the terms of the applicable open-source license. These claims could also result in litigation, require us to purchase a costly license or require us to devote additional research and development resources to re-engineer our software or change our products or services, any of which would have a negative effect on our business and results of operations.
Although we monitor our use of open-source software to avoid subjecting our platform to conditions we do not intend, we cannot assure you that our processes for controlling our use of open-source software in our platform will be effective. If we are held to have breached the terms of an open-source software license, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties to continue operating using our platform on terms that are not economically feasible, to re-engineer our platform or the supporting computational infrastructure to discontinue use of code, or to make generally available, in source code form, portions of our proprietary code.
We are subject to regulation with respect to political advertising, which lacks clarity and uniformity.
We are subject to regulation with respect to political advertising activities, which are governed by various federal and state laws in the United States, and national and provincial laws worldwide. Online political advertising laws are rapidly evolving and our customers may impose restrictions on receiving political advertising. The lack of uniformity and increasing compliance requirements around political advertising may adversely impact the amount of political advertising spent through our platform, increase our operating and compliance costs, and subject us to potential liability from regulatory agencies.
As a public reporting company, we are subject to rules and regulations established from time to time by the SEC and the NYSE regarding our internal control over financial reporting. If we fail to establish and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results, or report them in a timely manner.
As a public reporting company, we are subject to the rules and regulations established from time to time by the SEC and the NYSE. These rules and regulations require, among other things, that we establish and periodically evaluate procedures with respect to our internal control over financial reporting. Reporting obligations as a public company are likely to place a considerable strain on our financial and management systems, processes and controls, as well as on our personnel.
In addition, as a public company we will be required to document and test our internal control over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act so that our management can certify as to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting by the time our second annual report is filed with the SEC and annually thereafter, which will require us to document and make significant changes to our internal control 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 provided under the SEC’s rules and regulations. At such time, our independent registered public accounting firm could issue a report that is adverse in the event it is not satisfied with the level at which our internal controls over financial reporting are documented, designed, or operating.
We expect to incur costs related to implementing an internal audit and compliance function in the upcoming years to further improve our internal control environment. If we identify future deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting or if we are unable to comply with the demands that will be placed upon us as a public company, including the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, in a timely manner, we may be unable to accurately report our financial results, or report them within the timeframes required by the SEC. We also could become subject to sanctions or investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities. In addition, if we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, if we are to issue a correction to our financial statements as a public company, whether immaterial or material, or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion as to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, when required, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, we may face restricted access to the capital markets and our stock price may be adversely affected. Any failure to implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting also could adversely affect the results of periodic management evaluations and annual independent registered public accounting firm attestation reports regarding the
60
Table of Contents
effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting that we will eventually be required to include in our periodic reports that are filed with the SEC. Ineffective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting could also cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial and other information, which would likely have a negative effect on the trading price of our Class A common stock. In addition, if we are unable to continue to meet these requirements, we may not be able to remain listed on the NYSE.
Our management team has limited experience managing a public company, and the requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert management’s attention, and affect our ability to attract and retain qualified board members.
As a public company listed in the United States, we incur significant legal, accounting, and other expenses. In addition, changing laws, regulations, and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure, including regulations implemented by the SEC and the NYSE, may increase legal and financial compliance costs, and make some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, and as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies.
Most members of our management team have no experience managing a publicly traded company, interacting with public company investors, and complying with the increasingly complex laws pertaining to public companies. Our management team may not successfully or efficiently manage our transition to being a public company that is subject to significant regulatory oversight and reporting obligations under the federal securities laws and the continuous scrutiny of securities analysts and investors. Furthermore, we are committed to maintaining high standards of corporate governance and public disclosure, and our efforts to establish the corporate infrastructure required of a public company and to comply with evolving laws, regulations and standards are likely to divert management’s time and attention away from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities, which may prevent us from implementing our business strategy and growing our business. Moreover, we may not be successful in implementing these requirements. If we do not effectively and efficiently manage ourselves as a public company or continue to develop and implement the right processes and tools to manage our changing enterprise and maintain our culture, our ability to compete successfully and achieve our business objectives could be impaired, which could negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Additionally, as a public company, we may from time to time be subject to proposals by stockholders urging us to take certain corporate actions. If activist stockholder activity ensues, we may be required to incur additional costs to retain the services of professional advisors, management time and attention will be diverted from our core business operations, and perceived uncertainties as to our future direction, strategy or leadership may cause us to lose potential business opportunities and impair our brand and reputation, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition to increasing our legal and financial compliance costs, the additional rules and regulations described above might also make it more difficult for us to obtain certain types of insurance, including director and officer liability insurance, and we might be forced to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain the same or similar coverage. As a result, it may be more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors, on committees of our board of directors or as members of our senior management team.
Risks Related to AI Technologies
We use AI Technologies in our business, and the deployment, use and maintenance of these technologies involve significant technological and legal risks.
We develop proprietary AI Technologies and use third-party AI Technologies in our business, and are making significant investment in this area. For example, we use AI Technologies in connection with (i) MNTN Matched, which uses AI Technologies to match consumers with brands that they are most likely to engage with and (ii) our video creative platform that leverages generative AI Technologies for sound generation, narration generation and image generation. As with many technological innovations, deploying, using and maintaining these AI Technologies involves significant technological and legal risks and there can be no assurance that our investments in such AI Technologies will always enhance our products or services or be beneficial to our business, including our efficiency or profitability.
In particular, if the models underlying our AI Technologies are: (i) incorrectly designed or implemented; (ii) trained or reliant on incomplete, inadequate, inaccurate, biased or otherwise poor quality data, or on data to which we do not have sufficient rights or in relation to which we and/or the providers of such data have not implemented sufficient legal compliance measures; (iii) used without sufficient oversight and governance to ensure their responsible use; and/or (iv) adversely impacted by unforeseen defects, technical challenges, cybersecurity threats, data privacy concerns, or material performance issues, the performance of our products, services and business, as well as our reputation and the reputations of our customers,
61
Table of Contents
could suffer or we could incur liability resulting from the violation of laws or contracts to which we are a party or civil claims.
With respect to our products or services that incorporate AI Technologies, the market for such products and services is rapidly evolving and market acceptance and consumer perceptions of products and services that incorporate AI Technologies is uncertain. We cannot be sure that the market will continue to grow or that it will grow in ways we anticipate. Our failure to successfully develop and commercialize our products or services involving AI Technologies could depress the market price of our stock and impair our ability to: raise capital; expand our business; provide, improve and diversify our product offerings; and respond effectively to competitive developments.
In addition to our proprietary AI Technologies, we use AI Technologies licensed from third parties in our products and solutions and our ability to continue to use such technologies at the scale we need may be dependent on access to specific third-party software and infrastructure. If any such third-party AI Technologies become incompatible with our solutions or unavailable for use, or if the providers of such models unfavorably change the terms on which their AI Technologies are offered or terminate their relationship with us, our solutions may become less appealing to our customers and our business will be harmed. In addition, to the extent any third-party AI Technologies are used as a hosted service, any disruption, outage, or loss of information through such hosted services could disrupt our operations or solutions, damage our reputation, cause a loss of confidence in our solutions, or result in legal claims or proceedings, for which we may be unable to recover damages from the affected provider.
Our development of proprietary AI Technologies is costly and complex, and we face significant risks related to technological challenges, competitive pressures, and dependence on third-party resources and data.
We are in varying stages of development in relation to our products and internal business processes involving AI Technologies. The continuous development, maintenance and operation of our proprietary AI Technologies is expensive and complex, and may involve unforeseen difficulties including material performance problems, undetected defects or errors. For instance, the models underlying our AI Technologies can experience decay (also known as “model drift”) in which their performance and accuracy decrease over time without further human intervention to correct such decay.
We may not be successful in our ongoing development and maintenance of these technologies in the face of novel and evolving technical, reputational and market factors. Our efforts to develop proprietary AI models could increase our operating costs. Our ability to develop proprietary AI models may be limited by our access to processing infrastructure or training data, and we may be dependent on third-party providers for such resources. If we do not continue to invest resources to develop and support our AI Technologies, we may fall behind technological developments and evolving industry standards, which would likely harm our ability to compete.
We face significant competition from other companies in our industry in relation to the development and deployment of AI Technologies. Those other companies may develop AI Technologies that are similar or superior to ours and/or are more cost-effective and/or quicker to develop, deploy and maintain. Any inability to develop, offer or deploy new AI Technologies as effectively, as quickly and/or as cost-efficiently as our competitors could have a materially adverse impact on our operating results, customer relationships and growth.
Certain of the data that we use in training our own proprietary AI Technologies is licensed from third parties, and we are dependent upon our ability to obtain necessary data licenses within appropriate time frames and on commercially reasonable terms, and such third parties’ assurances that such data was obtained and provided to us lawfully. If a substantial number of data suppliers were to withdraw or withhold their data from us, or if we sever ties with our data suppliers based on their inability to meet our standards, our ability to provide certain products and services to our customers could be materially adversely impacted.
We use generative AI Technologies in our products and solutions as well as our internal business practices, and the use of these generative AI Technologies involves significant legal risks.
We incorporate third-party generative AI Technologies (i.e., AI Technologies that can produce and output new content, software code, data and information) into our solutions and internal business practices. There is a risk that generative AI Technologies could produce biased, inaccurate or misleading content or other discriminatory or unexpected results or behaviors, such as hallucinatory behavior that can generate irrelevant, nonsensical, or factually incorrect results, all of which could harm our reputation, business, or customer relationships.
The generative AI Technologies we leverage could generate output that is infringing, and we could be subject to claims or lawsuits, including for infringement of third-party intellectual property rights as a result of the output of such generative AI Technologies. While some providers of AI Technologies offer to indemnify their end users for any copyright or other
62
Table of Contents
intellectual property infringement claims arising from the output of their AI Technologies, we may not be successful in adequately recovering our losses in connection with such claims.
In addition, we may experience difficulties in enforcing the intellectual property rights in output generated by generative AI Technologies. For example, the United States Copyright Office has previously denied copyright protection for content generated by AI Technologies.
Further, if we are deemed to not have sufficient rights to the data we use to train our generative AI Technologies, we may be subject to litigation by the owners of the content or other materials that comprise such data, similar to the litigation that is currently pending in various U.S., UK, and EU national courts against other developers of generative AI Technologies, and in which the outcome of such litigation is uncertain.
The regulatory framework governing the use of AI Technologies is rapidly evolving, and we cannot predict how future legislation and regulation will impact our ability to offer products or services that we develop which leverage AI Technologies.
The regulatory framework for AI Technologies is rapidly evolving. Already, certain existing legal regimes (e.g., relating to data privacy) regulate certain aspects of AI Technologies, and many federal, state and foreign government bodies and agencies have enacted or are currently considering additional laws and regulations governing AI Technologies. Additionally, existing laws and regulations may be enjoined in judicial proceedings, or may be interpreted or enforced in ways that would affect our use of AI Technologies. As a result, implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future, and we cannot predict the impact future laws, regulations, or standards, or the market perception of their requirements, may have on our business or how we will respond to these laws or regulations.
In the United States, the regulatory framework for AI Technologies faces significant uncertainty. At the federal level, Congress has yet to enact meaningful AI legislation. Instead, federal policy on AI has been shaped by a series of executive orders that have shifted priorities and requirements substantially depending on the administration in power. In the absence of federal AI legislation states have filled the void by enacting laws regulating different aspects of AI Technologies. For example, California has enacted laws and regulations related to AI safety protocols, reporting and transparency, among other AI-related topics. In addition, Utah’s Artificial Intelligence Policy Act establishes disclosure requirements and accountability measures for the use of generative AI in certain consumer interaction, and the Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act prohibits the development and deployment of AI systems for certain purposes while establishing a regulatory sandbox.
Numerous other states have enacted, passed, or are considering AI-focused legislation, creating a patchwork of regulations and a complex compliance challenge. However, the durability of these laws and the potential of additional state-level legislative activity faces uncertainty following President Trump’s December 2025 Executive Order “Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence.” This Executive Order establishes a federal policy favoring a uniform national AI regulatory framework designed to promote innovation and U.S. global competitiveness. The order directs federal agencies to identify, challenge, and potentially preempt state and local AI laws that are viewed as inconsistent with or burdensome to this national approach. It remains to be seen how agencies will effectuate this directive, and how states will approach AI legislation moving forward. Any or all of the foregoing regulatory developments could affect our use of AI and our ability to provide, improve or commercialize our products, require changes to our operations and processes, and materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Further, any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with existing or newly enacted laws, regulations and other requirements relating to AI Technologies could result in legal claims or proceedings (including class actions), regulatory investigations or enforcement actions
While our activities in the EU are currently limited, we may expand our business offerings in the future to make our AI technologies available to users in the EU. If so, then regulation regarding the use and deployment of AI technologies in the EU will become relevant to us, such as the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (the “EU AI Act”), which establishes a comprehensive, risk-based governance framework for AI in the EU market. The EU AI Act applies to companies that develop, use and/or provide AI in the EU, and in relation to the AI deployed by the Company, includes requirements around transparency and output labelling, and proposes fines for breach of up to 7% of worldwide annual turnover. In addition, the revised EU Product Liability Directive came into force in December 2024, to be implemented into EU member state national law by December 2026. This Directive extends the EU’s existing strict product liability regime to AI Technologies and AI-enabled products, and facilitates civil claims in respect of harm caused by AI. Once fully applicable, the EU AI Act and the EU Product Liability Directive will have a material impact on the way AI is regulated in the EU.
It is possible that further new laws and regulations will be adopted in the United States and in other non-U.S. jurisdictions, or that existing laws and regulations, including competition, antitrust, data privacy and consumer protection laws, may be interpreted or enforced in ways that would limit our ability to use AI Technologies for our business, or require us to change
63
Table of Contents
the way we use AI Technologies in a manner that negatively affects the performance of our products and services which leverage AI technologies. We may need to expend resources to adjust our products in certain jurisdictions if the laws, regulations, or decisions are not consistent across jurisdictions. The cost to comply with such laws, regulations, or decisions and/or guidance interpreting existing laws, or to adjust our business plans based on changes to how such laws are enforced, including adapting to loosened regulation to remain competitive, could be significant and would increase our operating expenses (such as by imposing additional reporting obligations regarding our use of AI Technologies). Such an increase in operating expenses could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, if we fail or are perceived to fail to comply with these laws and regulations, we may face lawsuits (including class actions), investigations, enforcement actions, negative reputational impacts, and other penalties that materially impact our business.
Risks Related to our Indebtedness
Our debt obligations contain restrictions that impact our business and expose us to risks that could materially adversely affect our liquidity and financial condition.
We may incur additional indebtedness in the future, including borrowings under the Revolving Credit Facility. Our indebtedness could have significant effects on our business, such as:
•requiring us to pledge a significant portion of our assets, including our intellectual property, as collateral;
•limiting our ability to borrow additional amounts to fund capital expenditures, acquisitions, debt service requirements, execution of our growth strategy and other purposes;
•limiting our ability to make investments, including acquisitions, loans and advances, and to sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of assets;
•requiring us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to pay principal and interest on our borrowings, which would reduce availability of our cash flow to fund working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, execution of our growth strategy and other general corporate purposes;
•making us more vulnerable to adverse changes in general economic, industry and competitive conditions, in government regulation and in our business by limiting our ability to plan for and react to changing conditions;
•placing us at a competitive disadvantage compared with our competitors that have less debt; and
•exposing us to risks inherent in interest rate fluctuations because our borrowings are at variable rates of interest, which could result in higher interest expense in the event of increases in interest rates.
In addition, we may not be able to generate sufficient cash flow from our operations to repay our future indebtedness when it becomes due and to meet our other cash needs. If we are not able to pay our borrowings under future indebtedness as they become due, we will be required to pursue one or more alternative strategies, such as selling assets, refinancing or restructuring our indebtedness or selling additional debt or equity securities. We may not be able to refinance our future debt or sell additional debt or equity securities or our assets on favorable terms, if at all, and if we must sell our assets, it may negatively affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, we may be subject to prepayment penalties depending on when we repay our future indebtedness, which amounts could be material.
Restrictions imposed by our Revolving Credit Facility may materially limit our ability to operate our business and finance our future operations or capital needs.
The terms of our Revolving Credit Facility may restrict us and our subsidiaries from engaging in specified types of transactions. These covenants, subject to certain limitations and exceptions, restrict our ability, and that of our subsidiaries, to, among other things:
•incur indebtedness;
•incur liens;
•make investments, including engaging in mergers or acquisitions;
•convey, sell, lease, transfer or otherwise dispose of assets;
•pay dividends or make other distributions on equity interests, or redeem, repurchase or retire equity interests;
64
Table of Contents
•make payments in respect of subordinated debt; and
•enter into transactions with affiliates.
Pursuant to our Revolving Credit Facility, we are at times required to maintain an Adjusted Quick Ratio (as defined in the Revolving Credit Facility). Our ability to borrow under our Revolving Credit Facility depends on our compliance with this financial covenant. Events beyond our control, including changes in general economic and business conditions, may affect our ability to satisfy the financial covenant. We cannot assure you that we will satisfy the financial covenant in the future, or that our lender will waive any failure to satisfy the financial covenant.
A breach of the financial covenant, or any other covenant in the documents governing our Revolving Credit Facility, could result in a default or event of default under our Revolving Credit Facility. In the event of any event of default under our Revolving Credit Facility, the lender could elect to terminate borrowing commitments and declare all borrowings and loans outstanding thereunder, if any, together with accrued and unpaid interest and any fees and other obligations, to be immediately due and payable. In addition, we are required to maintain no less than $75 million of our depository and operating accounts with Western Alliance Bank, subject to certain limited exceptions. Further, substantially all of our assets are pledged as collateral under the Revolving Credit Facility and the lender could exercise its rights under the Revolving Credit Facility with respect to the collateral. Any such exercise of remedies on any material portion of such collateral would likely materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If we were unable to repay or otherwise refinance borrowings and loans under the Revolving Credit Facility when due, and the lender proceeded against the collateral granted to them to secure the indebtedness under the Revolving Credit Facility, we may be forced into bankruptcy or liquidation. In the event the lender accelerates the repayment of any future borrowings, we may not have sufficient assets to repay that indebtedness. Any acceleration of future borrowings under our Revolving Credit Facility or other outstanding indebtedness would also likely have a material adverse effect on us.
Risks Related to Taxation Matters
Our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards and other tax attributes may be limited.
Under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”), if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” generally defined as a greater than 50 percentage point change (by value) in its equity ownership by certain stockholders over a three-year period, the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards (“NOLs”) and other pre-change tax attributes (such as research and development tax credits) to offset its post-change income or taxes may be limited. We have experienced ownership changes in the past and may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of our initial public offering and/or subsequent shifts in our stock ownership (some of which are outside our control). As a result, our ability to use certain of our pre-change NOLs and tax credits to offset future taxable income, if any, is subject to limitations. Similar provisions of state tax law may also apply. As a result, even if we attain profitability, we may be unable to use a portion of our NOLs and tax credits.
Changes in our effective tax rate or tax liability may have an adverse effect on our results of operations.
We are subject to federal income taxes in the United States and state taxes in many states. Our effective tax rate could be adversely affected 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 the United States or foreign tax laws, tax treaties, and regulations or the interpretation of them;
•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; and
•limitations or adverse findings regarding our ability to do business in some jurisdictions.
As we expand the scale of our international business activities, any changes in the United States or foreign taxation of such activities may increase our worldwide effective tax rate and harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
65
Table of Contents
In particular, new income or other tax laws or regulations could be enacted at any time, which could adversely affect our business operations and financial performance. Further, existing tax laws and regulations could be interpreted, modified, or applied adversely to us. The U.S. government may enact additional significant changes to the taxation of business entities including, among other changes, an increase in the corporate income tax rate, significant changes to the taxation of income derived from international operations and an addition of further limitations on the deductibility of business interest. We are currently unable to predict whether such additional changes will occur. If such changes are enacted or implemented, we are currently unable to predict the ultimate impact on our business and therefore there can be no assurance that our business will not be adversely affected.
Any successful action by state or other authorities to collect additional or past indirect taxes, including sales tax and other taxes, or to assert that we are subject to any taxes in a jurisdiction where we do not currently file could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We are subject to taxes in the United States under federal, state and local jurisdictions in which we operate. Taxing authorities could assert that we have tax liability in jurisdictions where we do not currently file. A successful assertion that we should be collecting taxes in a jurisdiction where we have not historically done so could result in substantial tax liabilities for previous taxable periods or otherwise could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, it is possible that we could face indirect tax audits and that one or more states or local jurisdictions could seek to impose additional indirect or other tax collection and record-keeping obligations on us or may determine that such taxes should have, but have not been, paid by us. We could also be subject to audits in state, local and foreign jurisdictions for which we have not accrued tax liabilities. Further, the administrative or legislative expansion of a state’s sales tax base to include digital goods or services could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. While tax policy changes generally have prospective effects, some may be effective retroactively.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Class A Common Stock
The market price for our Class A common stock may be volatile or may decline regardless of our operating performance, and you may not be able to resell your shares at or above the price at which you purchased such shares.
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, many of which are beyond our control, including:
•actual or anticipated changes or fluctuations in our results of operations;
•the guidance we may provide to analysts and investors from time to time, and any changes in, or our failure to perform in line with, such guidance;
•announcements by us or our competitors of new offerings or new or terminated contracts, commercial relationships or capital commitments;
•industry or financial analyst or investor reaction to our press releases, other public announcements, and filings with the SEC;
•rumors and market speculation involving us or other companies in our industry;
•future sales or expected future sales of our Class A common stock;
•investor perceptions of us and the industries in which we operate;
•price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market from time to time;
•changes in operating performance and stock market valuations of other technology companies generally, or those in our industry in particular;
•failure of industry or financial analysts to maintain coverage of us, the issuance of new or updated reports or recommendations by any analysts who follow our company, or our failure to meet the expectations of investors;
•actual or anticipated developments in our business or our competitors’ businesses or the competitive landscape generally;
66
Table of Contents
•litigation involving us, other companies in our industry or both, or investigations by regulators into our operations or those of our competitors;
•developments or disputes concerning our intellectual property or proprietary rights or our platform, or third-party intellectual or proprietary rights;
•announced or completed acquisitions of businesses or technologies, or other strategic transactions by us or our competitors;
•actual or perceived breaches of, or failures relating to, privacy, data protection or data security;
•new laws or regulations or new interpretations of existing laws or regulations applicable to our business;
•actual or anticipated changes in our management or our board of directors;
•expiration of contractual lock-up agreements with our executive officers, directors and stockholders;
•material weaknesses, if any, in our internal control over financial reporting;
•general economic conditions and slow or negative growth of our target markets;
•other events or factors, including those resulting from war, incidents of terrorism or responses to these events; and
•the realization of any risks described under this “Risk Factors” section, or other risks that may materialize in the future.
Furthermore, the stock market has experienced extreme volatility that in some cases has been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of particular companies. These and other factors may cause the market price and demand for our Class A common stock to fluctuate substantially, which may limit or prevent investors from readily selling their shares of Class A common stock and may otherwise negatively affect the liquidity of our Class A common stock.
The dual-class structure of our common stock has the effect of concentrating voting power with holders of our Class B common stock, who will have significant influence over us and, if acting together, will be able to control matters requiring stockholder approval.
Our Class A common stock has one vote per share and our Class B common stock has 10 votes per share. As of June 30, 2026, the holders of our outstanding Class B common stock held 68% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock, which voting power may increase over time as Mr. Douglas exercises his options that are exercisable for shares of our Class B common stock. If all such outstanding options held by Mr. Douglas had been exercised for shares of our Class B common stock as of June 30, 2026, the shares held by Mr. Douglas would represent 40% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock. As a result, Mr. Douglas and our principal stockholders will be able to exert significant influence over us and, if acting together, will be able to control matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of our board of directors, the adoption of amendments to our Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation (as currently in effect, the “Certificate of Incorporation”) and our Amended and Restated Bylaws (as currently in effect, the “Bylaws”) and the approval of any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets or other major corporate transactions. The interests of these stockholders may not always coincide with, and in some cases may conflict with, our interests and the interests of our other stockholders. For instance, these stockholders could attempt to delay or prevent a change in control of our company, even if such change in control would benefit our other stockholders, which could deprive our stockholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their common stock. This concentration of ownership may also affect the prevailing market price of our common stock due to investors’ perceptions that conflicts of interest may exist or arise. As a result, this concentration of ownership may not be in your best interests.
Additionally, future transfers by holders of our Class B common stock will generally result in those shares converting into our Class A common stock, subject to limited exceptions. The conversion of our Class B common stock to our Class A common stock will have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those holders of our Class B common stock who retain their shares in the long term. As a result, it is possible that one or more of the persons or entities holding our Class B common stock could gain significant influence as other holders of our Class B common stock sell or otherwise convert their shares into our Class A common stock. In addition, the conversion of our Class B common stock into our Class A common stock would dilute holders of our Class A common stock in terms of voting power within our Class A common stock.
67
Table of Contents
The dual-class structure of our common stock may adversely affect the trading market for our Class A common stock.
Certain stock index providers have excluded companies with multiple classes of shares of common stock from being added to certain stock indices. The multi-class structure of our common stock would therefore make us ineligible for inclusion in indices with such restrictions and, as a result, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and other investment vehicles that attempt to passively track those indices may not invest in our Class A common stock.
In addition, several stockholder advisory firms and large institutional investors have been critical of the use of multi-class structures. Such stockholder advisory firms may publish negative commentary about our corporate governance practices or our capital structure, which may dissuade large institutional investors from purchasing shares of our Class A common stock.
These actions could make our Class A common stock less attractive to other investors and may result in a less active trading market for our Class A common stock.
Future sales of substantial amounts of our Class A common stock in the public markets, or the perception that such sales might occur, could reduce the price that our Class A common stock might otherwise attain.
Future sales of a substantial number of shares of our Class A common stock in the public market, particularly sales by our directors, executive officers, and principal stockholders, or the perception that these sales could occur, could adversely affect the market price of our Class A common stock and may make it more difficult for you to sell your Class A common stock at a time and price that you deem appropriate. As of June 30, 2026, we had an aggregate of 61,298,300 shares of our Class A common stock outstanding, of which 5,257,914 was held by affiliates.
All of the issued and outstanding shares of our Class A common stock and our Class B common stock are eligible for future sale, subject to the applicable volume, manner of sale, holding periods, and other limitations of Rule 144. In addition, holders of our Class A and Class B common stock have certain rights to require us to register the sale of Class A common stock held by such stockholders, including in connection with underwritten offerings. Sales of significant amounts of stock in the public market, or the perception that such sales may occur, could adversely affect prevailing market prices of our Class A common stock or make it more difficult for you to sell your shares of Class A common stock at a time and price that you deem appropriate.
The market price of our Class A common stock may drop significantly when we register the sale of our stockholders’ remaining shares of our Class A common stock, or if there is an expectation that such a lapse of resale restrictions or registration of shares will occur. A decline in the trading price of our Class A common stock might impede our ability to raise capital through the issuance of additional shares of our Class A common stock or other equity securities and may impair your ability to sell shares of our Class A common stock at a price higher than the price you paid for them or at all.
Your ownership and voting power may be diluted by the issuance of additional shares of our common stock in connection with financings, acquisitions, investments, our equity incentive plans or otherwise.
Subject to compliance with applicable rules and regulations, we may issue additional shares of our Class A common stock or our Class B common stock or securities convertible into our Class A common stock from time to time for the consideration and on the terms and conditions established by our board of directors in its sole discretion, whether in connection with a financing, acquisition, investment, our equity incentive plans or otherwise. Each share of our Class B common stock has 10 votes on matters submitted to a vote of our stockholders and our Class A common stock has one vote. In addition, each share of Class B common stock can be converted at any time at the election of the holder into one share of Class A common stock.
As of June 30, 2026, we had 10,050,020 shares of our Class A common stock issuable upon the exercise of outstanding options at a weighted average exercise price of $11.72 per share, 6,004,142 of which were vested as of such date, and additional shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance under our 2025 Incentive Award Plan. As of June 30, 2026, we had 11,810,410 shares of our Class B common stock issuable upon the exercise of outstanding options at a weighted average exercise price of $3.79 per share, 4,724,164 of which were vested as of such date. As of June 30, 2026, we had 3,955,700 shares of restricted stock that are legally issued and outstanding and votable, but are not reflected as outstanding shares on the consolidated balance sheets. Any additional shares of our Class A common stock and our Class B common stock that we issue, including under our equity incentive plans that we may adopt in the future would dilute the percentage ownership and voting power held by the investors who purchase Class A common stock.
In the future, we may also issue additional securities if we need to raise capital, including, but not limited to, in connection with acquisitions, which could constitute a material portion of our then-outstanding shares of common stock. Any such issuance could substantially dilute the ownership and voting power of our existing stockholders and cause the market price of our common stock to decline.
68
Table of Contents
We may issue shares of preferred stock in the future, which could make it difficult for another company to acquire us or could otherwise adversely affect holders of our Class A common stock, which could depress the price of our Class A common stock.
Our Certificate of Incorporation authorizes us to issue one or more series of preferred stock. Our board of directors have the authority to determine the preferences, limitations, and relative rights of the shares of preferred stock and to fix the number of shares constituting any series and the designation of such series, without any further vote or action by our stockholders. Our preferred stock could be issued with voting, liquidation, dividend, and other rights superior to the rights of our Class A common stock. The potential issuance of preferred stock may delay or prevent a change in control of our company, discouraging bids for our Class A common stock at a premium to the market price, and materially and adversely affect the market price and the voting and other rights of the holders of our Class A common stock.
Anti-takeover provisions in our governing 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 depress the market price of our Class A common stock.
We are a Delaware corporation, and the anti-takeover provisions of Delaware law impose various impediments to the ability of a third party to acquire control of us, even if a change of control would be beneficial to our existing stockholders. In addition, our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws contain provisions that could have the effect of rendering more difficult, delaying or preventing an acquisition deemed undesirable by our board of directors, including transactions in which stockholders might otherwise receive a premium for their shares. Among others, our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws include the following provisions:
•the dual-class structure that provides holders of shares of our Class B common stock with the ability to significantly influence the outcome of matters requiring stockholder approval, even if they own significantly less than a majority of the shares of our outstanding capital stock;
•the delegation to our board of directors of the exclusive right to expand the size of our board of directors and to elect directors to fill a vacancy created by any such expansion or the resignation, death or removal of a director, which will prevent stockholders from being able to fill vacancies on our board of directors;
•the division of our board of directors into three classes, with each class serving staggered three-year terms, which may delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of a majority of our board of directors;
•limitations on convening special stockholder meetings, which could make it difficult for our stockholders to adopt desired governance changes;
•advance notice procedures, which apply for stockholders to nominate candidates for election as directors or to bring matters before an annual meeting of stockholders, which may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of our company;
•a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent, which means that our stockholders will only be able to take action at a meeting of stockholders;
•a forum selection clause, which means certain litigation against us can only be brought in Delaware;
•no authorization of cumulative voting, which limits the ability of minority stockholders to elect director candidates;
•directors will only be able to be removed for cause and only by the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the voting power of our then-outstanding capital stock;
•certain amendments to our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws require the approval of two-thirds of the voting power of our then-outstanding capital stock;
•the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the voting power of our then-outstanding capital stock, voting as a single class, will be required for stockholders to amend or adopt any provision of our Bylaws; and
•the authorization of undesignated or “blank check” preferred stock, the terms of which may be established and shares of which may be issued without further action by our stockholders, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership and voting rights of a hostile acquirer.
69
Table of Contents
These provisions, alone or together, could delay or prevent hostile takeovers and changes in control or changes in our management. In addition, as a Delaware corporation, we are also subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (“DGCL”), which prevents stockholders holding more than 15% of our outstanding capital stock from engaging in certain business combinations unless (i) prior to the time such stockholder became an interested stockholder, the board approved the transaction that resulted in such stockholder becoming an interested stockholder, (ii) upon consummation of the transaction that resulted in such stockholder becoming an interested stockholder, the interested stockholder owned 85% of the common stock or (iii) following board approval, the business combination receives the approval of the holders of at least two-thirds of our outstanding common stock not held by such interested stockholder.
Any provision of our Certificate of Incorporation, Bylaws or Delaware law that has the effect of delaying, preventing, or deterring a change in control could limit the opportunity for our stockholders to receive a premium for their shares of our common stock. Even in the absence of a takeover attempt, the existence of these provisions may adversely affect the prevailing market price of our common stock if they are viewed by investors as discouraging future takeover attempts or other transactions that may be in the best interests of our stockholders or that may otherwise enable them to obtain a greater return on their investment, which may impair your ability to sell shares of our Class A common stock at a price greater than the price you paid for them or at all.
Our Certificate of Incorporation provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the sole and exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, and federal district courts are the sole and exclusive forum for Securities Act claims, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or team members.
Our Certificate of Incorporation provides that, unless we consent to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the sole and exclusive forum for: (a) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf; (b) any action asserting a claim of breach of fiduciary duty owed by any of our directors, officers, team members or other agents to us or to our stockholders; (c) any action asserting a claim arising pursuant to the DGCL, our Certificate of Incorporation or Bylaws (as either may be amended and/or restated), or as to which the DGCL confers exclusive jurisdiction on the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware; or (d) any action asserting a claim governed by the internal affairs doctrine. Under our Certificate of Incorporation, this exclusive forum provision will not apply to claims which are vested in the exclusive jurisdiction of a court or forum other than the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, or for which the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware does not have subject matter jurisdiction. For instance, the provision would not apply to actions arising under federal securities laws, including suits brought to enforce any liability or duty created by the Securities Act, Exchange Act, or the rules and regulations thereunder. Our Certificate of Incorporation further provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the federal district courts of the United States shall, to the fullest extent permitted by law, be the sole and exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act. There is uncertainty as to whether a court would enforce this provision with respect to claims under the Securities Act, and our stockholders cannot waive compliance with the federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder. The choice of 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, team members or other agents, which may discourage such lawsuits against us and our directors, officers, team members and other agents. Alternatively, if a court were to find the choice of forum provisions contained in our Certificate of Incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our Certificate of Incorporation provides that the doctrine of “corporate opportunity” will not apply with respect to any director or stockholder who is not employed by us or our subsidiaries.
The doctrine of corporate opportunity generally provides that a corporate fiduciary may not develop an opportunity using corporate resources, acquire an interest adverse to that of the corporation or acquire property that is reasonably incident to the present or prospective business of the corporation or in which the corporation has a present or expectancy interest, unless that opportunity is first presented to the corporation and the corporation chooses not to pursue that opportunity. The doctrine of corporate opportunity is intended to preclude officers or directors or other fiduciaries from personally benefiting from opportunities that belong to the corporation. Our Certificate of Incorporation, to the fullest extent permitted from time to time by Delaware law, renounces any interest or expectancy that we otherwise would have in, and all rights to be offered an opportunity to participate in, any business opportunity that from time to time may be presented to any director or stockholder party to the A&R IRA (as defined below) who is not employed by us or our subsidiaries (each such person, an “exempt person”). In addition, to the fullest extent permitted by law, if an exempt person acquires knowledge of a potential transaction or other business opportunity which may be a corporate opportunity for itself, himself or herself or its, his or her affiliates or for us or our subsidiaries, such exempt person will have no duty to communicate or offer such transaction or business opportunity to us or any of our subsidiaries and such exempt person may take any such transaction or opportunity for themselves or offer it to another person or entity.
70
Table of Contents
As a result, certain of our stockholders, directors and their respective affiliates will not be prohibited from operating or investing in competing businesses. We therefore may find ourselves in competition with certain of our stockholders, directors or their respective affiliates, and we may not have knowledge of, or be able to pursue, transactions that could potentially be beneficial to us. Accordingly, we may lose a corporate opportunity or suffer competitive harm, which could negatively impact our business and growth prospects.
We are highly dependent on our chief executive officer, as well as our senior management team, and our business and growth may be adversely affected if we fail to attract, retain, and motivate key personnel.
Our future success depends in significant part on the continued service of our key management and engineering personnel, including our founder and CEO, Mark Douglas. Our ability to compete and grow depends in part on the efforts and talents of our team members and executives, who are important to our vision, strategic direction, culture, products, and technology. The loss of Mr. Douglas or any other member of our senior management team could cause disruption and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, our ability to execute our strategy depends in part on our continued ability to identify, hire, develop, motivate, and retain highly skilled team members. In particular, our brand marketing, which we view as a key differentiator for our success, is highly dependent on the experience and global influence of our creative team, which includes globally recognized figures with substantial social media followings, as well as renowned industry leaders. Any unfavorable publicity regarding such figures or us could negatively impact our brand marketing or otherwise cause us reputational harm, which could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. We believe that our corporate culture has been an important factor in our ability to hire and retain key team members, and if we are unable to maintain our corporate culture as we grow, we may be unable to foster the innovation, creativity, and teamwork we believe we need to support our growth. While we believe we compete favorably, competition for highly skilled team members is intense. Interviewing, hiring, and integrating new team members has been and will continue to be particularly challenging during the adoption of our entirely remote working plans. As part of our entirely remote working plans, we will devote increased efforts to maintaining our collaborative culture, including through the use of videoconferencing and other online communication and sharing tools, and to monitoring the health, safety, morale, and productivity of our team members, including new team members. If we are unable to identify, hire, and retain highly skilled team members, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected.
Our business is subject to the risk of catastrophic events such as pandemics, earthquakes, flooding, fire, and power outages, and to interruption by man-made problems such as geopolitical conflict and terrorism.
Our business is vulnerable to damage or interruption from pandemics, earthquakes, flooding, fire, power outages, telecommunications failures, terrorist attacks, acts of war, human errors, break-ins, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, including the conflict in Iran, tensions between China and Taiwan, and economic sanctions imposed in connection with such conflicts, and similar events. A significant natural disaster could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition, and our insurance coverage may be insufficient to compensate us for losses that may occur. In addition, acts of terrorism, which may be targeted at metropolitan areas that have higher population density than rural areas, could cause disruptions in our or customers’ and partners’ businesses or the economy as a whole. Our servers may also be vulnerable to computer viruses, break-ins, denial-of-service attacks, and similar disruptions from unauthorized tampering with our computer systems, which could lead to interruptions, delays, loss of critical data. We may not have sufficient protection or recovery plans in some circumstances, such as natural disasters affecting the United States. As we rely heavily on our data center facilities, computer and communications systems and the Internet to conduct our business and provide high-quality customer service, these disruptions could negatively impact our ability to run our business and either directly or indirectly disrupt customers’ and partners’ businesses, which could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We are an “emerging growth company” and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our Class A common stock less attractive to investors.
For so long as we remain an “emerging growth company” as defined in the JOBS Act, we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various requirements that are applicable to public companies that are not “emerging growth companies.” These provisions currently include, among other exemptions, that:
•we are permitted to have only two years of audited financial statements and only two years of related Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations disclosure;
•we are not required to engage an auditor to report on our internal controls over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act;
71
Table of Contents
•we are not required to comply with any requirement that may be adopted by the PCAOB regarding mandatory audit firm rotation or a supplement to the auditor’s report providing additional information about the audit and the financial statements (i.e., an auditor discussion and analysis);
•we are not required to submit certain executive compensation matters to stockholder advisory votes, such as “say-on-pay,” “say-on-frequency” and “say-on-golden parachutes;” and
•we are not required to disclose certain executive compensation related items such as the correlation between executive compensation and performance and comparisons of the chief executive officer’s compensation to median employee compensation.
We may take advantage of these exemptions until the last day of our fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the closing of our initial public offering or such earlier time that we are no longer an emerging growth company. We will cease to be an emerging growth company if (i) we have $1.235 billion or more in annual revenue in any fiscal year, (ii) if we qualify as a “large accelerated filer” as defined in the rules under the Exchange Act, which will occur if, as of fiscal year end, the market value of our Class A common stock held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million as of the end of our most recently completed second fiscal quarter, or (iii) we issue more than $1.0 billion of non-convertible debt over a three-year period. We have elected to take advantage of certain of the reduced reporting and other obligations described above and intend to take advantage of reduced reporting requirements in the future for so long as we are able to do so. The JOBS Act also permits an emerging growth company like us 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 until the earlier of the date we (x) are no longer an emerging growth company, or (y) affirmatively and irrevocably opt-out of the extended transition period provided in the JOBS Act. As a result, our consolidated financial statements and the reported results of operations contained therein may not be directly comparable to those of other public companies.
We cannot predict if investors will find our Class A common stock less attractive because we may rely on these exemptions. 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 decline or be more volatile.
We do not anticipate paying dividends on our Class A common stock in the foreseeable future. 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 Class A common stock or Class B common stock and do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our Class A common stock or Class B common stock in the foreseeable future. We anticipate that we will retain all of our available funds and any future earnings for use in the operation and expansion of our business. Any future determination as to the payment of cash dividends will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend on, among other things, our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations, current and anticipated cash needs and availability, industry trends and other factors that our board of directors may consider to be relevant. Our ability to pay cash dividends on our Class A common stock in the future may also be limited by the terms of any preferred securities we may issue or financial and other covenants in any instruments or agreements governing any additional indebtedness we may incur in the future. Consequently, investors who purchase shares of our Class A common stock may be unable to realize a return on their investment except by selling such shares after price appreciation, which may never occur. Our inability or decision not to pay dividends, particularly when others in our industry have elected to do so, could also adversely affect the market price of our Class A common stock.
We may be subject to securities litigation, which is expensive and could divert management attention.
The market price of our Class A common stock may be volatile and, in the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.
General Risk Factors
Unfavorable conditions in our industry or the global economy or reductions in information technology 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 and the global economy on us and our customers. Current or future economic uncertainties or downturns could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Negative conditions in the general economy both in the United States and abroad, including conditions resulting from changes in gross domestic product growth, financial, and credit market fluctuations, inflation, interest rate
72
Table of Contents
volatility, labor shortages, political turmoil, global supply chain disruptions, natural catastrophes, major epidemics or pandemics, or outbreak of infectious disease, warfare, protests and riots, and terrorist attacks on the United States, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific region, or elsewhere, could cause a decrease in business investments by our customers and potential customers, including spending on information technology, and negatively affect the growth of our business. To the extent our offerings are perceived by customers and potential customers as discretionary, our revenue may be disproportionately affected by delays or reductions in general information technology spending. Also, customers may choose to develop in-house software as an alternative to using our offerings. Moreover, competitors may respond to market conditions by lowering prices. 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 do not improve, or worsen from present levels, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
The U.S. government announced tariffs on products imported from jurisdictions outside the United States and has made announcements regarding the potential imposition of tariffs on other jurisdictions. The U.S. government may in the future impose, reimpose, increase, or pause tariffs, and countries subject to such tariffs have and, in the future may, impose reciprocal tariffs or impose other protectionist or retaliatory trade measures in response. Any deterioration in general economic conditions, including as a result of the geopolitical environment or inflation (as well as government policies such as raising interest rates in response to inflation), could increase uncertainties and risks relating to our customers’ demand and the overall demand for advertising or to the economic health of our current and prospective marketers. There can be no assurance that we will be able to mitigate the impacts of the foregoing or any future changes in global trade dynamics on our business.
Our estimates of market opportunity and forecasts of market growth may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the markets in which we compete achieve the forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow at similar rates, or at all.
Our estimates of market opportunity and forecasts of market growth may prove to be inaccurate. Market opportunity estimates and growth forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate, including as a result of any of the risks described in this Form 10-Q.
In addition, 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 market opportunity estimates will purchase our offerings or generate any particular level of revenue for us. In addition, our ability to expand in any of our target markets depends on a number of factors, including the cost, performance, and perceived value associated with our platform and those of our competitors. Even if the markets in which we compete meet the size estimates and forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow at similar rates, or at all. Our growth is subject to many factors, including our success in implementing our business strategy, which is subject to many risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, our forecasts of market growth should not be taken as indicative of our future growth.
If industry or financial analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or if they issue inaccurate or unfavorable research regarding our Class A common stock, the market price and trading volume of our Class A common stock could decline.
The trading market for our Class A common stock is influenced by the research and reports that industry or financial analysts publish about us and our business. We do not control these analysts or the content and opinions included in their reports. As a newly public company, we may be slow to attract research coverage and the analysts who publish information about our Class A common stock will have had relatively little experience with our company, which could affect their ability to accurately forecast our results and make it more likely that we fail to meet their estimates. In the event we obtain industry or financial analyst coverage, if any of the analysts who cover us issues an inaccurate or unfavorable opinion regarding our company, the market price of our Class A common stock would likely decline. In addition, the share prices of many companies in the technology industry have declined significantly after those companies have failed to meet, or significantly exceed, the financial guidance they have publicly announced or the expectations of analysts and investors. If our financial results fail to meet, or significantly exceed, our announced guidance or the expectations of analysts or investors, analysts could downgrade our Class A common stock or publish unfavorable research about us. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to publish reports on us regularly, our visibility in the financial markets could decrease, which in turn could cause the market price or trading volume of our Class A common stock to decline.
Our disclosure controls and procedures may not prevent or detect all errors or acts of fraud.
We are subject to the periodic reporting requirements of the Exchange Act. We designed our disclosure controls and procedures to provide reasonable assurance that information we must disclose in reports we file or submit under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to management, and recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the rules and forms of the SEC. We believe that any disclosure controls and procedures, no
73
Table of Contents
matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met.
These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision making can be faulty, and that breakdowns can occur because of simple error or mistake. Additionally, controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people or by an unauthorized override of the controls. Accordingly, because of the inherent limitations in our control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.
Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in accounting principles generally accepted in the United States.
GAAP is subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the SEC, and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. The accounting for our business can be complicated and is subject to change based on the evolution of our business model, interpretations of relevant accounting principles, enforcement of existing or new regulations, and changes in SEC or other agency policies, rules, regulations, and interpretations of accounting regulations. Changes to our business model and accounting methods, principles, or interpretations could result in changes to our consolidated financial statements, including changes in revenue and expenses in any period, or in certain categories of revenue and expenses moving to different periods, may result in materially different financial results, and may require that we change how we process, analyze, and report financial information and our financial reporting controls.
We may need additional capital in the future to meet our financial obligations and to pursue our business objectives. Additional capital may not be available on favorable terms, or at all, which could compromise our ability to meet our financial obligations and grow our business.
We may need to raise additional capital to fund operations in the future or to finance acquisitions or other business objectives. Additional capital may not be available on favorable terms or at all. Lack of sufficient capital resources could significantly limit our ability to meet our financial obligations or to take advantage of business and strategic opportunities. Any additional capital raised through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities would dilute your stock ownership, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences, and privileges superior to those of holders of our Class A common stock. Any debt financing we secure in the future could involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. In addition, during times of economic instability, it has been difficult for many companies to obtain financing in the public markets or to obtain debt financing, and we may not be able to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us when we require it, and as such we may be required to delay, reduce the scope of, or eliminate material parts of our business strategy, including potential additional acquisitions or development of new technologies and expansion of our business.
We utilize Insured Cash Sweep services to reduce the exposure of our cash and cash equivalent balances that exceed FDIC limits at any one financial institution. As such, our exposure is limited to daily net inflows that are greater than the FDIC limit, which is eliminated at the end of the day when the excess funds are swept out. However, we may, from time to time, have bank deposits at one financial institution in excess of FDIC insured limits. Market conditions can impact the viability of these institutions. In the event of failure of the financial institutions where we maintain our cash and cash equivalents or if there is continued turmoil in the banking industry generally, we may not be able to access uninsured funds in a timely manner or at all, which would adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies are based on assumptions that change or prove to be incorrect, our results of operations could fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the trading price of our Class A common stock.
The preparation of our consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in our consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as discussed in Part I., Item 2. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” included in this Form 10-Q, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. 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 our publicly announced guidance or the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the market price of our Class A common stock.
74
Table of Contents