ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Overview
Telaria, Inc. provides a fully programmatic software platform for premium publishers to manage and monetize their video advertising. Our platform is built specifically for digital video and to support the unique requirements of connected TV, or CTV, and over-the-top content. We provide publishers with real-time analytics, data and decisioning tools to control their video advertising business and offer a holistic monetization solution to optimize yield across a publisher’s entire supply of digital video inventory.
Our technology enables publishers to manage and deliver their video inventory through a single platform, allowing them to get a complete picture of their sales efforts and maximize revenue from ad placements across channels. Our platform is connected with leading third-party demand-side platforms, or DSPs, through server-to-server integrations, creating a robust programmatic marketplace where publishers can seamlessly transact with advertisers. These programmatic transactions fully automate the sales process and enable publishers to increase the value of their advertising inventory by using data to better segment and match their supply with demand.
We provide a full suite of tools for publishers to control their video advertising business and protect the consumer viewing experience. These controls are particularly important CTV publishers who need to ensure a TV-like viewing and advertising experience for consumers. For instance, our ad-pod feature provides long-form content publishers with a tool analogous to commercial breaks in traditional linear television so that they can request and manage several ads at once from different demand sources. Using this tool, publishers can establish business rules such as competitive separation of advertisers to ensure that competing brand ads do not appear during the same commercial break, audio normalization to control for the volume of an ad relative to content, and frequency capping to avoid exposing viewers to repetitive ad placements.
Publishers on our platform receive up-to-the-second reporting and diagnostics so that they can effectively monitor buying patterns and make real-time changes to take advantage of market dynamics. Our inventory intelligence dashboard provides publishers with extensive analytics that leverage billions of historical data points to drive their monetization strategy, as well as access to first and third-party data that offers valuable insights into their video advertising such as performance, viewability and audience data, which can be used to segment inventory and create incremental value.
We have built long-standing relationships with premium video publishers, in particular in the CTV space, and we believe the scale and quality of our client base makes us an important partner to video ad buyers. Buyers on our platform include some of the largest brand advertisers in the world and our platform is integrated with the leading video volume buyers in digital advertising. We provide our platform internationally in Europe, Canada, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific regions. We generate revenue when an advertising impression is sold on our platform based on a simple and transparent fee structure established with our publisher partners and do not collect any fees directly from DSPs integrated with our platform.
On December 19, 2019, we announced a stock-for-stock merger with The Rubicon Project, Inc., or Rubicon Project which will create a combined company offering a single partner for transacting CTV, desktop display, video, audio, and mobile inventory across all geographies and auction types. We believe this combination will create the world’s largest independent sell-side advertising platform with scale, capabilities and solutions exceeding those offered by competitors. Together, the combined company will be an essential omni-channel partner for buyers to reach target audiences, optimizing the supply path with industry-leading transparency, robust support for identity solutions and brand-safe premium inventory.
Upon completion of the merger, which is expected to close in early April 2020, each share of Telaria common stock issued and outstanding as of the effective time of the merger will be converted into the right to receive 1.082 shares of Rubicon Project common stock. Based on the number of shares of Telaria and Rubicon Project common stock outstanding and reserved for issuance as of February 11, 2020, we estimate that former holders of Telaria common stock will own approximately 47.6% and pre-merger holders of Rubicon Project common stock will own approximately 52.4% of the common stock of the combined company on a fully diluted basis.
Our Industry
Online video is among the fastest growing advertising formats worldwide. Several factors, including the availability of high-speed broadband and mobile network infrastructure, penetration of internet-connected devices, a proliferation of online content publishers and a behavioral shift towards online and video on demand viewing are driving robust growth in digital video consumption.
Consumers are rapidly shifting their viewing habits towards digital mediums and expect to be able to consume content seamlessly across multiple devices, including computers, tablets, smartphones, and CTVs whenever and wherever they want. The rapid adoption of CTV has disrupted the traditional linear TV distribution model, as eMarketer estimates that approximately 50.0 million people in the US have cut-the-cord (i.e., canceled a pay TV service and continue without it) as of the end of 2019, reflecting a 32.8% year-over-year increase. This disruption has created new options for consumers and new economic opportunities for content publishers as a number of digital-first and established media brands have launched CTV applications and channels to compete with traditional linear TV.
The continued growth of online video consumption is resulting in a corresponding increase in the amount of advertising dollars being spent by brands through digital video channels. According to estimates from eMarketer, the U.S. online video advertising market is forecasted to grow to $41.7 billion in 2020, from an estimated $34.6 billion in 2018, representing an increase of 21%. Online video advertising provides a number of advantages over traditional television advertising for both publishers and buyers. For publishers, digital advertising enables content owners to realize the greatest value of their video content by providing tools to maximize advertising yield and manage inventory allocation, while providing advanced real-time reporting and analytics that can inform the sales process. For buyers, online video advertising combines the rich “sight, sound and motion” of television with the advanced optimization, targeting and analytics of digital.
As online video advertising continues to scale and evolve, the need for software solutions that automate the process for planning, buying, selling and measuring video advertising across screens has become more pronounced. As a result, the amount of online video advertising being bought and sold programmatically has increased dramatically. Programmatic buying refers to the automated purchase and sale of digital advertising through technology, including the use of real-time bidding technology that allows for the dynamic purchase and sale of advertising inventory on an impression-by-impression basis. Programmatic transactions complement a publisher’s direct sales force by enabling them to automate their sales process and improve workflow capabilities to increase productivity. These transactions also create additional revenue opportunities by enabling buyers and publishers to directly communicate and share data to deliver more valuable targeted advertising. Given the substantial benefits of programmatic advertising, we believe that programmatic buying will continue to grow as a percentage of video advertising spend. A report from eMarketer (October 2019) estimates that programmatic digital video ad spending in the US will grow from $27.3 billion in 2019 to $33.4 billion in 2020, a 23% increase.
Despite the opportunities created by programmatic video advertising, publishers face a number of challenges that require sophisticated technology to solve. Publishers must manage a complex advertising landscape with an increasing number of buyers and technology intermediaries and multiple channels for content consumption for consumers, while protecting the value of their brand and ensuring a high-quality end user experience. For instance, publishers must ensure that ads load properly and do not cause delays in a live setting, are brand safe, match the quality of the premium content that is being viewed, are played at the appropriate volume, and are not overly repetitive. Publishers also need tools to ensure proper management of sales channel and advertiser conflicts, including managing the delivery of their directly sold and programmatic video inventory. These concerns are particularly pronounced for large media companies and broadcasters that are focused on growing their CTV and OTT business. All of these requirements must be executed in real-time and at scale, across multiple channels and devices. Our platform was built to solve these challenges for publishers.
Our Platform
Our software platform features:
•Leadership in CTV. We have strategically built our platform to meet the unique requirements of CTV publishers. Many of these publishers have their roots in linear television and it is important that established business practices in television advertising can be translated to programmatic CTV advertising. For instance, our ad-pod feature provides long-form content publishers with a tool analogous to commercial breaks in traditional linear television, so that they can request and manage several ads at once from different demand sources, in a single ad-pod. Using this tool, publishers can establish business rules such as competitive separation of advertisers to ensure that competing
brand advertisements do not appear during the same commercial break and frequency capping to ensure that viewers do not receive repetitive ad placements.
•Programmatic supply side platform. Our platform is integrated with the leading DSPs, which enables publishers to seamlessly connect to buyers through our programmatic marketplace. Publishers are able to sell their inventory however they want to transact, including through: open auction, where buyers bid against each other in a real-time auction for the right to purchase a publisher’s inventory; private marketplaces, where select buyers are given the opportunity to bid on a curated set of inventory; or programmatic direct, where a publisher transacts with a specific buyer often based on a direct relationship between the publisher and buyer. Programmatic transactions complement a publisher’s direct sales force by enabling them to automate their sales process and improve workflow capabilities to increase productivity. These transactions also create incremental revenue opportunities by enabling buyers and publishers to directly communicate and share data to deliver more valuable targeted advertising.
•Advanced brand safety controls. We offer publishers advanced controls to ensure the integrity of their brand and protect the consumer viewing experience. For instance, our creative review tool lets publishers review the specific creative ad unit that is being served to their inventory, including the volume of the ad relative to their content. If the creative ad unit does not align with the publisher’s brand parameters or content guidelines, they can easily block the ad from serving.
•Holistic yield optimization. Our technology enables publishers to manage and deliver their video inventory through a single platform, allowing them to get a complete picture of their sales efforts and maximize revenue from their ad placements across channels no matter how it is sold. We provide publishers with essential tools to manage yield and maximize revenue opportunities, including the ability to define supply hierarchies and demand tiers, minimum price floors, and advertiser and category level black and white lists to manage potential sales channel conflicts.
•Real time reporting, analytics and diagnostics. Our platform provides publishers with access to up-to-the-second reporting, which allows them to effectively monitor buying patterns and make real-time changes to take advantage of market dynamics and maximize their yield. We also offer extensive analytics that leverage billions of historical data points derived through our platform to drive long-term monetization strategy for publishers. Our real-time diagnostic tools enable publishers to discover and resolve any revenue impacting issues within seconds, as opposed to waiting days for post-campaign reporting.
•Inventory Intelligence. Our inventory intelligence dashboard provides publishers with first and third-party data that offers valuable insights into their inventory such as performance, viewability and audience data. For instance, our TV Content Reporting tool provides CTV and OTT publishers with granular analytics around the bidding and buying patterns of specific show titles, episodes, content categories. This data can then be used by publishers to segment their advertising inventory so that it becomes more easily discoverable for buyers that are looking to deliver targeted, relevant advertising to consumers.
•Out-stream solution. Our proprietary out-stream solution creates additional advertising opportunities for publishers outside of their in-stream video content. This technology automatically launches video advertising in-content on a webpage or application as the user scrolls through an article. For print publishers, this product opens up a new source of advertising revenue that can be seamlessly sold through our platform or their direct sales force.
Our Competitive Strengths
•Built exclusively for video and CTV. Our platform is focused exclusively on managing and monetizing digital video inventory. Unlike other platforms that were originally built to monetize display advertising, our platform was built from day one to address the special requirements of online video, in particular applications running on mobile or CTV devices. Online video poses a number of unique challenges compared to display such as the ability to dynamically inserts ads into live streams, control for ad volume, ensure ad formats play across devices and best match the viewer’s environment, and accommodate spikes in video consumption around landmark events. Any failure to address these challenges could significantly impair the user experience, which is of utmost importance to premium publishers.
•Premium unique inventory. We have expended significant time and resources cultivating and building long-term relationships with premium content providers that offer high-quality unique video inventory, in particular in the CTV space. This inventory is highly sought after by advertisers looking to capitalize on the shift in video
consumption from linear TV to digital and tends to be focused on a smaller number of large scale publishers. Many of our clients have limited experience with programmatic advertising and our subject matter experts often serve in consultative role within a client's organization to help establish best practices and drive their monetization strategy.
•Scaled programmatic marketplace. We have created a scaled marketplace of programmatic video supply and demand. Buyers on our platform include some of the largest brand advertisers in the world and our platform is connected with all of the leading video demand side platforms through server-to-server integrations that significantly reduce latency and response time.
•Fully agnostic platform for publishers. We are fully aligned with the interests of our publisher clients. Because we do not offer a buyer solution, we are able to avoid inherent conflicts of interest that exist when serving both the buy- and sell-side. In addition, because we do not own or publish content we are agnostic and have no preference towards delivering demand to any specific publisher. As a result, we are able to build trust with clients, many of whom incorporate their proprietary data into our platform. This trust provides us the benefit of long-term and stable relationships with our clients.
•Scalability and continuous innovation. Our platform is built with a flexible architecture and an adaptable data pipeline at its center, so that we can easily expand the platform as well as integrate with ecosystem partners, enabling our clients to use our platform as a full-suite solution to serve all of their needs. Our open architecture allows us to implement rapid product cycles so that we are continuously innovating to enhance our platform for our clients and stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving industry. For example, we believe that we were the first sell-side solution to deliver programmatic ads into live streaming content.
•Self-service model. We offer a self-service model that lets publishers direct their own sale and management of video ad inventory without extensive involvement by our personnel. This model allows us to scale efficiently and grow our business at a faster pace than the growth of our sales and support organization. As a result, we are able to achieve a high degree of operating leverage, which positions our business for growing profitability.
•Transparent pricing. We generate revenue each time an impression is monetized on our platform based on a simple and transparent fee structure established with our publisher partners and do not collect any fees directly from buyers. This allows publishers to get a true measure of the value of their inventory.
Clients and Sales
As of December 31, 2019, we had total sales and marketing staff of 107 employees. For 2019, 2018 and 2017 our total sales and marketing expenses were $25.5 million, $25.4 million and $28.1 million, respectively.
Our sales strategy is focused on serving the following core client constituencies: publishers that use our platform to manage and monetize their video inventory and buyers that purchase such inventory, including DSPs that directly purchase inventory on behalf of their clients as well as brand advertiser and advertising agencies who ultimately control and direct advertising spend through DSPs.
Our publisher sales team is responsible for increasing the number of premium publishers using our platform and deepening relationships with our existing clients. Our buyer sales team is responsible for increasing the amount of spend and bidding activity being transacted by buyers on our platform.
Publishers
Publishers own or operate media properties, websites and applications through which video advertisements can be delivered to consumers as they navigate across screens. Publishers use our platform to monetize and manage their video inventory.
We are focused on establishing direct relationships with premium content providers that offer unique, high-quality production and viewing experiences, in particular in the CTV space. This inventory is highly sought after by brand advertisers looking to capitalize on the shift from linear TV to digital, as it combines a TV-like viewing experience with the significant advantages of online advertising, including the ability to target audiences and measure performance in real-time.
Unlike desktop or mobile video advertising which may come from disparate sources, CTV inventory tends to be focused on a smaller number of publishers. These publishers, tend to be larger and face a more sophisticated set of challenges compared to other online publishers. Accordingly, the sales cycle can be time and resource intensive.
Given the limited number of CTV publishers, we are focused on building deeper, long-term strategic partnerships with these clients through a full-service business development strategy. We have invested significant resources in identifying and cultivating these relationships. Our sales executives and account managers often serve a consultative role within a client’s sales organization to help establish best practices and evangelize the benefits of programmatic CTV advertising. This team is further supported by our product and engineering team with deep technical expertise, and for larger clients, we may build-out custom features or functionality to help drive deeper adoption of our platform.
Buyers
DSPs are technological intermediaries through which advertisers and agencies transact on our platform. DSPs provide ad delivery and targeting solutions for ad campaigns and purchase video inventory on behalf of advertiser and agency clients. These DSPs are directly connected to our technology through server-to-server integrations and are responsible for bidding on and purchasing advertising inventory on our platform pursuant to master service agreements.
We maintain close relationships with DSPs to maximize the amount of spend being transacted through our platform. For instance, our sales team collaborates with DSPs to create custom private marketplaces that fit specific targeting criteria for a given campaign. Our team of technical account managers continually monitors DSP bidding activities and provides recommendations that inform their trading practices, including insights around bidding behaviors and forecasting tools that assist in media planning.
While the DSP is directly responsible for purchasing advertising inventory, the overall direction of an advertising campaign is typically determined by the advertiser or advertising agency that has engaged the DSP. For certain private marketplace transactions, the specific parameters of a campaign may be negotiated directly with the advertiser or agency without involvement of a DSP. Accordingly, in order to increase the amount of spend transacted on our platform, we also maintain close relationships directly with brand advertisers and agencies. Our brand-focused sales strategy is to target the most “video ready” brand advertisers, including large traditional TV advertising spenders, who are looking to capitalize on the shift in video consumption from linear-TV to online. Our agency sales team is focused on establishing relationships with key decision makers within the largest advertising agencies and agency trading desks.
Technology and Development
We have incurred substantial technology and development expenses developing, maintaining and improving the technology that underlies our platform. We believe that technology innovation is key to our success and we intend to continue to invest in the development of new feature sets and functionalities as well as enhancements to our existing product suite. As of December 31, 2019, we had a total of 35 employees engaged in technology and development functions. The majority of our technology and development team is located in Mountain View, California and New York, New York.
Competition
We operate in a dynamic and competitive market, influenced by trends in both the overall advertising market as well as the online video advertising industry. The competitive dynamics of our market are unpredictable because our market is in an early stage of development, rapidly evolving, fragmented and subject to potential disruption by new technological innovations. We compete with large internet and media companies that offer video advertising services and sell video advertising inventory as part of a larger solution, as well as advertising technology companies, advertising networks, and supply side platforms that represent publishers. Publishers that use our platform may also use other technology partners to sell their inventory or may sell a significant portion of their inventory through their own sales organizations without use of our platform. Many of our competitors have significant client relationships, much larger financial resources and longer operating histories than we have.
We believe that we compete on the basis of our ability to technologically innovate, the speed, reliability, scale and ease of use of our self-service platform, our ability to bring demand to publishers at scale, the quality of tools that we provide to publishers to manage and monetize their inventory and our real-time reporting and analytics. We believe that we compete favorably with respect to all of these factors. Other competitive strengths include our video-only focus, leadership position in CTV, independent business model that allows us to fully align with our publisher partners, and our emphasis on transparency in pricing and inventory quality.
Intellectual Property
Our ability to protect our intellectual property and our technology will be an important factor in the success and continued growth of our business. We rely on a combination of trade secrets, copyrights, and trademarks, as well as contractual protections, to establish and protect our intellectual property and protect our proprietary technology. We register certain domain names, trademarks and service marks in the United States and in certain locations outside the United States. We also rely upon common law protection for certain marks. We generally enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and contractors, and confidentiality agreements with parties, with whom we conduct business in order to limit access to, and disclosure and use of, our proprietary information. We also use measures designed to control access to our technology and proprietary information. We view our trade secrets and know-how as a significant component of our intellectual property assets, which we believe differentiate us from our competitors.
Our efforts to preserve and protect our intellectual property, may not prevent the misappropriation of such intellectual property or technology, or deter independent development of similar intellectual property or technology by others. Policing unauthorized use of our technology and intellectual property is difficult. Third-parties may attempt to copy, reverse engineer or otherwise obtain our proprietary technology, or otherwise violate our intellectual property rights. Unauthorized disclosure by our employees, contractors or other third-parties could also occur. Effective intellectual property protection may not be available in the United States or other jurisdictions in which we operate and the efforts we have taken to protect our proprietary rights may not be sufficient or effective. Any impairment or loss of our intellectual property, or any inability to enforce our intellectual property rights effectively, could harm our business or our ability to compete. Also, protecting our technology and intellectual property is costly and time-consuming. Any unauthorized disclosure or use of our intellectual property or technology could make it more expensive for us to do business and could harm our operating results.
Additionally, we expect that products in our industry may be subject to third-party infringement lawsuits as the number of competitors grows and the functionality of products in different industry segments overlaps. From time to time, we may face claims by third-parties that we infringe upon or misappropriate their intellectual property rights, and we may be found to be infringing upon or to have misappropriated such rights. We cannot assure you that we are not infringing on or violating any third-party intellectual property rights.
Governmental Regulation; Industry Alliances
We are subject to numerous U.S. and foreign laws and regulations that are applicable to companies engaged in the online video advertising business. In addition, many areas of law that apply to our business are still evolving and could potentially affect our business to the extent they restrict our business practices or impose a greater risk of liability.
Privacy and Data Protection
We are subject to or affected by federal, state and foreign laws and regulations, as well as regulatory guidance, governing the collection, use, disclosure, retention, transfer and security of personal data. The global data protection landscape is rapidly evolving, and implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Changes to these laws, regulations and guidelines may affect our ability to collect, use, and share personal data, and to provide services to customers that rely upon our ability to leverage data. The use of personal data for digital advertising is a topic of active interest among federal, state, and foreign regulatory bodies. Evolving global privacy and data protection requirements may create uncertainty in our business, result in liability or impose additional costs on us. The cost of compliance with these laws, regulations and standards is high and is likely to increase in the future. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with federal, state, or foreign laws or self-regulatory standards could result in negative publicity, diversion of management time and effort and proceedings against us by governmental entities or others. In many jurisdictions, enforcement actions and consequences for noncompliance are rising. Additionally, if we fail to follow the commitments we make in public privacy notices or applicable self-regulatory security standards we may incur significant fines or experience a significant increase in costs.
The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) became effective on January 1, 2020. Under the CCPA, businesses are required to grant expansive access, deletion and portability rights to consumers in the United States, similar to those provided under the European General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. In addition, the CCPA gives California residents the right to opt-out of the sale of their personal information; this opt-out right may impact the ability of ad tech companies to provide services to their customers if use of data in providing such services falls under the definition of a sale. The law also imposes burdensome storage and compliance obligations on publishers and ad tech companies. Interpretation of the requirements remains unclear due to the recent passage of the regulation. The law took effect on January 1, 2020, with the Attorney General enforcement of the CCPA delayed until July 2020. The CCPA may precipitate additional privacy regulation
by federal, state and local governments, which may increase our compliance costs and strain our technical capabilities.
Our solutions reach devices and users throughout the world, including in APAC, North America, South America, and Europe. Many countries in these regions have established or are in the process of establishing privacy and data security legal frameworks with which we, our customers, or our vendors must comply. For example, the European General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, went into effect in May 2018. GDPR introduces strict requirements for processing personal data and increases the compliance burden on us, including by mandating documentation requirements, granting certain rights to individuals to control how we collect, use, disclose, retain and process information about them. In addition, the GDPR provides for breach reporting requirements, more robust regulatory enforcement and fines of up to 20.0 million euros or up to 4% of annual global revenue. As we continue to expand into other foreign countries and jurisdictions, we may be subject to additional laws and regulations that may affect how we conduct business.
Information security risks have generally increased in recent years, in part because of the proliferation of new technologies and the use of the Internet, and the increased sophistication and activity of organized crime, hackers, terrorists, activists, and other external parties, some of which may be linked to terrorist organizations or hostile foreign governments. Any person who circumvents our security measures could steal proprietary or confidential customer information or cause interruptions in our operations. Numerous state, federal and foreign laws and regulations impose requirements regarding the security and protection of personal data, as well as notification to persons whose personal data is affected by a breach. Breaches we may experience could significantly harm our reputation and business and financial results.
Industry Alliances
Given the developmental stage of video advertising, industry practices are rapidly evolving. We participate in a wide range of Interactive Advertising Bureau committees, councils and working groups, as well as other industry groups that are focused on establishing best practices for the online video advertising industry.
Employees
As of December 31, 2019, we had 179 employees, of which 35 were primarily engaged in technology and development functions, 107 were engaged in sales and marketing functions, and 37 were engaged in general and administrative functions. A majority of these employees are located in the United States, with employees also in Canada, France, Brazil, United Kingdom, and Australia. None of our employees are represented by a labor union or covered by a collective bargaining agreement. We consider our relationship with our employees to be favorable.
Facilities
Our principal office occupies approximately 26,664 square feet of leased office space in New York, New York pursuant to a lease agreement that expires in 2029. We also lease offices in Mountain View, California; San Francisco, California; Los Angeles, California; Melbourne, Australia; Sydney, Australia; London, England; Paris, France; Toronto, Canada; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; São Paulo, Brazil; and Auckland, New Zealand. In addition, we utilize a third-party data center hosting facility located in New York, New York. We believe our facilities are adequate for our current and near-term needs.
Information about Seasonal Variations
Information about seasonality is set forth in Part II, Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations-Results of Operations-Seasonality.”
Corporate Information
On September 11, 2017, we changed our name from “Tremor Video, Inc.” to “Telaria, Inc.” We were originally organized as Tremor Media, LLC under the laws of the State of Delaware in November 2005 and converted into a corporation in September 2006. We changed our name to Tremor Video, Inc. in June 2011.
Available Information
Our website is located at www.telaria.com, and our investor relations website is located at http://investor.telaria.com. The contents of our website are not intended to be incorporated by reference into this Annual Report or in any other report or document we file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, and any references to our websites are intended to be inactive textual references only. The following filings are available for download free of charge through our investor relations website as soon as reasonably practicable after we file them with the SEC: Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly
Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, as well as any amendments to such reports and all other filings pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Act. Additionally, the SEC maintains an internet site that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information that we file electronically with the SEC. The SEC's website address is www.sec.gov.
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
The following is a summary description of some of the material risks and uncertainties that may affect our business, including our future financial and operational results. In addition to the other information in this Annual Report, the following statements should be carefully considered in evaluating us.
Risks Relating to the Proposed Merger with Rubicon Project
We may not complete the merger with Rubicon Project or complete the merger within the timeframe we anticipate. Failure to complete the proposed merger could negatively impact our stock price and our future business and financial results.
The completion of the proposed merger with Rubicon Project is subject to a number of conditions, including, among other things, the receipt of approval from our stockholders and the Rubicon Project stockholders, which make the completion and timing of the proposed merger uncertain. The failure to satisfy all of the required conditions could delay the completion of the proposed merger for a significant period of time or prevent it from occurring at all. There can be no assurance that the conditions to the completion of the proposed merger will be satisfied or waived or that the proposed merger will be completed.
If the proposed merger is not completed, we may be materially adversely affected and, without realizing any of the benefits of having completed the merger, will be subject to a number of risks, including the following:
• we may experience negative reactions from the financial markets or from our customers, suppliers or employees;
• the market price of our common stock could decline;
• we could owe a substantial termination fee to Rubicon Project under certain specified circumstances;
• restrictions in the merger agreement on the conduct of our business prior to completion of the merger may adversely affect our ability to execute certain of our business strategies and cause certain other initiatives to be delayed or abandoned;
• if the merger agreement is terminated and our board seeks another business combination, our stockholders cannot be certain that we will be able to find a party willing to enter into a transaction on terms equivalent to or more attractive than the terms that Rubicon Project has agreed to in the merger agreement;
• time and resources, financial and other, committed by our management to matters relating to the proposed merger could otherwise have been devoted to pursuing other beneficial opportunities; and
• we will be required to pay our costs relating to the proposed merger, such as legal, accounting, financial advisory and printing fees, whether or not the proposed merger is completed.
In addition, if the proposed merger is not completed, we could be subject to litigation related to any failure to complete the merger or related to any enforcement proceeding commenced to cause us to perform our obligations under the merger agreement. Any of these risks could materially and adversely impact our ongoing business, financial condition, financial results and stock price.
Similarly, delays in the completion of the proposed merger could, among other things, result in additional transaction costs, loss of revenue or other negative effects associated with delay and uncertainty about completion of the merger and could materially and adversely impact our ongoing business, financial condition and financial results following the completion of the proposed merger.
The proposed merger exchange ratio is fixed and will not be adjusted in the event of any change in either our or Rubicon Project’s stock price or operating results. As a result, the value to be realized by our stockholders from the merger is subject to material uncertainties.
Upon completion of the proposed merger, each issued and outstanding share of our common stock (except for shares held by us as treasury stock and shares owned directly or indirectly by Rubicon Project) will be converted into the right to receive the merger consideration, which is equal to 1.082 fully paid and nonassessable shares of Rubicon Project common stock (and, if applicable, substituting cash in lieu of fractional shares). This exchange ratio was fixed in the merger agreement and will not be adjusted for changes in the market price of either Rubicon Project common stock or our common stock or as a result of changes in operating results of either Rubicon Project or us.
It is impossible to accurately predict the market price of Rubicon Project common stock at the completion of the merger and, therefore, impossible to accurately predict the market value of the shares of Rubicon Project common stock that our stockholders will receive upon closing of the merger. The market price for Rubicon Project common stock may fluctuate both prior to the completion of the proposed merger and thereafter for a variety of reasons, including, among others, general market and economic conditions, the demand for Rubicon Project’s or our products and services, changes in laws and regulations, other changes in Rubicon Project’s and our respective businesses, operations, prospects and financial results of operations, market assessments of the likelihood that the merger will be completed, and the expected timing of the proposed merger. Many of these factors are beyond our control. As a result, the market value represented by the exchange ratio will also vary.
We cannot assure you that, following the merger, the combined market prices of the combined company common stock will equal or exceed what the combined market price of Rubicon Project common stock and our common stock would have been in the absence of the merger. It is possible that after the proposed merger, the combined equity value of the combined company will be less than the combined equity value of Rubicon Project and us before the merger.
The announcement and pendency of the proposed merger may cause disruptions in our business or in Rubicon Project’s business, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations, and on the business, financial condition or results of operations of the combined business following the closing.
The announcement and pendency of the proposed merger could cause disruptions in our business or in Rubicon Projects’ business in the following ways, among others:
• some customers, suppliers, strategic partners and other persons with whom we and/or Rubicon Project has a business relationship may delay or defer certain business decisions or might decide to seek to terminate, change or renegotiate their relationships with us or Rubicon Project, as the case may be, as a result of the merger or otherwise; and
• uncertainties associated with the merger may have an adverse effect on our and Rubicon Project’s ability to attract or retain key management and other key personnel.
Should they occur, any of these developments could negatively affect our or the post-closing combined business’ respective revenues, earnings and/or cash flows, as well as the market price of our or Rubicon Project common stock. Each of the risks described above may also be exacerbated by delays or other adverse developments with respect to the completion of the merger.
Completion of the proposed merger may trigger change in control or other provisions in certain customer and other agreements to which we or Rubicon Project are a party, which may have an adverse impact on the combined company’s business and results of operations following completion of the merger.
The completion of the proposed merger may trigger change in control and other provisions in certain agreements to which we or Rubicon Project are a party. If we or Rubicon Project are unable to negotiate waivers of those provisions, counterparties may exercise their rights and remedies under the agreements, including terminating the agreements or seeking monetary damages or equitable remedies. Even if we or Rubicon Project are able to negotiate consents or waivers, the counterparties may require a fee for such waivers or seek to renegotiate the agreements on terms less favorable to us or Rubicon Project. Any of the foregoing or similar developments may have an adverse impact on the combined company’s business and results of operations following completion of the merger.
Shareholder litigation could prevent or delay the closing of the proposed merger or otherwise negatively impact our business and operations.
In connection with the proposed merger, two putative class action lawsuits and five individual lawsuit have been filed by purported stockholders against us, each of our directors and, in certain cases, Rubicon Project. Among other remedies, the plaintiffs in these lawsuits seek to enjoin the proposed merger. The outcome of any such litigation is uncertain. If a dismissal is not granted or a settlement is not reached, these lawsuits could prevent or delay completion of the merger and result in substantial costs to us, including any costs associated with indemnification. Additional lawsuits may be filed in connection
with the proposed merger against us, Rubicon Project and/or our or their respective directors and officers, which additional lawsuits could also prevent or delay the consummation of the proposed merger and result in additional costs. The ultimate resolution of these lawsuits cannot be predicted with certainty, and an adverse ruling in any such lawsuit may cause the proposed merger to be delayed or not to be completed. The defense or settlement of any lawsuit or claim that remains unresolved at the time the merger is consummated, or that is filed after the merger is consummated, may adversely affect the combined company’s business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows. While we believe the claims asserted in the existing complaints are without merit, we cannot currently predict the outcome of or reasonably estimate the possible loss or range of loss from any these lawsuits or claims. Such litigation could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations and could prevent or delay the consummation of the proposed merger.
The combined company may be unable to successfully integrate the businesses and realize the anticipated benefits of the proposed merger.
The success of the proposed merger will depend, in part, on the combined company’s ability to successfully combine and integrate the businesses, and realize the anticipated benefits, including synergies, cost savings, innovation and technological opportunities and operational efficiencies from the merger in a manner that does not materially disrupt existing customer, supplier and employee relations and does not result in decreased revenues due to losses of, or decreases in use of its solutions by, buyers and sellers of advertising inventory. If the combined company is unable to achieve these objectives within the anticipated time frame, or at all, the anticipated benefits may not be realized fully or at all, or may take longer to realize than expected, and the value of the combined company common stock may decline. The combined company may fail to realize some or all of the anticipated benefits of the merger if the integration process takes longer than expected or is more costly than expected.
The integration of the two companies may result in material challenges, including, without limitation:
• managing a larger, more complex combined business;
• maintaining employee morale and retaining key management and other employees;
• retaining existing business and operational relationships, including customers, suppliers and employees and other counterparties, as may be impacted by contracts containing consent and/or other provisions that may be triggered by the merger, and attracting new business and operational relationships;
• consolidating corporate and administrative infrastructures and eliminating duplicative operations, including unanticipated issues in integrating information technology, communications and other systems;
• coordinating geographically separate organizations; and
• unforeseen expenses or delays associated with the merger.
Many of these factors will be outside of the combined company’s control, and any one of them could result in delays, increased costs, decreases in the amount of expected revenues and other adverse impacts, which could materially affect the combined company’s financial position, results of operations and cash flows.
Due to legal restrictions, we and Rubicon Project are currently permitted to conduct only limited planning for the integration of the two companies following the merger. The actual integration may result in additional and unforeseen expenses, and the anticipated benefits of the integration plan may not be realized on a timely basis, if at all.
Further information relating to risks associated with the proposed merger can be found in the Proxy Statement we filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 13, 2020.
Risks Relating to Our Business and Industry
Our business model has substantially changed in recent years and is continuing to develop; accordingly, our past operating results may not be indicative of future performance.
Our seller platform was introduced to market in 2015. Historically, in addition to our seller platform, we also operated a buyer platform business, which enabled advertisers, agencies and other buyers of advertising to discover, buy, optimize and measure the effectiveness of their video ad campaigns across digital screens.
In 2017, we made the strategic decision to divest of our buyer platform business. As a result of the divestiture, our business model substantially changed as we became a fully programmatic self-service platform focused exclusively on sellers. In addition, the transaction significantly reduced the scale of our business, as our buyer platform represented more than a majority of our revenue at the time of the divestiture. Accordingly, it may be difficult to assess our future prospects based on our historical performance and operating history prior to the sale of our buyer platform.
In addition, on December 19, 2019, we agreed to combine with Rubicon Project in an all-stock merger, which is currently pending. If the proposed merger with Rubicon Project is consummated we will be part of a substantially larger combined business. However, the combined company may be unable to successfully integrate the businesses and realize the anticipated benefits of the proposed merger.
The success of our business faces a number of challenges in addition to those that may arise from the proposed merger, including:
•developing market acceptance for our platform;
•continuing to innovate and improve the technology that underlies our platform, including developing new products and functionalities for connected TV, or CTV, publishers;
•maintaining and expanding our existing relationships, and developing new relationships with publishers and buyers on our platform;
•increasing our access to premium advertising inventory and advertiser demand;
•the growth, evolution and rate of adoption of programmatic video advertising by CTV publishers;
•the pace of adoption of connected TV, or CTV, and over-the-top, or OTT, video viewing as a substitute for traditional cable and broadcast TV;
•the growth in ad-supported CTV applications;
•maintaining desktop and mobile spend through our platform, while continuing to focus our resources on growing CTV spend;
•our ability to effectively monetize inventory made available through header-bidding solutions;
•ensuring that our business complies with evolving industry standards, in particular with respect to privacy;
•offering competitive rates to publishers;
•providing publishers with improved yield and monetization, and access to unique data and feature sets, compared to competitors;
•ensuring that we serve advertisements in brand-safe environments and are effectively combating fraudulent activities;
•the development of disruptive technologies or functionalities by competitors or other members of the programmatic eco-system;
•maintaining and increasing the value of our brand and goodwill with buyers and publishers;
•effectively controlling our costs as we grow our business;
•our ability to adjust pricing models to account for new product or service offerings or changes in client preferences or demands, without disrupting our business or revenue generations;
•responding to evolving government regulations relating to the internet, telecommunications, privacy, marketing and advertising aspects of our business; and
•identifying, attracting, retaining and motivating qualified personnel.
Our ability to meet these challenges will help determine whether we can successfully leverage our business model to achieve profitability and growth in the future. We cannot assure our ability to achieve this goal, to generate consistent and improving operating results, or even to maintain the same level of success that we have had to date.
We have incurred significant net losses in past periods and may never achieve or sustain profitability.
We incurred net loss of $9.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2019, and net loss of $9.4 million for the fiscal year 2018. We do not know if we will be able to achieve profitability or maintain profitability on a continued basis. Although our revenue has grown significantly since the introduction of our platform, we may not be able to maintain our historical rate of growth as our business continues to mature. Furthermore, the amount of revenue we generate on our platform as a percentage of the spend transacted varies across clients and depends on the type of transaction being executed, which makes it more difficult to predict the revenue that may result from any anticipated level of spend being transacted through our platform. We anticipate that our operating expenses in respect of our platform will continue to increase in absolute dollars as we scale our business and expand our operations. In particular, we plan to continue to invest in our CTV business. Our ability to achieve or sustain profitability is based on numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control and we may never be able to generate sufficient revenue to achieve or sustain profitability.
Unfavorable conditions in the global economy could limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our operating results.
Instability in general worldwide economic and political conditions make it extremely difficult for advertisers and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and unfavorable conditions could cause buyers to reduce or delay their advertising spending. Historically, economic downturns have resulted in overall reductions in advertising spending. If macroeconomic conditions deteriorate, buyers may curtail or freeze spending on advertising in general, which would impact the amount of spend transacted through our platform. Furthermore, our contracts and relationships with buyers generally do not include long-term obligations requiring them to purchase advertising on our platform and are cancelable upon short or no notice and without penalty. Any reduction in advertising spending could limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our operating results.
In December 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus originating in China surfaced. The extent to which the coronavirus impacts our results will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including new information which may emerge concerning the severity of the coronavirus and the actions to contain the coronavirus or treat its impact, among others. In addition to potentially causing a reduction in advertising spend, the current outbreak may result in significant disruption to our operations.
We cannot predict the timing, strength or duration of any economic slowdown or recovery. In addition, even if the overall economy improves, we cannot assure you that the market for online video advertising solutions will experience growth or that we will experience growth.
If we fail to adapt and respond effectively to rapidly changing technology and client needs, our solutions may become less competitive or obsolete.
Our future success will depend on our ability to adapt and innovate. To attract new clients and increase spend transacted through our platform, we will need to expand and enhance our solutions to meet client needs, add functionality and address technological advancements, including with respect to the sale of video advertising through new and developing mediums and platforms such as CTV. If we fail to develop new solutions that address our client’s needs, or enhance and improve our solutions in a timely manner or conform to industry standards, we may not be able to achieve or maintain adequate market acceptance of our solutions, and our solutions may become less competitive or obsolete.
Our ability to grow is also subject to the risk of future disruptive technologies. If new technologies emerge that are able to deliver to publishers increased yield and monetization more efficiently or effectively than our solutions, such technologies could adversely impact our ability to compete. Programmatic technologies are continuously evolving and the emergence of new technologies or functionalities has in the past and may in the future disrupt our business.
For instance, we have recently seen an expansion in the number of video publishers that are utilizing header- bidding solutions, in particular in desktop and mobile. Header-bidding is a programmatic technique that enables publishers to offer inventory to multiple advertising exchanges and platforms at once, rather than in sequence through a waterfall dictated by the seller’s ad server. These solutions expose us to additional competition from platforms that, prior to the emergence of header-bidding, may not have been able to access such inventory because they lacked a direct integration with the seller. Moreover, some of our competitors have developed proprietary header-bidding solutions or specific functionalities or tool sets aimed at improving the efficiency of header-bidding auctions, which may provide them with a competitive advantage. This increased competition has resulted in a loss of market share with certain publishers and contributed to the decline in our mobile and desktop business. In addition, we expect header-bidding or similar solutions to become more prevalent among CTV publishers in the future. If we are unable to effectively monetize impressions through header-bidding solutions we may lose revenue opportunities, which would have a negative impact on our financial results.
The market in which we participate is intensely competitive and fragmented, and we may not be able to compete successfully with our current or future competitors.
We operate in a dynamic and competitive market, influenced by trends in both the overall advertising market as well as the online video advertising industry. The competitive dynamics of our market are unpredictable because our market is in an early stage of development, rapidly evolving, fragmented and subject to potential disruption by new technological innovations. We compete with large internet companies such as Google, Inc. and Facebook, Inc. that offer video advertising services and sell video advertising inventory as part of a larger solution, as well as supply side platforms, advertising exchanges, ad servers, and other advertising platforms that represent publishers. Publishers that utilize our platform may use other platforms or technology providers to sell their inventory, integrate directly with buyers, or sell a significant portion of their inventory through their own sales organizations without use of our platform.
Many of our competitors and potential competitors have significant client relationships, much larger financial resources and longer operating histories than we have and may be less severely affected by changes in consumer preferences, regulations or other developments that may impact the online video advertising industry as a whole. They, or other companies that offer competing advertising solutions, may establish or strengthen cooperative relationships with buyers or publishers, thereby limiting our ability to promote our solutions and generate revenue. In addition, many of these companies are also providers of content, and have access to large amounts of first party data, which are not available to us.
Our business may suffer to the extent that buyers and publishers purchase and sell online video advertising directly from each other without the use of our platform, including through direct integrations between publishers and DSPs. New technologies and methods of buying advertising present a dynamic competitive challenge, as market participants offer multiple new products and services aimed at capturing advertising spend. For instance, ad servers, which generally dictate the sequencing of ad priorities for publishers, have introduced products that allow a publisher to manage and sell their directly sold inventory with their programmatic inventory in a single unified auction. This solution has a number of potential advantages for a publisher as it allows them to create a unified auction strategy across their inventory pool. If the market shifts towards such new technologies and we are unable to either provide such solutions or a compelling alternative, we may incur increased pricing pressure, reduced profit margins, increased sales and marketing expenses or the loss of market share.
We believe that we compete primarily on the basis of the speed, reliability, scale and ease of use of our self-service platform, our differentiated CTV functionality, the quality of tools that we provide to publishers to control their inventory, our real-time reporting and analytics, our ability to continuously innovate and our ability to provide and attract demand to publishers at scale. If we are unable to compete favorably with respect to any of these factors our business could suffer.
In addition, we compete based on our pricing or take rates with publishers. Our competitors may reduce their take rates, which could create additional pricing pressure and cause us to lower our take rates. If our take rates are higher than our competitors, we may have difficulty attracting new publishers to our platform and existing publishers may choose to monetize a smaller percentage of their inventory through our platform. Many of our publisher clients also work with our competitors and they may seek to monetize the same advertising impression through multiple platforms at different floor prices depending on their negotiated take rate. If a buyer identifies the same advertising inventory on multiple platforms and the floor price on our platform is higher than a competitor platform, they may divert spend to that platform resulting in a lost opportunity for us to monetize the impression.
Our competitors or potential competitors may adopt certain aspects of our business model, which could reduce our ability to differentiate our solutions. As market dynamics change, or as new and existing competitors introduce more competitive pricing or new or disruptive technologies, we may be unable to maintain or attract new buyers or publishers or increase spend
transacted through our platform. As a result, we may be required to change our business model and incur additional expenses in response to competitive pressures, which could harm our revenue, profitability and operating results. For all of these reasons, we may not be able to compete successfully against our current and future competitors.
If CTV advertising spend grows more slowly than we expect our operating results and growth prospects could be harmed.
The growth of our platform is, in part, dependent on the continued growth in CTV advertising spend. Growth in the CTV advertising market is dependent on a number of factors, including the pace of cord-cutting (the replacement of tradition cable or broadcast TV for digital), the continued proliferation of digital content and CTV providers, the adoption of ad-supported models by CTV publishers in lieu of, or in addition to, subscription models, and an acceleration in the shift of ad dollars from traditional linear TV to CTV to keep pace with changing viewership habits. If the market for ad-supported CTV develops more slowly than we expect, or fails to develop as a result of these or other factors, our operating results and growth prospects could be harmed.
If CTV publishers fail to adopt programmatic advertising solutions, or adopt such solutions more slowly that we expect, our operating and growth prospects could be harmed.
As online video advertising has continued to scale and evolve, the amount of online video advertising being bought and sold programmatically has increased dramatically. Programmatic buying refers to the automated purchase and sale of digital advertising through technology, including the use of real-time bidding technology that allows for the dynamic purchase and sale of advertising inventory on an impression-by-impression basis. Programmatic transactions complement a publisher’s direct sales force by enabling them to automate their sales process and improve workflow capabilities to increase productivity. These transactions also create improved revenue opportunities by enabling buyers and publishers to directly communicate and share data to deliver more valuable targeted advertising.
Despite the opportunities created by programmatic advertising, CTV publishers have been slower to adopt programmatic solutions compared to desktop and mobile video publishers. Many of these publishers have backgrounds in cable or broadcast television and have limited experience with online video advertising, and in particular programmatic advertising. For these publishers, it is extremely important to protect the quality of the viewer experience to maintain brand goodwill and ensure that online advertising efforts do not create sales channel conflicts or otherwise detract from their direct sales force. In this regard, programmatic advertising presents a number of potential challenges, including the ability to ensure that ads are brand safe, comply with business rules around competitive separation, are not overly repetitive, are played at the appropriate volume and do not cause delays in load-time of content. Our platform was designed to address these challenges and we have invested significant time and resources cultivating relationships with CTV publishers to establish best practices and evangelize the benefits of programmatic CTV.
While we believe that programmatic advertising will continue to grow as a percentage of overall CTV advertising, there can be no assurances that CTV publishers will adopt programmatic solutions or the speed at which they may adopt such solutions. Any such failure or delay in adoption could negatively impact our finance results and growth prospects.
If we fail to maintain or increase our access to premium advertising inventory, our operating results may be harmed.
Our success requires us to maintain and expand our access to premium video advertising inventory. We do not own or control the video ad inventory upon which our business depends and do not own or create content. Publishers are generally not required to offer a specified level of inventory on our platform, and we cannot be assured that any publisher will continue to make their ad inventory available on our platform. Publishers may seek to change the terms on which they offer inventory on our platform, including with respect to pricing, or may elect to make advertising inventory available to our competitors who offer more favorable economic terms. Furthermore, publishers may enter into exclusive relationships with our competitors, which preclude us from offering their inventory.
These risks are particularly pronounced with CTV publishers. CTV inventory is highly sought after, and unlike desktop or mobile video advertising, which may come from disparate sources, CTV inventory tends to be concentrated on a smaller number of larger publishers that enjoy significant negotiating leverage. This dynamic has been exacerbated by consolidation in the industry, as a number of digital-first CTV publishers have been acquired by larger established television and media brands. In some instances, consolidation may result in the loss of business with an existing client. For example, if an acquiror has a preferred relationship with one of our competitors or has a proprietary solution. As a result of this concentration, the loss of a CTV client may result in a significant decrease in the amount of CTV inventory available through our platform.
In addition, we review our publishers on an on-going basis and have ceased, and may in the future cease, doing business with publishers based on the quality of their inventory. As a result of these factors, we may have limited visibility as to our future access to inventory from publishers or the terms on which such inventory will be made available.
Publishers have a variety of channels in which to sell their video ad inventory, including direct sales forces. Any increase in a publisher’s direct sales efforts may negatively impact our access to that inventory.
If we are unable to maintain or increase our access to premium video ad inventory or if publishers seek to change the terms on which they offer such inventory, our operating results may be harmed.
We may not be able to provide publishers with sufficient access to buyer demand through our platform
Publishers use our platform, in part, in order to access demand generated by DSPs and other buyers that are integrated with our platform. One of the primary factors by which a publisher judges our platform is the ability to increase their yield and monetization opportunities. We do not have exclusive relationships with buyers and they are generally free to stop transacting, or reduce their spending, on our platform with little or no notice. Moreover, we do not control the bid price for any inventory submitted by a buyer, or the floor price that a publisher sets for such inventory. If we are unable to fill ad inventory that publishers make available through our platform with suitable bids from buyers, publishers may negatively view our platform compared to competitive offerings and our results may be harmed.
Our take rates may be difficult to forecast and may decrease in future periods; any decrease in our take rates may result in a decrease in our revenue notwithstanding an increase in the amount of spend transacted through our platform.
We generate revenue through our platform on a transactional basis where we are paid by a publisher each time an impression is monetized on our platform. Typically, this fee is structured as a percentage of advertising spend that the publisher receives for its inventory.
Our take rate, or the revenue that we receive from a publisher for each advertising impression monetized through our platform as a percentage of the sale price for the impression, varies by publisher and transaction type. For instance, we may receive a different take rate with respect to a transaction executed via open auction compared to a private marketplace transaction, or we may agree to a lower take rate to win a particular client’s business. Even if we are able to accurately forecast the anticipated total ad spend transacted by buyers across our platform, we may have limited visibility regarding our overall take rate and the revenue we will generate because we do not control the type of transaction or publisher inventory that will be purchased.
For substantially all transactions executed through our platform, we act as an agent of behalf of our publisher clients and our revenue is recognized net of any inventory costs that we remit to publishers. As a result, a decrease in our take rate could cause our revenue to decrease notwithstanding an increase in the total spend transacted through our seller platform. In 2019 our average take rate declined compared to 2018, and our average take rate may decline further in future periods. There are a number of factors that influence our take rate, including the composition of our publisher inventory and competitive pricing pressures. Our strategic focus is to partner with large premium publishers that create TV-like content, in particular in CTV. This inventory is highly sought after and these publishers tend to enjoy increased negotiating leverage. We may lower our take rates to attract these publishers to our platform and to secure access to unique inventory on a preferred or exclusive basis.
Our business depends in part on the success of our strategic relationships with third parties.
Our business depends in part on our ability to continue to successfully manage and enter into successful strategic relationships with third parties. We currently have and are seeking to establish new relationships with third parties, including data management platforms, header-bidding solutions, ad-servers, fraud identification services, attribution and viewability vendors and other third-party technology providers that participate in the programmatic ecosystem.
Our results are dependent, in part, on our ability to integrate our technology with third party demand side platforms, or DSPs. These DSPs bid on and purchase ad inventory on our platform on behalf of their advertiser and agency clients. Accordingly, we are reliant on third party DSPs, to access buyer demand and increase the amount of spend that is transacted through our platform. We do not have exclusive relationships with DSPs and they are generally free to stop transacting on our platform with little or no notice. Moreover, a DSP may reduce its spending on our platform for reasons outside of our control, including a loss of their clients or adjustment in strategy. As a result, we may have limited visibility as to our future advertising revenue streams from our buyers. DSPs often control significant amounts of advertising spend across a broad spectrum of buyers; therefore, any material reduction in spending on our platform by a DSP could materially impair our operating results. As of
December 31, 2019, one of our DSPs accounted for an aggregate of 46.5% of our outstanding accounts receivables. In some instances, the DSPs that transact on our platform are also our competitors. As a result, they may be more likely to decrease or eliminate their spending on our platform.
Integrations with third parties are often costly and time consuming, and can present technological challenges. If there are delays in our integration efforts or we are unable to attract new strategic third parties with whom to integrate our technology, it could impact the efficacy of our solutions and hurt our ability to compete in the marketplace. Furthermore, if we experience connectivity or other technical problems with our integrations with DSPs they may be unable to transact on our platform, and any such technical difficulties could lead to a negative perception of our product that could impact future spend decisions.
We rely on DSPs to purchase advertising on behalf of advertisers. Such DSPs may have or develop high-risk credit profiles or pay slowly, which may result in credit risk to us.
Generally, we invoice and collect from buyers the full purchase price for impressions they have purchased, retain our fees, and remit the balance to sellers. However, in some cases, we may be required or choose to pay sellers for impressions delivered before we have collected, or even if we are unable to collect, from the buyer of those impressions. 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.
We may be unable to maintain or expand our relationships with key advertisers and agencies, or attract new advertisers and agencies.
Advertisers and agencies generally transact on our platform through third party DSPs that are integrated with our platform. While the DSP is responsible for purchasing ad inventory, the overall direction of the advertising spend is typically determined by the advertiser or advertising agency. Moreover, for certain private marketplace transactions, the specific parameters of a campaign may be negotiated directly with the advertiser or agency without involvement of a DSP. Accordingly, our ability to increase spend transacted through our platform requires us to maintain and expand our relationships with brand advertisers, including the ad agencies that represent them, in addition to servicing DSPs directly. A buyer’s willingness to purchase inventory through our platform depends on a number of factors, including our ability to secure sought after high performing inventory, our ability to provide transparency, our access to inventory across multiple screens and devices, our client support and sales efforts, seasonal pattern in buyers’ spending, and reductions in spending levels or changes in strategies. In addition, an advertiser or agency may direct its advertising campaigns through a DSP that is not integrated with our technology, in which case we would not be able to attract such spend through our platform. We cannot assure that buyers will continue to transact through our platform or that we will be able to replace departing buyers with new buyers from whom we generate comparable revenue.
We may be unable to provide access to inventory in a brand safe environment, which could harm our reputation and cause our business to suffer.
It is important to buyers that advertisements not be placed in or near content that is unlawful or would be deemed offensive or inappropriate by their customers. Unlike advertising on other mediums, online content can be more unpredictable, and we cannot guarantee that advertisements will appear in a brand safe environment. If we are not successful in providing inventory in a brand environment, our reputation could suffer and our ability to attract potential buyers and retain and expand business with existing buyers could be harmed, or our customers may seek to avoid payment or demand refunds, any of which could harm our business and operating results.
If we fail to detect fraud or other actions that impact video ad campaign performance, we could lose the confidence of buyers, which would cause our business to suffer.
The success of our platform depends in part on our ability to assure buyers access to quality, high performing inventory. We have in the past, and may in the future, be subject to fraudulent and malicious activities with respect to publisher inventory offered through our platform. An example of such activities would be the use of bots, non-human traffic delivered by machines that are designed to simulate human users and artificially inflate user traffic on websites. These activities could overstate the performance of any given video ad campaign and could harm our reputation. It may be difficult to detect fraudulent or malicious activity because we do not own content and rely in part on our publisher partners for controls with respect to such activity. These risks become more pronounced when programmatic buying is in place. If fraudulent or other malicious activity is perpetrated by others, and we fail to detect or prevent it, the affected buyers may experience or perceive a reduced return on their investment and our reputation may be harmed. Fraudulent or malicious activity could lead to dissatisfaction with our solutions, refusals to pay, refund demands or withdrawal of future business. If we fail to detect fraud or other actions that
impact the performance of our video ad campaigns, we could lose the confidence of our buyers, which could cause our business to suffer.
Activities of our publisher clients with which we do business could damage our reputation or give rise to legal claims against us.
Failure of our platform clients to comply with federal, state, local or foreign laws or our policies could damage our reputation and expose us to liability under these laws. We may also be liable to third-parties with respect to the content of the video inventory in which an ad is served if the content violates intellectual property rights of third-parties or if the content is in violation of applicable laws. A third-party or regulatory authority may file a claim against us even if our client has represented that its use of the content is lawful and that they have the right to use the intellectual property. In addition, we rely on publishers to provide us with accurate information regarding the details of their inventory and any inaccuracy may subject us to third party claims. Any of these claims could be costly and time-consuming to defend and could also hurt our reputation. Further, if we are exposed to legal liability, we could be required to pay substantial fines or penalties, redesign our business methods, discontinue some of our solutions or otherwise expend significant resources.
Our sales efforts with buyers and publishers require significant time and expense.
Attracting new buyers and publishers to our platform requires significant time and expense, and we may not be successful in establishing new relationships or in maintaining or advancing our current relationships. Our platform is relatively new and we are often required to spend substantial time and effort educating potential clients about our solutions, including providing demonstrations and comparisons against other available services. Some clients undertake a significant evaluation process that frequently involves not only our platform but also the offerings of our competitors. This process can be costly and time-consuming. As a result, it is difficult to predict when we will obtain new customers and begin generating revenue from these new customers. As part of our sales cycle, we may incur significant expenses. We have no assurance that the substantial time and money spent on our sales efforts will generate significant revenue.
We are focused on increasing adoption by publishers of our platform. As a result, we invest significant time in cultivating relationships with our publishers to ensure they understand the potential benefits of our platform. The relationship building process can take many months and may not result in us winning an opportunity with any given publisher.
Because of competitive market conditions and the negotiating leverage enjoyed by large publishers, we are sometimes forced to choose between losing the opportunity or contracting on terms that allocate more risk to us than or are otherwise less favorable than we prefer to accept.
If we are not successful in streamlining our sales processes with buyers and publishers, our ability to grow our business may be adversely affected.
We have experienced and may continue to experience fluctuations in our operating results due to a number of factors, which make our future results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations.
Our operating results have historically fluctuated and our future operating results may vary significantly from quarter to quarter due to a variety of factors. Period-to-period comparisons of our operating results should not be relied upon as an indication of our future performance. Given our relatively short operating history, the rapidly evolving online video advertising industry and the substantial changes to our business model following the sale of our buyer platform in 2017, our historical operating results may not be useful in predicting our future operating results. In addition, if the pending merger with Rubicon Project is completed we will be part of a much larger and more diversified business.
Factors that may affect our operating results include the following:
· changes in demand for our platform from publishers or buyers of video advertising;
· changes in the amount and quality of available video advertising inventory from publishers;
· the timing and amount of sales and marketing expenses incurred to attract new clients;
· changes in the economic prospects of buyers or the economy generally, which could reduce current or prospective buyers’ spend for online video advertising;
· changes in our pricing policies, the pricing policies of our competitors or the pricing of online video advertising inventory generally; and
· costs related to acquisitions of other businesses or dispositions of assets.
Our operating results may fall below the expectations of market analysts and investors in some future periods. If this happens, even just temporarily, the market price of our common stock may fall.
Our revenue tends to be seasonal in nature.
Our revenue and the spend transacted through our platform tends to be seasonal in nature and varies from quarter to quarter. During the first quarter, advertisers generally devote less of their budgets to ad spending, with the fourth quarter generally representing the largest quarter of ad spending. In addition, we tend to see an increase in the amount of advertising through our platform in years in which there are impending elections for various state and national offices when political advertising revenue tends to increase, in particular during presidential election years. The amount and timing of this political spending is difficult to predict and may fall below our expectations. This seasonality impacts the amount of revenue we generate through our platform. In addition, our operating cash flows could also fluctuate materially from period to period as a result of these seasonal fluctuations.
Acquisitions, dispositions or business combinations could entail significant execution, integration and operational risks.
As part of our business strategy, we may acquire or dispose of certain businesses, assets or technologies. Acquisitions, business combinations, and dispositions, including our proposed merger with Rubicon Project, involve numerous risks, any of which could harm our business, including:
· difficulties in integrating the technologies, solutions, operations, existing contracts and personnel of a target company or business unit;
· difficulties in supporting and transitioning clients, if any, of a target company or business unit;
· diversion of financial and management resources from existing operations or alternative opportunities;
· failure to realize the anticipated benefits or synergies of a transaction;
· potential loss of synergies resulting from a disposition;
· failure to identify all of the problems, liabilities or other shortcomings or challenges of an acquired company, technology, or solution, including issues related to intellectual property, solution quality or architecture, regulatory compliance practices, revenue recognition or other accounting practices or employee or client issues;
· risks of entering new markets, including international markets, in which we have limited or no experience;
· potential loss of key employees, customers or suppliers;
· increased potential for litigation;
· inability to generate sufficient revenue to offset acquisition or divestiture costs; and
· possible write-offs or impairment charges relating to acquired or divested businesses.
In addition, we may incur indebtedness to complete an acquisition, which may impose operational limitations, or issue equity securities, which would dilute our stockholders’ ownership. We may also unknowingly inherit liabilities from acquired businesses or assets that arise after the acquisition and are not adequately covered by indemnities. Additionally, acquisitions also frequently result in the recording of goodwill and other intangible assets which are subject to potential impairments in the future that could harm our financial results and dispositions may result in an immediate impairment of goodwill.
Foreign acquisitions involve unique risks in addition to those mentioned above, including those related to integration of operations across different cultures and languages, currency risks and the particular economic political and regulatory risks
associated with specific countries. The failure to successfully evaluate and execute acquisitions, divestitures or investments or otherwise adequately address the risks described above could materially harm our business and financial results.
Our international operations and any future international expansion may expose us to several risks, such as difficulty adapting our solutions for international markets.
We have offices outside of the United States in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Brazil and New Zealand.
Our current international operations and any future international expansion of our business will involve a variety of risks, including:
· localization of our solutions, including translation into foreign languages and adaptation for local practices;
· unexpected changes in regulatory requirements, taxes, trade laws, tariffs, export quotas, custom duties or other trade restrictions;
· differing labor regulations where labor laws may be more advantageous to employees as compared to the United States;
· more stringent regulations relating to data security and the unauthorized use of, or access to, commercial and personal information, particularly in the European Union;
· reluctance to allow personally identifiable data related to non-U.S. citizens to be stored in databases within the United States;
· changes in a specific country’s or region’s political or economic conditions;
· challenges inherent in efficiently managing an increased number of employees over large geographic distances, including the need to implement appropriate systems, policies, benefits and compliance programs;
· risks resulting from changes in currency exchange rates;
· limitations on our ability to reinvest earnings from operations in one country to fund the capital needs of our operations in other countries;
· different or lesser intellectual property protection; and
· exposure to liabilities under anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and similar laws and regulations in other jurisdictions.
Operating internationally requires significant management attention and financial resources. We cannot be certain that the investment and additional resources required in establishing and expanding our international operations will produce desired levels of revenue or profitability. If we invest substantial time and resources to establish and expand our international operations and are unable to do so successfully and in a timely manner, our business and operating results will suffer.
We have not engaged in currency hedging activities to limit risk of exchange rate fluctuations. Changes in exchange rates affect our costs and earnings, and may also affect the book value of our assets located outside the United States and the amount of our stockholders’ equity.
Failure to comply with anti-bribery, anti-corruption, and anti-money laundering laws could subject us to penalties and other adverse consequences.
We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, or FCPA, the U.K. Bribery Act of 2010, and other anti-corruption, anti-bribery, and anti-money laundering laws in various jurisdictions both domestic and abroad. Anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws have been enforced aggressively in recent years and are interpreted broadly and generally prohibit companies and their employees and agents from promising, authorizing, making or offering improper payments or other benefits to government officials and others in the private sector. While we have policies and procedure to address compliance with such laws, we cannot assure you that all of our employees and agents will not take actions in violation of our policies and applicable law, for which we may be ultimately held responsible. Any violation of the FCPA or other applicable
anti-bribery, anti-corruption laws, and anti-money laundering laws could result in whistleblower complaints, adverse media coverage, investigations, significant diversion of management’s resource’s attention, loss of export privileges, severe criminal or civil sanctions, or suspension, or debarment, any of which may have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our ability to raise capital in the future may be limited, and our failure to raise capital when needed could prevent us from growing.
Our business and operations may consume resources faster than we anticipate. If the proposed merger is not consummated, in the future we may need to raise additional funds to expand our marketing and sales and technology development efforts or to make acquisitions. Additional financing may not be available on favorable terms, if at all. Our credit facility matures in March 2020 and we do not currently intend to seek a renewal or extension. In the event the merger with Rubicon Project is not consummated, we may be unable to find a new credit facility on terms that are acceptable to us. If adequate funds are not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to fund the expansion of our marketing and sales and technology development efforts or take advantage of acquisition or other opportunities, which could harm our business and results of operations. Furthermore, if we issue additional equity securities, stockholders will experience dilution, and the new equity securities could have rights senior to those of our common stock. Because our decision to issue securities in any future offering will depend on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing or nature of our future offerings. As a result, our stockholders bear the risk of our future securities offerings reducing the market price of our common stock and diluting their interest.
Provisions of our credit facility and any future debt instruments may restrict our ability to pursue our business strategies.
Our credit facility requires us, and any future debt instruments we may enter into in the future may require us, to comply with various covenants that limit our ability to, among other things:
· dispose of assets;
· complete mergers or acquisitions;
· incur indebtedness;
· encumber assets;
· pay dividends or make other distributions to holders of our capital stock;
· make specified investments; and
· engage in transactions with our affiliates.
These restrictions could inhibit our ability to pursue our business strategies. We are also subject to a financial covenant with respect to a minimum cash balance, a minimum quick ratio, tested monthly, and Adjusted EBITDA for trailing periods which vary from three to twelve months, tested quarterly. The minimum quick ratio and Adjusted EBITDA covenants will only be tested if our net cash balance falls below a specified amount. If we default under our credit facility, and such event of default is not cured or waived, the lender could cause all amounts outstanding with respect to the debt to be due and payable immediately, which in turn could result in cross defaults under other debt instruments.
Our assets and cash flow may not be sufficient to fully repay borrowings under all of our outstanding debt instruments if some or all of these instruments are accelerated upon a default. We may incur additional indebtedness in the future. The debt instruments governing such indebtedness could contain provisions that are as, or more, restrictive than our existing debt instruments. If we are unable to repay, refinance or restructure our indebtedness when payment is due, the lenders could proceed against the collateral granted to them to secure such indebtedness or force us into bankruptcy or liquidation.
Forecasts of market growth may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the market in which we compete achieves the forecasted growth, our business may not grow at similar rates, if at all.
We have in the past provided, and may continue to provide, forecasts related to the market in which we operate. Market forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may prove to be inaccurate. Even if these forecasts prove to be correct, we may not be successful in maintaining or increasing our share of any relevant market.
We depend on key personnel to operate our business, and if we are unable to retain, attract and integrate qualified personnel, our ability to develop and successfully grow our business could be harmed.
We believe that our future success is highly dependent on the contributions of our senior management, as well as our ability to attract and retain additional senior management and highly skilled and experienced technical and other personnel in the United States and abroad. All of our employees, including our senior management and senior technical personnel, are free to terminate their employment relationship with us at any time, and their knowledge of our business, technology and industry may be difficult to replace. Qualified technical personnel and engineers are in high demand, particularly in the digital media industry, and we may incur significant costs to attract them. Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel also have greater resources than us. Additionally, volatility or lack of performance in our stock price may also affect our ability to attract employees and retain our key employees. These risks may be exacerbated by our proposed merger with Rubicon Project. If we are unable to attract and retain our senior management and key employees, our ability to develop and successfully grow our business could be harmed.
Defects or errors in our solutions could harm our reputation and result in significant costs to us.
The technology underlying our platform, including our proprietary technology and technology provided by third-parties, may contain material defects or errors that can adversely affect our ability to operate our business and cause significant harm to our reputation. This risk is compounded by the complexity of the technology underlying our solutions and the large amounts of data we utilize. Errors, defects, disruptions in service or other performance problems in our solutions could result in the failure of an ad campaign. Any such failure, malfunction, or disruption in service could harm our reputation and result in significant costs to us.
System failures could significantly disrupt our operations and cause us to lose clients.
Our success depends on the continuing and uninterrupted performance of our solutions. Sustained or repeated system failures that interrupt our ability to provide our solutions, including technological failures affecting our ability to process publisher ad requests or bids for inventory, could significantly reduce the attractiveness of our solutions and reduce our revenue. Our systems are vulnerable to damage from a variety of sources, including telecommunications failures, power outages, malicious human acts and natural disasters. In addition, any steps we take to increase the reliability and redundancy of our systems may be expensive and may not be successful in preventing system failures. Any such system failures could significantly disrupt our operations and cause us to lose clients.
Security breaches, computer viruses and computer hacking attacks could harm our business and results of operations.
We collect, store and transmit information in the provision of our services. We take steps to protect the security, integrity and confidentiality of the information we collect, store or transmit, but there is no guarantee that inadvertent or unauthorized use or disclosure will not occur or that third-parties will not gain unauthorized access to this information despite our efforts. Security breaches, computer malware and computer hacking attacks have become more prevalent in our industry and may occur on our systems or those of our information technology vendors in the future. Any security breach caused by hacking, which involves efforts to gain unauthorized access to information or systems, or to cause intentional malfunctions or loss or corruption of data, software, hardware or other computer equipment, or the inadvertent transmission of computer viruses or other harmful software code could result in the unauthorized disclosure, misuse, or loss of information, legal claims and litigation, indemnity obligations, regulatory fines and penalties, contractual obligations and liabilities, and other liabilities. In addition, if our security measures or those of our vendors are breached or unauthorized access to consumer data otherwise occurs our solutions may be perceived as not being secure, and our clients may reduce the use of or stop using our solutions.
While we have security measures in place, these systems and networks are subject to ongoing threats and, therefore, these security measures may be breached as a result of employee error, failure to implement appropriate processes and procedures, malfeasance, third-party action, including cyber-attacks or other international misconduct by computer hackers or otherwise. This could result in one or more third-parties obtaining unauthorized access to our client data or our data, including personally identifiable information or other viewer data, intellectual property and other confidential business information. Third-parties may also attempt to fraudulently induce employees into disclosing sensitive information such as user names, passwords or other information in order to gain access to client data or our data, including intellectual property and other confidential business information.
Because techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not identified until they are launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate
preventative or mitigation measures. Though it is difficult to determine what harm may directly result from any specific interruption or breach, any failure to maintain performance, reliability, security and availability of our network infrastructure or otherwise to maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of data that we store or otherwise maintain on behalf of third-parties may harm our reputation and our relationships or harm our ability to retain existing clients and attract new clients. Any of these could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If such unauthorized disclosure or access does occur, we may be required to notify our clients or those persons whose information was improperly used, disclosed or accessed. We may also be subject to claims of breach of contract for such use or disclosure, investigation and penalties by regulatory authorities and potential claims by persons whose information was improperly used or disclosed. The unauthorized use or disclosure of information may result in the termination of one or more of our commercial relationships or a reduction in confidence and usage of our solutions. We may also be subject to litigation and regulatory action alleging the improper use, transmission or storage of confidential information, which could damage our reputation among our current and potential clients, require significant expenditures of capital and other resources and cause us to lose business and revenue.
Even if we do not suffer a data security breach, the increase in the number and the scope of data security incidents has increased regulatory and industry focus on security requirements and heightened data security industry practices. New regulation, evolving industry standards, and the interpretation of both, may cause us to incur additional expense in complying with any new data security requirements. Further, any actual or perceived threats to the security of computers and computer networks, especially mobile devices and mobile networks, could lead existing and potential users to refrain from responding to online video advertising.
Interruptions or delays in service from our third-party data centers or other third-party hosting services could impair the delivery of our solutions and harm our business.
We utilize data center hosting facilities as well Amazon Web Services to deliver our solutions. We also rely on multiple bandwidth providers, multiple internet service providers, as well as content delivery network, or CDN providers, and domain name systems, or DNS providers, and mobile networks to deliver video ads. Any damage to, or failure of, these systems could result in interruptions to the availability or functionality of our service. If for any reason our arrangements with our data center hosting facilities or third-party providers are terminated, we could experience additional expense in arranging for new facilities, technology services and support. In addition, the failure of our data center hosting facilities or any other third-party providers to meet our capacity requirements could result in interruptions in the availability or functionality of our solutions or impede our ability to scale our operations.
The occurrence of a natural disaster, a public health crisis, such as a pandemic or epidemic, an act of terrorism, vandalism or sabotage, a decision to close our third-party data center hosting facilities or the facilities of any third-party provider without adequate notice, or other unanticipated problems at these facilities could result in lengthy interruptions in the availability of our solutions. 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 solutions in the event of any problems with respect to our data center hosting facilities or any other third-party facilities. To date, we have not experienced these types of events, but we cannot provide any assurances that they will not occur in the future. If any such event were to occur to our business, the delivery of our solutions could be impaired and our business harmed.
Our net operating loss carryforwards may expire unutilized or underutilized, which could prevent us from offsetting future taxable income.
We may be limited in the portion of net operating loss carry-forwards, or NOLs, that we can use in the future to offset taxable income for U.S. federal income tax purposes. Our U.S. federal NOLs will expire in various years beginning in 2025 through 2036. Our foreign NOLs can be carried forward without limitation in each respective country. In addition, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code, a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its NOLs to offset future taxable income. We believe that we experienced an ownership change under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code in prior years that may limit our ability to utilize a portion of the NOLs in the future. In addition, future changes in our stock ownership, including as a result of the pending merger with Rubicon Project, as well as other changes that may be outside of our control, could result in additional ownership changes under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code. Our NOLs may also be impaired under similar provisions of state law. We have recorded a full valuation allowance related to substantially all of our NOLs and other deferred tax assets due to the uncertainty of the ultimate realization of the future benefits of those assets. Our NOLs may expire unutilized or underutilized, which could prevent us from offsetting future taxable income.
We may experience fluctuations in our tax obligations and effective tax rate.
We are subject to taxation in the United States and in numerous other jurisdictions. We record tax expense based on current tax payments and our estimates of future tax payments, which may include reserves for estimates of probable settlements of tax audits. At any one time, multiple tax years could be subject to audit by various taxing jurisdictions. As a result, we could be subject to higher than anticipated tax liabilities as well as ongoing variability in our quarterly tax rates as audits close and exposures are re-evaluated. Further, our effective tax rate in a given financial statement period may be adversely impacted by changes in tax laws, changes in the mix of revenue among different jurisdictions, changes to accounting rules and changes to our ownership or capital structure. Fluctuations in our tax obligations and effective tax rate could adversely affect our business.
On December 22, 2017, President Trump signed into law the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” or the TCJA, which significantly amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. The TCJA, among other things, reduces the corporate tax rate from a top marginal rate of 35% to a flat rate of 21%, limits the tax deduction for interest expense to 30% of adjusted earnings, eliminates net operating loss carrybacks, imposes a one-time tax on offshore earnings at reduced rates regardless of whether they are repatriated, allows immediate deductions for certain new investments instead of deductions for depreciation expense over time, and modifies or repeals many business deductions and credits. We continue to examine the impact these changes may have on our business. Notwithstanding the reduction in the corporate income tax rate, the overall impact of the TCJA is uncertain and our business and financial condition could be adversely affected.
Taxing authorities may successfully assert that we should have collected or in the future should collect sales and use, value added or similar taxes, and we could be subject to liability with respect to past or future sales, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
We do not collect sales and use, value added or similar taxes in any U.S. jurisdictions in which we have sales based on our belief that such taxes are not applicable. Sales and use, value added and similar tax laws and rates vary greatly by jurisdiction. Certain jurisdictions in which we do not collect such taxes may assert that such taxes are applicable, which could result in tax assessments, penalties and interest and we may be required to collect such taxes in the future. Such tax assessments, penalties and interest or future requirements may adversely affect our business and operating results.
Risks Relating to Our Data Collection and Intellectual Property
Our business is subject to a variety of domestic and international laws, rules, and other obligations regarding data protection, which could result in additional compliance costs, subject us to enforcement actions, or cause us to change our platform or business practices.
We are subject to a complex array of federal, state, and international laws relating to the collection, use, retention, disclosure, security, and transfer of personal data. Many jurisdictions have passed laws in this area, and other jurisdictions are considering imposing additional restrictions, including regulating the level of notice and consent required to collect and process end-user data. The global data protection landscape is rapidly evolving, and implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Complying with emerging and changing laws and requirements, including as we expand our operations globally, may cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices.
The European General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) became effective in May 2018. GDPR adds significant new regulatory requirements that are applicable to us as well as our clients, competitors and business partners in the EU, including new requirements for end-user consent as a legal basis to collect and process personal data. In addition, the GDPR mandates more robust documentation, retention and breach reporting requirements. Failure to comply with the GDPR could result in significant penalties of up to 20 million euros or 4% of annual global revenue. Because we do not have direct relationships with end-users, we are generally reliant on publishers to provide any necessary disclosures and obtain any necessary consents under GDPR. Any failure by our publisher clients to obtain valid consent from end-users, or their inability to rely on another legal basis for the collection or processing of personal data, could potentially result in non-compliance under the GDPR. A consistent industry framework for GDPR compliance is still emerging and it is possible that the GDPR will be interpreted to impose additional and burdensome requirements applicable to obtaining this consent.
In addition, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) became effective on January 1, 2020. Under the CCPA, businesses are required to grant expansive access, deletion and portability rights to consumers in the United States, similar to those provided under the GDPR. In addition, the CCPA gives California residents the right to opt-out of the sale of their personal information; this opt-out right may impact the ability of ad tech companies to provide services to their customers if use of data in providing such services falls under the definition of a sale. The law also imposes burdensome storage and compliance obligations on publishers and ad tech companies. Interpretation of the requirements remains unclear due to the
recent passage of the regulation. The law took effect on January 1, 2020, with the Attorney General enforcement of the CCPA delayed until July 2020. The Attorney General has proposed regulations that are still in a public comment period and could be revised. The delay in enforcement and finalizing of the applicable regulations creates uncertainty as to the requirements of the law and its impact on our business. The CCPA may precipitate additional privacy regulation by federal, state and local governments, which may increase our compliance costs and strain our technical capabilities, and which may conflict with each other.
The cost of compliance with these laws, regulations and standards is high and is likely to increase in the future. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with federal, state, or foreign laws or self-regulatory standards could result in negative publicity, significant fines and expenses for remediation, diversion of management time and effort and proceedings against us by governmental entities or others.
The success of our platform depends on our ability, and the ability of our clients and business partners, to collect, process, use and transfer end user data
Our platform enables publishers and buyers to efficiently transact in a programmatic marketplace. A key value proposition of programmatic video advertising is the ability to use and share end user data to inform advertising decisions and more effectively target audiences. Publishers collect information about their end users to better package and market their inventory, and buyers use this information as well as their own data, or data licensed by third parties, to better optimize and target the delivery of an advertisement. Advertising that utilizes end user data for these purposes is inherently more valuable than advertising which is more generally targeted or contextually targeted. Without end user data the value of programmatic advertising inventory will generally diminish, which would potentially result in less ad spend and revenue through our platform.
The ability to collect end user data is influenced by a number of factors, including the development of browser and mobile device mechanisms that block or limit the collection of user data, adoption of or changes in laws and regulations around privacy and data collection, and changes in industry standards and consumer sentiment regarding privacy issues.
Internet users can, with increasing ease, implement practices or technologies that may limit our ability, or that of our publishers, buyers and business partners, to collect data. For example, users may delete or block the use of the cookies used to collect data, including through their browser or mobile device settings. Internet users may also download “ad blocking” software that prevents certain cookies from being stored on a user’s computer or mobile device, including to prevent the display of targeted advertisements. In addition, most widely used web browsers allow users to send “Do Not Track” signals to indicate that they do not wish to have their web usage tracked, while many device manufacturers and operating systems are increasingly promoting features that allow users to disable the collection of data.
In addition, new laws and regulations, such as the GDPR and CCPA, restrict the ability to collect and process certain types of user data, including, in the case of GDPR, requiring user consent or another legal basis in order to collect or process personal data and, in the case of CCPA, giving the user a right to opt out of the collection or processing of personal data. To the extent publishers are unable to obtain valid consent or otherwise provide a legal basis for collecting and processing personal data, it would impair the ability to deliver targeted advertisements on their inventory.
We and many of our publisher and buyer clients voluntarily participate in trade associations and industry self-regulatory groups that promulgate best practice guidelines or codes of conduct in connection with the delivery of online targeted advertising. We could be adversely affected by changes to these guidelines and codes that are inconsistent with our practices
Any limitation on our ability, or the ability of our clients or business partners, to collect or use end user data could negatively impact the overall value of programmatic advertising and, in turn, the value of our platform.
Changing laws and regulations concerning privacy and data protection may create industry uncertainty and confusion that is disruptive to our business
Changing laws and regulations concerning privacy and data protection may create general uncertainty and confusion in the digital advertising ecosystem that is disruptive to our business. New laws such as the GDPR and CCPA introduce significant changes in the requirements for collecting and processing end user data, and the specific application and interpretation of these requirements is continuing to evolve. This uncertainty could cause our publisher and buyer clients to change their business practices or cease doing business in certain jurisdictions.
In addition, changes in laws and the resulting uncertainty may increase our organizational burden and result in additional compliance costs as we seek to assist clients and adapt our platform and business practices as necessary to comply with the law
and industry standards. If our competitors are more effective in adapting their business practices or technology in response to changes in law or requirements, they may be able to capture market share from us in certain jurisdictions.
If web, smartphones, tablet and CTV devices, their operating systems or content distribution channels, including those controlled by our competitors, develop in ways that prevent our solutions from working effectively, our ability to grow our business could be impaired.
Our business model depends upon the continued compatibility of our solutions with most internet-connected devices across desktop, mobile, tablet, and CTV devices, as well as the major operating systems that run on them. The design of these devices and operating systems are controlled by third-parties with whom we do not have any formal relationships. These parties frequently introduce new devices, and from time to time they may introduce new operating systems or modify existing ones. In some cases, the parties that control the development of internet-connected devices and operating systems include companies that we regard as our competitors, including some of our most significant competitors. If our solutions were unable to work or we were unable to collect data on these devices or operating systems, either because of technological constraints or because a maker of these devices or developer of these operating systems wished to impair our ability to sell video ads on them, our ability to grow our business could be impaired.
Any failure to protect our intellectual property rights could negatively impact our business.
We regard the protection of our intellectual property, which includes trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks and domain names as critical to our success. We strive to protect our intellectual property rights by relying on federal, state and common law rights, as well as contractual restrictions. We generally enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and contractors, and confidentiality agreements with parties, with whom we conduct business in order to limit access to, and disclosure and use of, our proprietary information. However, we may not be successful in executing these agreements with every party who has access to our confidential information or contributes to the development of our intellectual property.
Those agreements that we do execute may be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies for any such breach. These contractual arrangements and the other steps we have taken to protect our intellectual property may not prevent the misappropriation of our intellectual property, or deter independent development of similar intellectual property by others. Breaches of the security of our solutions, databases or other resources could expose us to a risk of loss or unauthorized disclosure of information collected, stored, or transmitted for or on behalf of publishers, or of cookies, data stored in cookies, other user information, or other proprietary or confidential information.
We register certain domain names, trademarks and service marks in the United States and in certain locations outside the United States. Any of our trademarks or other intellectual property rights may be challenged by others or invalidated through administrative process or litigation. Any patents that may be issued in the future may not adequately protect our intellectual property or provide us with competitive advantages, or may be successfully challenged by third-parties. Our competitors and others could attempt to capitalize on our brand recognition by using domain names or business names similar to ours. Domain names similar to ours have been registered in the United States and elsewhere. We may be unable to prevent third-parties from acquiring or using domain names and other trademarks that infringe on, are similar to, or otherwise decrease the value of our brands, trademarks or service marks. Effective trade secret, copyright, trademark, domain name and patent protection are expensive to develop and maintain, both in terms of initial and ongoing registration requirements and the costs of defending our rights. We may be required to protect our intellectual property in an increasing number of jurisdictions, a process that is expensive and may not be successful or which we may not pursue in every location. We may, over time, increase our investment in protecting our intellectual property through patent filings that could be expensive and time-consuming.
Additionally, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or AIA, among other things, switched U.S. patent rights from the former “first-to-invent” system to a “first inventor-to-file” system. This may result in inventors and companies having to file patent applications more frequently to preserve rights in their inventions. This may favor larger competitors that have the resources to file more patent applications.
Monitoring unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and costly. Our efforts to protect our proprietary rights and intellectual property may not be adequate to prevent their misappropriation or misuse. Further, we may not be able to detect unauthorized use of, or take appropriate steps to enforce, our intellectual property rights. Our competitors may also independently develop similar technology, which avoids infringing on our intellectual property rights. The laws of some foreign countries may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the United States, and mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be inadequate. Effective patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be available to us in every country in which our solutions or technology are hosted or available. Further, legal standards relating to
the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property rights are uncertain. The laws in the United States and elsewhere change rapidly, and any future changes could adversely affect us and our intellectual property. Our failure to meaningfully protect our intellectual property could result in competitors offering solutions that incorporate our most technologically advanced features, which could seriously reduce demand for our solutions. In addition, we may in the future find it necessary or appropriate to initiate infringement claims or litigation, whether to protect our intellectual property or to determine the enforceability, scope and validity of the intellectual property rights of others. Litigation, whether we are a plaintiff or a defendant, can be expensive, time-consuming and may divert the efforts of our technical staff and managerial personnel, which could harm our business, whether or not such litigation results in a determination that is unfavorable to us. In addition, litigation is inherently uncertain. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may be unable to prevent third-parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property.
Our business may suffer if it is alleged or determined that our solutions or another aspect of our business infringes the intellectual property rights of others.
The online advertising industry is characterized by the existence of large numbers of patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property and proprietary rights. Companies in this industry are often required to defend against litigation claims that are based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. Our technologies may not be able to withstand any third-party claims or rights against their use.
Our success depends, in part, upon non-infringement of intellectual property rights owned by others and being able to resolve claims of intellectual property infringement or misappropriation without major financial expenditures or adverse consequences. From time to time we face claims by third-parties that we infringe upon or misappropriate their intellectual property rights, and we may be found to be infringing upon or to have misappropriated such rights. Such claims may be made by competitors or other parties. We cannot assure you that we are not infringing or violating any third-party intellectual property rights. From time to time, we or our clients may be subject to legal proceedings relating to our solutions or underlying technology and the intellectual property rights of others, particularly as we expand the complexity and scope of our business. As a result of disclosure of information in filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition is more visible, than those of private companies, which we believe may result in threatened or actual litigation, including by competitors and other third-parties.
Regardless of whether claims that we are infringing patents or infringing or misappropriating other intellectual property rights have any merit, these claims are time-consuming and costly to evaluate and defend, and can impose a significant burden on management and employees. The outcome of any litigation is inherently uncertain, and we may receive unfavorable interim or preliminary rulings in the course of litigation. There can be no assurances that favorable final outcomes will be obtained in all cases. We may decide to settle lawsuits and disputes on terms that are unfavorable to us. Some of our competitors have substantially greater resources than we do and are able to sustain the costs of complex intellectual property litigation to a greater degree and for longer periods of time than we could. Claims that we are infringing patents or other intellectual property rights could:
· subject us to significant liabilities for monetary damages, which may be tripled in certain instances, and the attorney’s fees of others;
· prohibit us from developing, commercializing or continuing to provide some or all of our solutions unless we obtain licenses from, and pay royalties to, the holders of the patents or other intellectual property rights, which may not be available on commercially favorable terms, or at all;
· subject us to indemnification obligations or obligations to refund fees to, and adversely affect our relationships with, our current or future publishers;
· result in injunctive relief against us, or otherwise result in delays or stoppages in providing all or certain aspects of our solutions;
· cause publishers to avoid working with us;
· divert the attention and resources of management and technical personnel; and
· require technology or branding changes to our solutions that would cause us to incur substantial cost and that we may be unable to execute effectively or at all.
We use open source software in our solutions that may subject our technology to general release or require us to re-engineer our solutions, which may cause harm to our business.
Our technology incorporates or is distributed with software or data licensed from third-parties, including some software distributed under so-called “open source” licenses, which we use without charge. Some of these licenses contain requirements that we make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon the open source software, and that we license such modifications or derivative works under the terms of a particular open source license or other license granting third-parties certain rights of further use. By the terms of certain open source licenses, we could be required to release the source code of our proprietary software, and to make our proprietary software available under open source licenses, if we combine and/or distribute our proprietary software with open source software in certain manners. Although we monitor our use of open source software, we cannot be sure that all open source software is reviewed prior to use in our proprietary software, that our programmers have not incorporated open source software into our proprietary software, or that they will not do so in the future. Additionally, the terms of many open source licenses to which we are subject have not been interpreted by U.S. or foreign courts. There is a risk that open source software licenses could be construed in a manner that imposes unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to provide our solutions to our clients. In addition, the terms of open source software licenses may require us to provide software that we develop, using such open source software, to others, including our competitors, on unfavorable license terms. As a result of our current or future use of open source software, we may face claims or litigation, be required to release our proprietary source code, pay damages for breach of contract, re-engineer our technology, discontinue sales in the event re-engineering cannot be accomplished on a timely basis, or take other remedial action that may divert resources away from our development efforts, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition or operating results.
We rely on data, other technology, and intellectual property licensed from other parties, the failure or loss of which could increase our costs and delay or prevent the delivery of our solutions.
We utilize various types of data, other technology, and intellectual property licensed from unaffiliated third-parties in order to provide certain elements of our solutions. Any errors or defects in any third-party data or other technology could result in errors in our solutions that could harm our business and damage our reputation and losses in revenue, and we could be required to spend significant amounts of additional research and development resources to fix any problems. In addition, licensed technology, data, and intellectual property may not continue to be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Any loss of the right to use any of these on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, could result in delays in producing or delivering our solutions until equivalent data, other technology, or intellectual property is identified and integrated, which delays could harm our business. In this situation we would be required to either redesign our solutions to function with technology, data or intellectual property available from other parties or to develop these components ourselves, which would result in increased costs. Furthermore, we might be forced to limit the features available in our current or future solutions. If we fail to maintain or renegotiate any of these technology or intellectual property licenses, we could face significant delays and diversion of resources in attempting to develop similar or replacement technology, or to license and integrate a functional equivalent of the technology or intellectual property. The occurrence of any of these events may have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.
Risks Related to Being a Public Company and Public Company Financial Reporting
We have identified in the past a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting. If we fail to maintain proper and effective internal and disclosure controls, our ability to produce accurate financial statements and other disclosures on a timely basis could be impaired.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting, that meet the applicable standards. We may err in the design or operation of our controls. In addition, a control system, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the control system’s objectives will be met. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that misstatements due to error or fraud will not occur or that all control issues and instances of fraud will be detected.
We are required to perform system and process evaluation and testing of our internal controls over financial reporting to allow management to report on the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting.
We have in the past identified a material weakness in our internal controls and may in the future discover areas of our internal controls over financial reporting that need improvement. If additional material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control are discovered or occur in the future, our consolidated financial statements may contain material
misstatements and we could be required to restate our financial results. In addition, the market price of our stock could decline and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources and could lead to substantial additional costs for accounting and legal fees.
Our independent registered public accounting firm is also required, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, to report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. This assessment includes disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting. For future reporting periods, our independent registered public accounting firm may issue a report that is adverse in the event it is not satisfied with the level at which our controls are documented, designed or operating.
We may not be able to remediate any future material weaknesses, or to complete our evaluation, testing and any required remediation in a timely fashion.
If we are not able to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our auditors are unable to express an opinion that our internal controls over financial reporting are effective investors could lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could harm our stock price, and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, the SEC or other regulatory authorities. Failure to remediate any material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, or to implement or maintain other effective control systems required of public companies, could also restrict our future access to the capital markets.
We report a portion of our revenue on a gross basis; the combination of gross and net revenue reporting may make our financial reporting more complex and difficult to understand.
The recognition of our revenue is governed by certain criteria that must be met and that determine whether we report revenue either on a net basis, where third party inventory costs reduce revenue, or on a gross basis, where third party inventory costs are reflected in cost of revenue. Substantially all of our revenue is recognized net of inventory costs, based on determination that we were serving primarily as an agent on behalf of the publisher that is monetizing its inventory. However, for certain transactions, we report revenue on a gross basis, based primarily on our determination that we are acting as a primary obligor for the buyer with respect to the advertising inventory purchased on our platform.
The combination of net and gross revenue reporting may make our financial reporting more complex and difficult for investors to understand, and may make comparison of our results of operations to prior periods or other companies more difficult. We may experience significant fluctuations in revenue depending upon, in part, the nature of our sales and our reporting of such revenue.
In order to provide guidance or make other projections regarding our expectations of U.S. GAAP revenue for future periods, we must make estimates and assumptions about the mix of gross and net-reported transactions based upon the volumes and characteristics of the transactions we think will make up the total mix of revenue in the period covered by the projection. Those estimates and assumptions may be inaccurate when made, or may be rendered inaccurate by circumstances occurring after the guidance is given, such as changing the characteristics of our offerings or particular transactions in response to client demands, market developments, regulatory pressures, acquisitions, and other factors. In addition, the rules governing revenue recognition in our business are complex, and the rules or their interpretation may evolve. As a result, it is possible that our projections of U.S. GAAP revenue guidance may vary from actual results, or comparisons of our projections from period to period may be difficult.
Our accounting is becoming more complex, and relies upon estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies. If our accounting is erroneous or based on assumptions that change or prove to be incorrect, our operating results could fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price.
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or U.S. GAAP, requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes, and also to comply with many complex requirements and standards. We devote substantial resources to compliance with accounting requirements and we base our estimates on our best judgment, historical experience, information derived from third parties, and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, 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 operating results may be adversely affected if we make accounting errors or our judgments prove to be wrong, assumptions change or actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our operating results to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors or guidance we may have provided, resulting in a decline in our stock price and potential legal claims. Significant judgments,
assumptions and estimates used in preparing our consolidated financial statements include those related to revenue recognition, stock-based compensation, business combinations, and income taxes.
Risks associated with being a public company.
As a public company, we incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. In addition, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and rules subsequently implemented by the SEC and NYSE impose numerous requirements on public companies, including requiring changes in corporate governance practices. Our management and other personnel will need to devote a substantial amount of time to compliance with these laws and regulations. These requirements have increased and will continue to increase our legal, accounting, and financial compliance costs and have made and will continue to make some activities more time consuming and costly. For example, these rules and regulations make it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance compared to when we were a private company. These rules and regulations could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors or our board committees or as executive officers.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
The market price of our common stock may be volatile, which could result in substantial losses for investors.
The trading price of our common stock has been, and is likely to continue to be, volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. Between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019, our stock price has ranged from $2.81 per share to $10.57 per share. In addition, the trading prices of the securities of advertising technology companies in general have been highly volatile, and the volatility in market price and trading volume of securities is often unrelated or disproportionate to the financial performance of the companies issuing the securities. In addition to the factors discussed in this “Risk Factors” section and elsewhere in our public filings with the SEC, factors affecting the market price of our common stock include:
· price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market, or in the market for the stock of comparable companies, from time to time;
· announcements of acquisitions or dispositions or developments regarding pending transactions, including the proposed merger with Rubicon Project, and market assumptions regarding whether and when the potential merger will occur;
· the stock price of Rubicon Project (given the proposed merger);
· adverse changes in the regulatory environment;
· actual or anticipated changes in our earnings or fluctuations in our operating results or the results of our competitors;
· changes in the market perception of online video advertising platforms generally or in the effectiveness of our solutions in particular;
· a lack of trading volume in our common stock;
·announcements of technological innovations, new solutions, strategic alliances or significant agreements by us or by our competitors;
· issuance of new or changed securities analysts’ reports or recommendations for our or our competitors’ stock;
· litigation involving us;
· changes in general economic, industry and market conditions and trends;
· recruitment or departure of key personnel; and
· the other factors described in this section of the report titled “Risk Factors.”
In the past, following periods of volatility in the market price of a company’s securities, securities class action or derivative litigation has often been brought against that company and its officers and directors. Because of the potential volatility of our stock price, we may become the target of additional securities litigation in the future. Securities litigation could result in substantial costs and divert management’s attention and resources from our business.
Sales of substantial amounts of our common stock in the public markets, or the perception that they might occur, could reduce the price that our common stock might otherwise attain and may dilute your voting power and your ownership interest in us.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock, or the perception that a substantial number of shares could be sold, including under our shelf registration statement filed with the SEC on November 6, 2017, could reduce the market price of our common stock. As of March 12, 2020, we had 48,047,492 shares of common stock outstanding.
In addition, an aggregate of 3,593,624 shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of options and vesting of RSUs outstanding, as of December 31, 2019 will become available for sale immediately upon the exercise of such option awards or vesting of such RSU awards.
We have also registered for offer and sale all shares of common stock that we may issue under our stock-based compensation plans, including our employee stock purchase plan. These shares can be freely sold in the public market upon issuance. Sales of common stock by existing stockholders in the public market, whether as part of an underwritten public offering or pursuant to exemptions from registration, the availability of these shares for sale, our issuance of securities or the perception that any of these events might occur could materially and adversely affect the market price of our common stock. In addition, the sale of these securities could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional stock.
In addition, in the future, we may issue additional shares of common stock or other equity or debt securities convertible into common stock in connection with a financing, acquisition, litigation settlement, and employee arrangements or otherwise. Any such issuance could result in substantial dilution to our existing stockholders and could cause our stock price to decline.
Concentration of ownership of our common stock among our existing executive officers, directors and principal stockholders may prevent new investors from influencing significant corporate decisions.
Our executive officers, directors and principal stockholders and their respective affiliates beneficially owned, in the aggregate, a significant percentage of our outstanding common stock as of December 31, 2019. These persons, acting together, are able to significantly influence all matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election and removal of directors and any merger or other significant corporate transactions. The interests of this group of stockholders may not coincide with our interests or the interests of other stockholders.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish, or cease publishing, research or reports about us, our business or our market, if they publish negative evaluations of our stock, or if we fail to meet the expectations of analysts, the price of our stock and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts may publish about us, our business, our market or our competitors. We do not have any control over these analysts, and their reports or analyst consensus may not reflect our guidance, plans or expectations. If one or more of the analysts covering our business issues an adverse opinion of our company because we fail to meet their expectations or otherwise, the price of our stock could decline. If one or more of these analysts cease to cover our stock, we could lose visibility in the market for our stock, which in turn could cause our stock price to decline.
Anti-takeover provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws as well as provisions of Delaware law might discourage, delay or prevent a change in control of our company or changes in our board of directors or management and, therefore, depress the price of our common stock.
Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and Delaware law contain provisions that may discourage, delay or prevent a merger, acquisition or other change in control that stockholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which you might otherwise receive a premium for your shares of our common stock or transactions that our stockholders might otherwise deem to be in their best interests. These provisions may also prevent or frustrate attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove members of our board of directors or our management. Therefore, these provisions could adversely affect the price of our stock. Our corporate governance documents include provisions:
· establishing a classified board of directors with staggered three-year terms so that not all members of our board of directors are elected at one time;
· providing that directors may be removed by stockholders only for cause;
· preventing the ability of our stockholders to call and bring business before special meetings and to take action by written consent in lieu of a meeting;
· requiring advance notice of stockholder proposals for business to be conducted at meetings of our stockholders and for nominations of candidates for election to our board of directors;
· permitting the board of directors to issue up to 10,000,000 shares of preferred stock with any rights, preferences and privileges as they may designate;
· limiting the liability of, and providing indemnification to, our directors and officers;
· providing that vacancies may be filled by remaining directors;
· preventing cumulative voting; and
· providing for a supermajority requirement to amend our bylaws.
As a Delaware corporation, we are also subject to provisions of Delaware law, including Section 203 of the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware, which prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder. Any provision of our certificate of incorporation or bylaws or Delaware law that has the effect of delaying or deterring a change in control could limit the opportunity for our stockholders to receive a premium for their shares of our common stock and could also affect the price that some investors are willing to pay for our common stock.