UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549
FORM
(Mark One)
ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
For the fiscal year ended
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TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
For the transition period from ________________ to ________________.
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The aggregate market value of the registrant's common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant on June 30, 2022 (based on the closing sale price of $6.14 on that date), was approximately $
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DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Certain information required by Part III is omitted from this Annual Report on Form 10 K and incorporated by reference to our definitive proxy statement for our 2022 annual meeting of stockholders (“2022 Proxy Statement”), to be filed pursuant to Regulation 14A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. If our 2022 Proxy Statement is not filed within 120 days after the end of the fiscal year covered by this Annual Report on Form 10 K, the omitted information will be included in an amendment to this Annual Report on Form 10 K filed not later than the end of such 120-day period.
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AvidXchange Holdings, Inc.
Form 10-K
For the Year Ended December 31, 2022
Table of Contents
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PART I. |
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Item 1. |
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Item 1A. |
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Item 1B. |
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Item 2. |
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Item 3. |
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Item 4. |
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PART II. |
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Item 5.
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Item 6. |
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Item 7. |
Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. |
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Item 7A. |
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Item 8. |
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Item 9. |
Changes in and Disagreements With Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure |
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Item 9A. |
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Item 9B. |
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Item 9C. |
Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections. |
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PART III. |
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Item 10. |
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Item 11. |
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Item 12. |
Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters. |
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Item 13. |
Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence. |
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PART IV. |
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Item 15. |
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Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We intend such forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”) and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). All statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K other than statements of historical fact, including statements regarding our future operating results and financial position, our business strategy and plans, market growth, and our objectives for future operations, are forward-looking statements. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “potential,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “could,” “would,” “project,” “plan,” “target,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K may include, but are not limited to, statements about:
We caution you that the foregoing list may not contain all of the forward-looking statements made in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those stated, including those described in the sections titled “Risk Factors” in Part I, Item 1A and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, as such factors may be updated in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, (the “SEC"). Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time. It is not possible for our management to predict all risks, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements we may make. In light of these risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, the future events and trends discussed in
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this Annual Report on Form 10-K may not occur and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements.
You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. The events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements may not be achieved or occur. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, performance, or achievements. Our forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and we undertake no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K or to conform these statements to actual results or revised expectations, except as required by law.
You should read this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and the documents that we reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and have filed with the SEC, with the understanding that our actual future results, performance, and events and circumstances may be materially different from what we expect.
In this Annual Report on Form 10-K, the words “we,” “our,” “us,” “AvidXchange,” and “our Company” refer to AvidXchange, Inc. prior to our reorganization, and to AvidXchange Holdings, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries following the reorganization, unless the context requires otherwise.
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PART I.
ITEM 1. Business.
General Developments
2022 Year in Review
With a volatile macroeconomic backdrop throughout 2022, we leveraged our investments in our products and services to drive revenue growth while also taking actions to address our operating costs and to be more efficient. We experienced broad-based revenue growth across all our vertical markets including Real Estate, Homeowners Associations ("HOAs"), Construction, Financial Services, and Media Advertising, as well as Emerging, which includes Education, Healthcare, and Social Services.
We introduced new Application Programming Interface (“API”) integrations with AppFolio, Accumatica, Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT®, and QuickBooks Online and entered into new partnerships with Resman and Member Driven Technologies. We launched our AvidXchange “cross border payment” offering at NetSuite’s annual SuiteWorld user conference in Las Vegas, launched our Straight-Through-Process Supplier Offering, and launched our next generation Procurement and Purchase Order Management tools, which include three-way invoice matching capability. We also held our first in-person annual Customer Advisory Board meeting since 2019 (due to Covid) in Charlotte, NC with a group of our most influential customers.
Actions taken to address our operating costs and to be more efficient included the completion of the migration of our infrastructure and hosting from a private cloud to Microsoft’s Azure public cloud, the implementation and completion of a reorganization of our workforce during the third quarter of 2022, the consolidation and repurposing of leased office space within our real estate portfolio, and the entrance into our new Credit Agreement with KeyBank National Association, as administrative agent (the “2022 Credit Agreement,” as fully defined below in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K under the heading “Credit Facilities”), that replaced in its entirety the legacy 2019 Credit Agreement (as defined below in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K under the heading “Credit Facilities”).
We also recognized the first anniversary of our IPO during the fourth quarter of 2022.
Impact of Macroeconomic Events
Throughout 2022, we have continued to see the impact of several macroeconomic events on our business and on our buyers and suppliers. These events have included, but are not limited to, the continuing global COVID-19 pandemic including the emergence of new variants, general economic conditions including inflation, fears of a possible recession, ongoing supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical tensions including those resulting from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. While we continue to be encouraged by leading indicators in our sales process, the ongoing uncertainty created by these macroeconomic events could continue to have a negative impact on purchasing decisions by certain buyers, new sales and longer sales cycles. These events have made it and may continue to make it more difficult for us to acquire new buyers and to close new sales opportunities which in turn adversely impacts revenue growth in future periods.
The U.S. economy is also currently experiencing a higher than normal level of inflation. The long-term impacts of inflation on the economy and our business remain unclear. On the one hand, our revenue could be positively impacted by inflation as the value of our customer's payments could rise, increasing our payment volume and the base on which we earn interchange revenue. Also, inflationary pressure could be a catalyst for sales acceleration associated with increased interest by potential customers in automating back-office processing. Additionally, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates in an effort to reduce inflation. These rate increases have in turn increased the interest we earn on funds held for buyers, which we recognize as payment revenue. Conversely, the impact of inflationary pressures on the macro economy could slow the spending of our customers and decrease payment volume. Inflation could also negatively impact our operating costs by increasing costs incurred by us to operate our business due to higher costs from our vendors and increased personnel costs, some of which we may not be able to recoup from our customers. The impact of inflation on our business and on our buyers and suppliers in future periods remains highly uncertain, as does the Federal Reserve’s response to these conditions. We may not see these impacts of inflation in future periods, which could lead to difficulty in comparing our current consolidated financial results to our results in future reporting periods.
Description of Business
Overview
We are a leading provider of accounts payable ("AP") automation software and payment solutions for middle market businesses
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and their suppliers. Our Software-as-a-Service ("SaaS") based, end-to-end software and payment platform digitizes and automates the AP workflows for more than 8,800 businesses (our buyers) and we have made payments to more than 965,000 supplier customers of our buyers (suppliers) over the past five years. While acquiring new and retaining existing relationships with buyers and suppliers are important to our business, the growth of our business is ultimately dependent upon the number of transactions we process, as well as our total payment volume. We developed our technology platform through years of working to solve our buyers’ unique middle market workflow challenges. We define middle market businesses primarily as companies with between $5 million and $1 billion in annual revenue. Middle market businesses are challenged by their high invoice throughput and complex AP workflows, while they also operate at a small enough scale such that complicated enterprise solutions are cost prohibitive and difficult to implement. Leveraging our domain expertise, we purpose-built a two-sided network that connects buyers and suppliers, drives digital transformation, increases efficiency and accuracy in AP workflows, accelerates payments, enables insight into critical analytics, and lowers operating costs for our buyers.
By integrating with our customers’ middle market oriented accounting and information systems, our platform automates the end-to-end AP workflows for our buyers and enhances the payment experience for our suppliers through the following products and features:
We do not have significant customer concentration in our business, with no single customer contributing more than 5% of 2022 revenue and with our top 10 customers contributing less than 10% of revenue in 2022. Our customers operate across a variety of verticals in which we have domain expertise, including real estate, HOAs, construction, financial services (including banks and credit unions), healthcare facilities, social services, education, and media. Certain segments of our customers, particularly the customers we acquired through the FastPay acquisition that focus on political advertising within our media vertical, are subject to seasonal and cyclical trends. In 2022, we processed approximately 70 million transactions representing over $215 billion in spend under management across our platform and, of that spend, we moved $68 billion in total payment volume from our buyers to their suppliers. Spend under management represents the sum of (i) the aggregate dollar amount of payments processed by us, plus (ii) the aggregate dollar amount represented by the total number of invoices processed by us, in each case, during the specified period. As described in more detail in the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” we generate revenue from each transaction processed on a per transaction basis and earn interchange revenue from a portion of the total payment volume.
Our Market Opportunity
The business-to-business ("B2B") payments market is evolving and represents an opportunity for digital transformation.
We believe that manual invoice payments processes, with their cost inefficiencies, lack of scalability, inability to accommodate remote work, and susceptibility to fraud present an opportunity for our business.
In addition to providing B2B payments, we believe we can team with our suppliers’ finance organizations to better manage expenses and cash flow. We believe that there is an unmet need in supplier invoice finance. Our solutions help suppliers accelerate invoices for early payment, manage supplier payment preferences, and forecast future cash flows.
Go-To-Market
We sell our solutions through a hybrid go-to-market strategy that includes direct and indirect channels. Our direct sales force leverages their domain expertise in select verticals and over 205 referral relationships with integrated software providers, financial institutions and other partners to identify and attract buyers that would benefit from our AP software solutions and the AvidPay
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Network. Our indirect channel includes reseller partners and other strategic partnerships with banks and financial institutions such as our partnerships with Mastercard, through MasterCard’s B2B Hub, which includes Fifth Third Bank and Bank of America, other financial institutions, such as KeyBank, third-party software providers, and technology business partners such as MRI Software, RealPage and SAP Concur. Our referral and indirect channel partnerships provide us greater reach across the market to access a variety of buyers.
Our go-to-market team is core to our growth and continues to evolve with the evolving market and our own internal development of products. We continuously monitor key metrics that measure our sales team and channel sales success, productivity, and efficiency. We maintain long-term customer satisfaction through our relationship management and customer care organization, who provide customer support through multiple avenues of communication including email, phone, chat, and forums.
Our marketing is focused on our ability to serve the middle market, our end-to-end solutions, the value we provide to our customers, and our continued product innovation. Our targeted marketing to the middle market includes both digital and traditional brand campaigns, targeted advertisements, social, thought leadership pieces, trade shows, and webinars.
We intend to continue to invest in our sales and marketing capabilities to capitalize on our market opportunity.
Why We Win
We believe we have several competitive advantages that drive our ability to leverage our first mover market position:
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Growth Strategy
Fundamentally, the growth of our business is dependent upon the number of transactions we process, as well as our total payment volume. Key elements of our growth strategy include the following.
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Human Capital, Culture, Social Responsibility and Community Initiatives
At AvidXchange, our employees are the core of who we are. In 2022 and beyond, we celebrate our employees and they have recognized our efforts:
While we are a technology company by trade, at our core, we are a people company, and that means not only taking care of each other, but those in the communities in which we work and live.
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As of December 31, 2022, we had over 1,600 full-time, U.S. based employees. We also engage temporary employees and consultants as needed to support our operations. None of our employees are represented by a labor union or covered by a collective bargaining agreement. We have not experienced any work stoppages and we consider our relations with our employees to be good.
We assess several human capital indicators which are measured regularly, shared monthly among the management team, and factored into our bonus compensation program: Monthly Teammate Engagement Score, Regretted Attrition, and Quality of Hire. We believe that these metrics provide objective assessments on our recruiting, development, and retention efforts by tracking the quality and outcomes of our recruiting efforts, the level of employee satisfaction, and the impacts of our culture initiatives.
Our Monthly Teammate Engagement Score is based on a 20-question survey delivered monthly via a 5-question pulse survey with scores aggregated every 4 months. With 100 out of 100 being a perfect score, our Monthly Teammate Engagement Score was 82 out of 100 at the beginning of 2022 and we ended the year at an 86 out of 100. External benchmarking considers a Teammate Engagement Score of between 83 and 100 to reflect strongly engaged teammates. We believe that strongly engaged teammates are more closely connected to the business, are brand advocates, strive to achieve goals, and have higher retention.
Regretted Attrition represents the annualized number of attritted, regretted teammates over all teammates. Regretted Attrition ended 2022 at 4.3%. We believe that our Regretted Attrition is below external benchmarks and that this score reflects our focus on keeping top talent and the strength of our culture initiatives.
Our Quality of Hire metric measures the percentage of teammates who left the company within their first year of employment. We ended 2022 with a score of 9.29%. We believe that our score is below external benchmarks and reflects that our selection methodologies are aligned between candidate assessment and the role that is being filled.
Our compensation plans and philosophy will be included in our 2023 Proxy Statement, and we intend to provide further disclosures regarding our environmental, social and governance efforts prior to our 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
Competition
We believe the overall market for AP software and payments solutions is fragmented, competitive and evolving and is marked by rapid change and consolidation due to technological innovations and continued adoption by businesses. Although we expect businesses to continue to adopt AP and payment automation solutions, we often find that we are selling our products and services to potential customers that use a variety of legacy and internally developed solutions, policies, and procedures, and we must be able to convince internal stakeholders that our products and solutions are superior to their existing processes or third-party solutions.
Our current competitors range from fintech companies, such as Bill.com and Coupa Software, and financial institutions to smaller, niche providers of software and services, as well as point solutions provided by enterprise resource planning ("ERP") vendors. We compete with companies that offer comprehensive solutions focused on the entire AP and payment processes and companies that focus only on select portions of these processes such as invoice and bill presentment, document and workflow management, AP and payment processing or accounts receivable. Solutions are also often specifically tailored to industry vertical or customer size making it difficult to expand into new verticals or attract larger or smaller customer types.
Accounting and ERP software providers, financial institutions, payment processing, and other service providers, a number of which we partner with in offering our solutions, may currently offer or develop solutions, acquire third-party solutions or competitors, or enter into strategic relationships that would enable them to expand their solutions to compete more effectively with our products and services. These parties may have access to larger, installed customer bases and may be able to bundle and cross sell competitive solutions with their other services, which may enable them to compete more effectively or provide them with greater pricing and operating flexibility.
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Companies that currently focus on providing solutions to enterprise businesses or small-to-medium businesses (“SMBs”) may seek to expand the offering of their solutions to middle market customers which would be more directly competitive with the products and services that we offer. New entrants not currently considered to be competitors may also enter the market through acquisitions, partnerships, or strategic relationships.
We currently compete on several factors, including:
We believe that we compare favorably with our competitors on the basis of these factors. We expect the middle market AP software and B2B payment solutions market to continue to evolve and grow, as greater numbers of middle market and larger businesses digitize their back offices. We believe that we are well-positioned to help them.
Regulatory Environment
We operate in a complex and evolving regulatory environment. The manner in which existing laws and regulations are applied or in which new laws and regulations are implemented is often unclear and unpredictable, in particular as such laws and regulations relate to our business in the United States and internationally to the extent we might in the future elect to expand our services outside the United States.
Most states and certain territories in the United States require a license to engage in certain money transmission or payment services. We have procured and maintain money transmitter licenses, or the statutory equivalent, in all of the U.S. jurisdictions that currently require them for our business and we actively work to comply with new license requirements as they arise. These licenses enable us to provide commercial payment services to businesses through AvidXchange, Inc. “for the benefit of customer” bank accounts that are restricted for such purposes and subject us, among other things, to record-keeping requirements, reporting requirements, bonding requirements, limitations on the investment of customer funds, and examination by state regulatory agencies.
We are also registered as a Money Services Business with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, and are subject to the Bank Secrecy Act ("BSA"), and certain obligations contained therein, including, among other things, certain record-keeping and reporting requirements, and examinations by FinCEN.
The BSA is the primary compendium of U.S. laws and regulations regarding anti-money laundering ("AML") and countering the financing of terrorism. As required under the BSA, we have implemented and are continuing to expand an AML program designed to prevent our platform from being used to facilitate money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. Our program is also designed to prevent our products from being used to facilitate business in certain countries, or with certain persons or entities, which are targets of economic or trade sanctions that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (the "OFAC") and various foreign authorities administer or enforce. Our AML and sanctions compliance programs include policies, procedures, reporting protocols, and internal controls, require the designation of a BSA and AML compliance officer to oversee the programs, and are designed to address our legal and regulatory requirements and to assist in managing risk associated with sanctions, compliance, money laundering, and terrorist financing.
Although we do not provide consumer services or products, we do collect and use a wide variety of information for various purposes in our business, including to help ensure the integrity of our services and to provide features and functionality to our customers. Our customers’ data is stored in our platform, and we must monitor and, as applicable, comply with a wide variety of laws and regulations regarding the data stored and processed on our platform as well as the operation of our business. This may present legal challenges to our business and operations, such as rights of privacy or intellectual property rights related to the content loaded onto our platform.
This aspect of our business, including the collection, use, disclosure, and protection of the information we acquire in connection with our customers’ use of our services, may be subject to certain laws and regulations in the United States. In particular, data privacy and security with respect to the collection, processing, and retention of personal data or Personally Identifiable Information ("PII") continues to be the focus of domestic and worldwide legislation and regulation. In recent years, there have been a number
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of well-publicized data breaches involving the unauthorized use and disclosure of individuals’ PII. Many U.S. states have responded to these incidents by enacting laws requiring holders of PII to maintain safeguards and to take certain actions in response to a data breach, such as providing prompt notification of the breach to affected individuals and state officials or amending existing laws to expand compliance obligations. Federal laws are also under consideration that may create additional compliance obligations and penalties. Accordingly, we publish our privacy policies and terms of service, which describe our practices concerning the use, transmission, and disclosure of information.
In addition, several foreign countries and governmental bodies, including within the European Union, have laws and regulations dealing with the collection, use, disclosure, and protection of information that are more restrictive than those in the United States. While we believe that the products and services that we currently offer in the United States do not subject us to such laws or regulations in foreign jurisdictions, such laws and regulations may be modified or subject to new or different interpretations, new laws and regulations may be enacted, or we may modify or expand our products or services in the future, or acquire a company operating internationally, which may subject us to such laws and regulations.
Various regulatory agencies in the United States and in foreign jurisdictions continue to examine a wide variety of issues which may be applicable to us and may impact our business. These issues include identity theft, account management guidelines, privacy, disclosure rules, cybersecurity, and marketing. As our business continues to develop and expand, we continue to monitor the additional rules and regulations that may become relevant or applicable to our business.
Any actual or perceived failure to comply with legal and regulatory requirements may result in, among other things, revocation of required licenses or registrations, loss of approved status, private litigation, regulatory or governmental investigations, administrative enforcement actions, sanctions, civil and criminal liability, and constraints on our ability to continue to operate. For an additional discussion on governmental regulation affecting our business, please see the risk factors related to regulation of our payments business and regulation in the areas of privacy and data use, under the section titled “Risk Factors — Risks Related to our Business and Industry.”
Cybersecurity
As referenced above, in the normal course of business, we may collect and store certain sensitive Company information, including proprietary and confidential business information, trade secrets, intellectual property, sensitive third-party information and employee information, and certain personal information. To protect this information, our existing cybersecurity policies require monitoring and detection programs, network security measures, encryption of critical data, and security assessment of vendors. We maintain various protections designed to safeguard against cyberattacks, including firewalls and virus detection software. We have established and test our disaster recovery plan and we protect against business interruption by backing up our major systems. In addition, we periodically scan our environment for any vulnerabilities, perform annual penetration testing and engage third parties to assess effectiveness of our data security practices. In addition, we maintain insurance that includes cybersecurity coverage.
Our cybersecurity program is led by our Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer. The program incorporates industry-standard frameworks, policies and practices designed to protect the privacy and security of our sensitive information. Our cybersecurity leadership reports to the full board of directors and its audit and risk management committees quarterly on information security and cybersecurity matters, or as needed. For example, the risk committee in conjunction with management and our enterprise risk management team have developed a cybersecurity dashboard, that is updated and reviewed quarterly, with metrics that include detection, response, and recovery measures, security culture scores, and security incident trends. Our board of directors and its committees has oversight responsibility for our information security practices and we believe they collectively have the requisite experience, knowledge, inquisitiveness, and visibility into the design and operation of our information security practices to fulfill this responsibility effectively.
We have implemented policies, standards, and technical controls based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework with the aim of protecting our networks and applications, to ensure the confidentiality of sensitive information entrusted to us. Our service providers and we, have security measures and programs in place to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber-attacks, security-related incidents, and other similar threats. However, our ability to monitor our vendors’ cybersecurity practices is limited, therefore we cannot guarantee that our measures and programs will prevent a cyber-incident impacting our systems or information.
We continue to evaluate internal systems, process, and controls to identify potential vulnerabilities and mitigate potential loss from cyber-attacks. The goal of this framework is to implement effective operational risk techniques and strategies, minimize operational and fraud losses, and enhance our overall performance. In addition, we have invested, and plan to continue investing, in resources to protect our information security ecosystem against cyber-attacks, other security-related incidents, and data breaches and to investigate and remediate any information security vulnerabilities.
Our cybersecurity program has also focused on companywide training on phishing and other social engineering attacks. Management takes the position cybersecurity is owned company wide as a collective team, not just by the organizations of the
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Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer. Our new security awareness platform was deployed in the first quarter of 2022 to improve awareness through training and more realistic phishing campaigns. Monthly all-hands briefings, updates on metrics, and “tips and tricks” started in the fourth quarter of 2022 to focus on addressing gaps in awareness. Key areas of focus in 2023 will include requiring training for teammates that fail phishing campaigns and encouraging the reporting of phishing to improve resiliency.
Despite the implementation of our cybersecurity program, our security measures cannot guarantee that a significant cyberattack will not occur. A successful attack on our information technology systems could have significant consequences to the business. While we devote resources to our security measures to protect our systems and information, these measures cannot provide absolute security. See “Risk Factors” for additional information about the risks to our business associated with a breach or compromise to our information technology systems.
Research and Development
Our research and development efforts focus on the development of new products and business intelligence tools, enhancements to existing products and applications, and large-scale infrastructure projects that improve the underlying architecture of our technology. We make investments in our technology to maintain and enhance our position as a leading provider of AP automation software and payment solutions for middle market businesses and their suppliers. We leverage emerging technologies and invest in the development of features that meet and anticipate the needs of both buyers and suppliers.
Intellectual Property
We seek to protect our intellectual property rights by relying upon a combination of contractual measures as well as trademark, copyright, and trade secret laws.
We rely on trade secrets and confidential information to develop and maintain our competitive position. It is our practice to enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements (or similar agreements) with our employees, consultants, and contractors involved in the development of intellectual property on our behalf. We also enter into confidentiality agreements with other third parties in order to limit access to, and disclosure and use of, our confidential information and proprietary information. We further control the use of our proprietary technology and intellectual property through provisions in our terms of service.
As of December 31, 2022, we had several trademark applications and registrations for certain of our logos. We will pursue additional trademark registrations to the extent we believe it would be beneficial and cost effective. We also own several domain names, including www.avidxchange.com.
Patents have not historically been a significant part of our intellectual property strategy. We may however pursue patent protection in the future to the extent we believe it would be beneficial and cost effective.
From time to time we may also use or incorporate certain intellectual property licensed from third parties, including under certain open-source licenses. Even if any such third-party technology was not available to us on commercially reasonable terms, we believe that alternative technologies would be available as needed.
Despite our efforts to protect our intellectual property rights, they may not be respected in the future or may be invalidated, circumvented, or challenged. Our industry is characterized by the existence of a large number of patents, frequent claims and related litigation based on allegations of patent infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights.
We believe that competitors will try to develop products that are similar to ours and that may infringe our intellectual property rights. Our competitors or other third parties may also claim that our solutions infringe upon their intellectual property rights. In particular, some companies in our industry have extensive patent portfolios and are large and established and have greater resources than we do. From time to time, third parties have in the past and may in the future assert claims of infringement, misappropriation, and other violations of intellectual property rights against us or our customers or partners, with whom our agreements may obligate us to indemnify against these claims. Successful claims of infringement by a third party could prevent us from offering certain products or features, require us to develop alternate, non-infringing technology, which could require significant time during which time we could be unable to continue to offer our affected products, require us to obtain a license, which may not be available on reasonable terms or at all, or force us to pay substantial damages, royalties, or other fees. Moreover, our products may incorporate software components licensed to the general public under open-source software licenses. Open-source licenses may grant licensees broad permissions to use, copy, modify, and redistribute our platform. As a result, open-source development and license practices can limit the value of our software copyright assets.
For additional information about our intellectual property and associated risks, see the section titled “Risk Factors — Risks Related to our Business and Industry.”
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Available Information
Our principal executive offices are located at 1210 AvidXchange Lane, Charlotte, NC 28206, and our phone number is (800) 560-9305.
We file annual, quarterly and special reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. The SEC maintains an Internet website at http://www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC, including AvidXchange. We maintain an Internet website at www.avidxchange.com. Information found on our website or that can be accessed through our website is neither part of this annual report on Form 10-K nor any other report filed with the SEC. You may obtain a copy of our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports free of charge on our Internet website on the earliest practicable date following the filing with the SEC.
ITEM 1A. Risk Factors.
Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should consider and carefully read all of the risks and uncertainties described below, as well as other information included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our Consolidated Financial Statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, before making an investment decision. The risks described below are not the only ones we face. The occurrence of any of the following risks or additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe to be immaterial could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations. In such case, the trading price of our common stock could decline, and you may lose some or all of your original investment. As discussed in the section titled "Special Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements," this Annual Report on Form 10-K also contains forward-looking statements and estimates that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of specific factors, including the risks and uncertainties described below.
Summary Risk Factors
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Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
We have a history of operating losses and we may not achieve or sustain profitability in the future.
We were incorporated in 2000 and have experienced net losses and negative cash flows from operations since inception. We generated net losses of $101.3 million, $199.6 million and $101.2 million during the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. We had an accumulated deficit of $971.8 million and $871.9 million as of December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, respectively. Our losses reflect the substantial investments we have made in our people, products and services, and technology, and to acquire new buyers and suppliers. While we have experienced significant revenue and transaction volume growth in recent years, we are not certain whether or when we will be able to achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
We also expect our costs and expenses to increase in future periods. In particular, we intend to continue to expend significant funds to invest in our people, products and services, technology, and the AvidPay Network and to expand our sales and marketing teams and invest in strategic partnerships and system integrations. We expect our general and administrative costs to also increase, but in general at a slower rate than our other operating expenses, for the foreseeable future. If we are not able to reduce or maintain the costs of providing our services, we could face competitive pricing pressure. If we are unable to continue to grow our revenue, or to reduce or maintain the costs of providing our services, we could continue to suffer increasing operating losses.
We may incur significant losses in the future for several reasons, including the other risks described herein, and unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays, and other unknown events. If we are unable to achieve and sustain profitability, the value of our business and stock may significantly decrease.
Our future revenue and operating results will be harmed if we are unable to acquire new customers, retain existing customers, expand sales to our existing customers, or deliver new features, functionality and integrations for our platform that achieve market acceptance.
To continue to grow our business, it is important that we continue to attract new buyers and suppliers to use our platform. Our success in adding new buyers depends on numerous factors, including our ability to: (1) offer compelling AP automation products and services and features in the markets and industries we serve, (2) execute our sales and marketing strategy, (3) attract, effectively train and retain new sales, marketing, professional services, and support personnel in the markets we pursue, (4) develop or expand relationships with partners, payment providers, systems integrators, and resellers, (5) expand into new industry verticals, geographies, and market segments, which may require specific product and service features or system integrations that we do not currently provide or have, (6) efficiently onboard new buyers on to our platform, (7) efficiently add more suppliers to our network and continue to drive increased adoption of electronic forms of payment, (8) execute a successful mergers and acquisitions strategy, and (9) provide additional paid services that complement the capabilities of our customers and their partners.
Our ability to increase revenue also depends in part on our ability to retain existing buyers and suppliers, to sell more functionality and to increase product penetration in existing and new buyers and suppliers. Our buyers have no obligation to renew their subscriptions for our solutions after the expiration of their initial subscription period. In addition, some of our buyers can terminate their existing agreements with us prior to the expiration of the current contract terms. Our ability to increase sales to existing buyers depends on several factors, including their experience with implementing and using our platform, their ability to integrate our platform with other technologies, and our pricing model. Suppliers in our network select their preferred method of payment, which may include VCC, ACH, or check, based on their internal business rules, preferences, or perceived value, which may change at any time. Our ability to increase sales to suppliers already in our AvidPay Network depends on several factors, including their experience enrolling in and using our platform, development of new supplier product offerings, and our pricing model.
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Given the highly fragmented nature of the middle market, and the unique challenges faced by middle market customers, the lack of certain product features, product functionality and system integrations has from time to time limited our ability to sell our products and services more deeply into certain of the sub-markets and industries that we serve and has limited our ability to expand into new industry verticals and sub-markets. If we are unable to deliver new product and services features and functionalities and system integrations, or keep pace with current technological developments, in each case in a timely manner, or if our new product and services features and functionalities and system integrations do not achieve acceptance in the market and industries we serve, our competitive position may be impaired, and our potential to generate new revenue or to retain existing revenue could be diminished. The adverse effect on our financial results may be particularly acute because of the significant research, development, marketing, sales, and other expenses we will have incurred in connection with the new functionality and services.
Our historical growth may not be indicative of our future performance and we may not be able to sustain our current growth rate, which is dependent on a number of factors that we do not control.
Although we have experienced significant historical revenue and transaction volume growth, we expect that, in the future, as our revenue and transaction volumes increase to higher levels, our growth rates have and may continue to decline over time. Our revenue and transaction volume growth depends on a number of factors, including our ability to:
Further, the revenue that we derive from our invoice and payment transaction volume is dependent on several factors that we do not control. These factors include the number of invoices and payments our buyers submit through our system, card brand interchange rates and tiers, payment amounts and types, the payment method selected by suppliers in our network, and competitive pricing pressure on products and incentives.
These factors make it difficult for us to control or forecast our future operating results and growth. If the assumptions we use to plan our business are incorrect or change, or if we are unable to maintain consistent revenue or revenue growth, it may be difficult to achieve and maintain profitability and the value of our business could be negatively impacted. You should not rely on our growth rates from any prior periods as any indication of our future growth.
We participate in highly competitive and fragmented markets, and our industry is rapidly evolving.
The AP and payments markets are highly fragmented and competitive and evolving. As businesses continue to adopt AP and payment automation solutions, we expect existing competitors and new market entrants to offer new and enhanced products and services and we expect the competitive environment to remain intense going forward. We currently compete on several factors, including:
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Our current competitors range from other fintech companies and financial institutions to smaller, niche providers of software and services. We compete with companies that offer comprehensive solutions focused on the entire AP and payment processes and companies that focus only on select portions of these processes such as invoice and bill presentment, document and workflow management, AP and payment processing or accounts receivables. Solutions are also often specifically tailored to industry vertical or customer size making it difficult to expand into new verticals or attract larger or smaller customer types.
Accounting and ERP software providers, financial institutions, payment processing, and other service providers, a number of which we partner with in offering our solutions, may currently offer or develop solutions, acquire third-party solutions or competitors, or enter into strategic relationships that would enable them to expand their solutions to compete more effectively with our products and services. These parties may have access to larger, installed customer bases and may be able to effectively bundle and cross sell competitive solutions with their other services, which may enable them to compete more effectively or provide them with greater pricing and operating flexibility.
Companies that currently focus on providing solutions to enterprise businesses or SMBs may seek to expand the offering of their solutions to middle customers which would be more directly competitive with the products and services that we offer. We are continuing to see increased competition in the middle market from competitors going upstream and downstream from their traditional markets and we often compete for customers that are larger or smaller than our typical middle market buyers with service providers that are more established with this customer type. New entrants not currently considered to be competitors may also enter the market through acquisitions, partnerships, or strategic relationships.
While we are continuing to see increased competition from third parties, when we are selling our products and services to potential customers, we believe that we are often competing with internal legacy processes and we must be able to convince internal stakeholders that our products and solutions are superior to these existing processes or other third-party solutions.
For the reasons mentioned above, we may not be able to compete successfully against our current or future competitors, and this competition could result in the failure of our products and services to continue to achieve or maintain market acceptance, any of which would harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.
We transfer large sums of customer funds daily, and are subject to the risk of errors, which could result in financial losses and damage to our reputation and customer trust.
We processed approximately 70 million transactions for our customers in 2022. We have grown rapidly and seek to continue to grow, and although we maintain risk management processes, our business is always subject to the risk of financial losses as a result of operational errors, software defects, service disruption, third party fraud, employee misconduct, security breaches, credit losses, or other similar actions or errors. Furthermore, for 2018 and throughout 2021, we identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting relating to our reconciliation of funds held for customers. While we remediated this material weakness in 2021, we may experience additional material weaknesses in the future.
As a provider of AP and payment solutions, we collect and transfer funds on behalf of our customers. Software errors in our platform and operational errors by our employees and business partners may also expose us to losses. Moreover, our trustworthiness and reputation are fundamental to our business. As a provider of cloud- based software for complex back-office financial operations, the occurrence of any operational errors, software defects, service disruption, third party fraud, employee misconduct, security breaches, credit losses or other similar actions or errors on our platform could result in financial losses to our business and our customers, loss of trust, damage to our reputation, or termination of our agreements with strategic partners, each of which could result in:
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Although our terms of service generally allocate to our customers the risk of loss resulting from our customers’ errors, omissions, employee fraud, or other fraudulent activity related to their systems, some of our customers may be able to negotiate changes to this position or in some instances we may cover such losses for efficiency or to prevent damage to our reputation, irrespective of fault or our terms of service. Although we maintain insurance to cover losses resulting from our errors and omissions, there can be no assurance that our insurance will cover all losses or our coverage will be sufficient to cover our losses. If we suffer significant losses or reputational harm as a result, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.
We, our strategic partners, our buyers and suppliers, and others who use our services obtain and process a large amount of data. Any real or perceived improper or unauthorized use of, exposure of, disclosure of, or access to such data could harm our reputation as a trusted brand, as well as have a material adverse effect on our business.
We, our strategic partners, our buyers and suppliers, and the third-party vendors and providers of cloud-based infrastructure and data services that we use, obtain and process large amounts of data, including confidential information, along with personal and other data related to our buyers and suppliers and their transactions, as well as other data of the counterparties to their payments. We face risks, including financial risks and risks to our reputation as a trusted brand, in the handling and protection of this data, and these risks will increase as our business continues to expand to include new products and technologies.
Cybersecurity incidents and malicious internet-based activity continue to increase generally, and providers of cloud-based services, including us, financial institutions and other providers of financial services, have frequently been targeted by such attacks. Additionally, we expect to see an increase in cybersecurity incidents and malicious internet-based activity, including events directed by state sponsored entities, such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. These cybersecurity challenges, including threats to our own IT infrastructure or those of our customers or third-party providers, may take a variety of forms ranging from stolen bank accounts, business email compromise, customer employee fraud, supply-chain attacks, ransomware, account takeover, check fraud, or cybersecurity attacks, to “mega breaches” targeted against cloud-based services and other hosted software, which could be initiated by individual or groups of hackers or sophisticated cyber criminals. A cybersecurity incident or breach could result in disclosure of data and intellectual property, or cause production downtimes and compromised data. We have in the past experienced cybersecurity incidents of limited scale such as phishing attempts to compromise employee email and malware. We may be unable to anticipate or prevent techniques used in the future to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage systems because they change frequently and often are not detected until after an incident has occurred. As we increase our customer base and our brand becomes more widely known and recognized, third parties may increasingly seek to compromise our security controls or gain unauthorized access to our sensitive corporate information or our customers’ data.
We have administrative, technical, and physical security measures in place, and perform periodic penetration tests of our environment. We additionally have policies and procedures in place to contractually require service providers to whom we disclose data to implement and maintain reasonable privacy and security measures. However, if our protection or security measures, or those of the previously mentioned third parties are inadequate or expose vulnerabilities or are breached as a result of third-party action, employee or contractor action or inaction, malfeasance, malware, phishing, hacking attacks, system error, software bugs or defects in our products, trickery, process failure, or otherwise, and, as a result, there is improper disclosure of, or someone obtains unauthorized access to or exfiltrates funds or sensitive information, including PII, on our systems or our partners’ systems, or if we suffer a ransomware or advanced persistent threat attack, or if any of the foregoing is reported or perceived to have occurred, our reputation and business could be damaged. Recent high-profile security breaches and related disclosures of data by large institutions suggest that the risk of such events is significant, even if privacy protection and security measures are implemented and enforced. If sensitive information is lost or improperly disclosed or threatened to be disclosed, we could incur significant costs associated with remediation and the implementation of additional security measures, and may incur significant liability and financial loss, and be subject to regulatory scrutiny, investigations, proceedings, and penalties.
In addition, if our financial institutions or strategic partners conclude that our systems and procedures are insufficiently rigorous, they could terminate their relationships with us, and our financial results and business could be adversely affected. If there is a breach of the information that we store, we could be liable to our partners for their losses and related expenses. Additionally, if our own confidential business information were improperly disclosed, our business could be materially and adversely affected. A core aspect of our business is the reliability and security of our platform. Any perceived or actual breach of security, regardless of how it occurs or the extent of the breach, could have a significant impact on our reputation as a trusted brand, cause us to lose existing partners or other customers, prevent us from obtaining new partners and other customers, require us to expend significant funds to remedy problems caused by breaches and implement measures to prevent further breaches, and expose us to legal risk and potential liability including those resulting from governmental or regulatory investigations, class action litigation, and costs
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associated with remediation, such as fraud monitoring and forensics. Any actual or perceived security breach at a company providing services to us or our customers could have similar effects.
While we maintain cybersecurity insurance, our insurance may be insufficient or may not cover all liabilities incurred by such incidents. We also cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will be adequate for data handling or data security liabilities actually incurred, that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all, or that any insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our financial condition, operating results, and reputation.
We earn a substantial portion of our revenue from electronic payment transactions and our growth is dependent upon the continued acceptance, security and adoption of electronic payment types that result in interchange revenue.
We earn a substantial portion of our revenue from VCC and ACH payment transactions paid to suppliers in our network and our growth is dependent upon the continued acceptance, security, and adoption of electronic payment types that result in interchange revenue on the amount of the transactions. During the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, we earned approximately $198.6 million in revenue from VCC and AvidPay Direct, our ACH product offering, paid through our network.
Although we expect businesses to continue to accept and adopt electronic forms of payment, we do not mandate a specific payment type in our network and the adoption rates of electronic payments in AP transactions could erode or grow more slowly than expected. Suppliers in our network select their preferred method of payment, which may include VCC, ACH, or check, based on their internal business rules, preferences, or perceived value, which may change at any time and which may change in different economic environments such as a recession. Additionally, accounts receivable, or AR, service providers market and sell their AR services to suppliers and groups of supplier types in our network. These service providers may not accept electronic payments and may convert existing suppliers in our network that accept electronic payments to check. Suppliers in our network, and those AR service providers, may, with or without advance notice, prohibit or impose restrictions on the methods we use to provide or deliver electronic payments, including by changing or including restrictions in the terms of use or service of online portals through which we make payments, that we may not be aware of or be able to comply with, seek to negotiate reduced pricing, or charge fees in order to accept electronic payments. Certain suppliers, including, larger enterprise suppliers, industries and verticals are also less inclined to accept electronic forms of payment which may limit our ability to successfully expand into new industries or verticals. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, fluctuations in quarterly revenue resulting from suppliers or AR service providers changing their preferred method of payment in our network or leveraging data to reduce their interchange rates. It also remains unclear whether macroeconomic conditions, including a recession in the United States, or other related factors will impact the acceptance and adoption rates of electronic forms of payment. A significant shift in payment preference from electronic forms of payment to check by suppliers in our network in response to these or other factors could have a material impact on our business.
The revenue we receive from electronic payment transactions is also dependent upon a number of factors, many of which we do not control, including the continued acceptance and adoption by businesses of electronic payments, interchange rates which we expect may decline over time, fees charged by suppliers to accept electronic payments, buyer incentives, and the terms of our commercial agreements with third-party service providers that are involved in the payment process. Widespread adoption of new forms of electronic payments, such as real time payments, could also negatively impact the revenue we receive from electronic payment transactions.
Certain of our customer segments are cyclical.
Certain segments of our customers, particularly the customers that focus on political advertising within our media vertical, are subject to seasonal and cyclical trends. Revenue from these customers is cyclical as it is connected to U.S. election advertising spend which tends to increase during significant election years, such as mid-term and presidential elections. In 2022, we experienced growth in our media payments business due to spending associated with the 2022 mid-term elections. Due to the intermittent nature of the U.S. election cycle, we expect a significant decrease in these revenues during fiscal year 2023. These factors may make it more difficult for us to control or forecast our future operating results and growth. If the assumptions we use to plan our business are incorrect or change, or if we are unable to maintain consistent revenue or revenue growth, it may be difficult to achieve and maintain profitability and the value of our business could be negatively impacted.
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If we lose key members of our team including our Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, or if we are unable to attract and retain talent, our business may be harmed.
Our success and future growth depend upon the continued services of our team and other key employees. Our Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Praeger, is critical to our overall strategic direction, our culture, and the development of key products, partnerships and relationships. Our senior management and key employees are employed on an at-will basis. The loss of our chief executive officer, one or more members of our senior management, or other key employees, could harm our business, and we may not be able to find adequate replacements.
To execute our business strategy, we must attract and retain highly qualified personnel. Our headquarters and primary center of employment is in Charlotte, North Carolina. In general, the talent pool in Charlotte may be smaller than in other geographic areas. Competition for executive officers, software developers and engineers, compliance and risk management personnel, and other key employees in our industry and location is intense and increasing, and we may not be able to attract the talent we need to grow and succeed. We compete with many other companies for software developers with high levels of experience in designing, developing, and managing cloud-based software and payment systems, as well as for skilled legal and compliance and risk operations professionals. The current regulatory environment related to immigration may increase the likelihood that immigration laws may be modified to further limit the availability of H1-B and other visas. If a new or revised visa program is implemented, it may impact our ability to recruit, hire, retain or effectively collaborate with qualified skilled personnel, including in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning, payment systems and risk management, which could adversely impact our business, operating results and financial condition. Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel have greater resources than we do and can frequently offer such personnel substantially greater compensation than we can offer, and may be in geographies perceived by some employees as more desirable. If we fail to identify, attract, develop, and integrate new personnel, or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our growth prospects would be adversely affected.
We may not be able to scale our business and technology quickly enough to meet our growth.
As we continue to grow and add buyers and suppliers and process additional transactions, and as we sign additional strategic partners, we will need to devote additional resources to improving and maintaining our infrastructure and computer network and to integrating with third-party applications to maintain the performance of our platform. In addition, we will need to appropriately scale our internal business systems and our services organization, including customer support, risk and compliance operations, and professional services, to serve our growing customer base.
We have also experienced, and may in the future experience, disruptions, outages and other performance problems that interfere with our customers’ ability to access and use our products and services. These events may be caused by a variety of factors, including capacity constraints due to increased use and transaction volumes, legacy infrastructure, architecture, code and processes, and software and human errors. It may become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve the performance of our platform and our products and services especially during peak usage times and as our solutions become more complex.
Any failure of or delay in our efforts to maintain, improve and scale our technology, infrastructure and platform could result in service interruptions, impaired system performance, and reduced customer satisfaction, resulting in decreased sales to new customers, lower renewal rates by existing customers, or higher rates of requested refunds, all of which could hurt our revenue growth. Even if we are successful in these efforts to scale our business, they will be expensive and complex, and require the dedication of significant management time and attention. We could also face inefficiencies or service disruptions as a result of our efforts to scale our internal infrastructure. We cannot be sure that the expansion and improvements to our internal infrastructure will be effectively implemented on a timely basis, if at all, and such failures could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.
We may lose existing customers or fail to attract new customers if we are unable to deliver new software, solutions and technology for our platform.
Our success depends on our continued development of new and improved AP automation software and payment solutions and related technology and the continued automation of payments processes. If we are unable to deliver new products or services, or to enhance existing products and services, that achieve market acceptance or if we are unable to integrate technology, products and services that we acquire into our platform, our business could be adversely affected through increased attrition of current customers or slower addition of new customers. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, delays in the planned release dates of enhancements to our platform, and we have discovered, and may in the future discover, errors in new releases after their introduction. Either situation could result in adverse publicity, loss of sales, delay in market acceptance of our platform or customer claims, including, among other things, warranty claims against us, any of which could cause us to lose existing customers or affect our ability to attract new customers.
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Interruptions or delays in the services provided by third-party providers of cloud-based infrastructure and platforms or internet service providers could impair the delivery of our products and services.
We host our products and platform principally on a cloud platform leveraging public cloud infrastructure services. Public cloud services are provided by Microsoft Azure, and others which include infrastructure as a service and use a service technologies platform. All products utilize resources operated by us through these providers. Therefore, we depend on these third parties to protect their infrastructure and operations against damage or interruption from natural disasters, power or telecommunications failures, criminal acts, and similar events. We have periodically experienced service disruptions in the past, and we cannot assure you that we will not experience interruptions or delays in our service in the future. If disruptions were to occur, we would have to operate using our disaster recovery plan, as we do not have a fully redundant system for all of our core functions. This could cause substantial disruption in our operations if we were not able to move our main processes in a timely manner to a backup service provider. We may also incur significant costs for using alternative equipment or taking other actions in preparation for, or in reaction to, events that damage the data services we use.
Although we have disaster recovery plans, any incident affecting the infrastructure of our third-party providers that may be caused by fire, flood, severe storm, earthquake, power loss, telecommunications failures, unauthorized intrusion, computer viruses and disabling devices, natural disasters, military actions, terrorist attacks, negligence, and other similar events beyond our control could negatively affect our platform. Any prolonged service disruption affecting our platform for any of the foregoing reasons could damage our reputation with current and potential customers, expose us to liability, cause us to lose customers, or otherwise harm our business. System failures or outages, including any potential disruptions due to significantly increased global demand on certain cloud-based systems, could compromise our ability to perform these functions in a timely manner, which could harm our ability to conduct business or delay our financial reporting.
Our platform is accessed by many customers, often at the same time. As we continue to expand the number of our customers and products available to our customers, we may not be able to scale our technology to accommodate the increased capacity requirements, which may result in interruptions or delays in service. In addition, the failure of cloud service providers, internet service providers, or other third-party service providers to meet our capacity requirements could result in interruptions or delays in access to our platform or impede our ability to grow our business and scale our operations. If our third-party infrastructure service agreements are terminated, or there is a lapse of service, interruption of internet service provider connectivity, or damage to cloud-based infrastructure, we could experience interruptions in access to our platform as well as delays and additional expense in arranging new facilities and services.
Future acquisitions, strategic investments, partnerships, collaborations, or alliances could be difficult to identify and integrate, divert the attention of management, disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value, and adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.
Like we have in the past with our acquisitions of Piracle, Strongroom, Ariett, Entryless, BankTEL, Core Associates, FastPay, and most recently PayClearly, we may in the future seek to acquire or invest in businesses, products, or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our platform, enhance our technical capabilities, or otherwise offer growth opportunities. The pursuit of potential acquisitions may divert the attention of management and cause us to incur various expenses in identifying, investigating, and pursuing suitable acquisitions, whether or not such acquisitions are completed. In addition, we may not successfully identify desirable acquisition targets, or if we acquire additional businesses, we may not be able to integrate them effectively following the acquisition or effectively manage the combined business following the acquisition or achieve our desired synergies. Integration may prove to be difficult due to the necessity of integrating personnel with disparate business backgrounds and who are accustomed to different corporate cultures.
We also may not achieve the anticipated benefits from any acquired business due to a number of factors, including:
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Acquisitions could result in lower cash reserves, possible dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of debt, as well as unfavorable accounting treatment. Any such issuances of additional capital stock may cause stockholders to experience significant dilution of their ownership interests and could cause the per share value of our common stock to decline. In addition, a significant portion of the purchase price of any companies we acquire may be allocated to acquired goodwill and other intangible assets, which must be assessed for impairment at least annually. We also may not generate sufficient financial returns to offset the costs and expenses related to any acquisitions. If our acquisitions do not yield the expected returns, we may be required to take charges to our results of operations based on this impairment assessment process, and our business, operating results and financial condition may suffer.
Failure to effectively develop and expand our sales and marketing capabilities could harm our ability to increase our base of buyers and suppliers and achieve broader market acceptance of our products.
Our ability to increase our base of buyers and suppliers and achieve broader market acceptance of our platform will depend to a significant extent on our ability to expand our sales and marketing organizations, and to deploy our sales and marketing resources efficiently. We plan to continue expanding our direct sales force as well as our sales force focused on identifying new strategic and indirect sales partners. We also dedicate significant resources to sales and marketing programs. Our business and operating results will be harmed if those efforts do not generate significant increases in revenue. We may not achieve anticipated revenue growth from expanding our sales force if we are unable to hire, develop, integrate, and retain talented and effective sales personnel, if our new and existing sales personnel are unable to achieve desired productivity levels in a reasonable period of time, or if our sales and marketing programs and advertising are not effective.
We are subject to the payment card network rules and our failure to comply with these rules could harm our business.
We use Mastercard branded VCCs exclusively, as contractually required by our agreement with Mastercard, in connection with our VCC payment service and we are subject to payment card network operating rules, including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI-DSS. The payment card networks set and interpret the card operating rules and could adopt new operating rules or interpret or reinterpret existing rules that we or our processors might find difficult or even impossible to follow, or costly to implement. AvidXchange was not previously PCI-DSS compliant, but first obtained its PCI-DSS certification in May 2021. There can be no assurances that AvidXchange will be able to maintain this certification. Failure to maintain this certification, or any prior or future violations of existing or new rules of the payment card network, or increased fees, could result in the revocation of our ability to make payments using VCCs, or such payments could become prohibitively expensive for us or for our customers. If we are unable to make buyer payments to suppliers using VCCs, our business would be adversely affected as we derive a significant portion of our revenue from interchange. We also may seek to introduce other card-related products in the future which may entail additional operating rules.
If we fail to maintain or grow our brand recognition, our ability to expand our base of suppliers and buyers will be impaired and our financial condition may suffer.
We believe that growing the AvidXchange brand is important to supporting continued acceptance of our existing and future solutions, attracting new buyers and suppliers to our platform, and retaining existing buyers and suppliers. We also believe that the importance of brand recognition will increase as competition in our market increases. Successfully maintaining our brand will depend largely on the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, our ability to provide a reliable and useful platform to meet the needs of our customers at competitive prices, our ability to maintain our customers’ trust, our ability to continue to develop new functionality and solutions, and our ability to successfully differentiate our platform. Additionally, our partners’ performance may affect our brand and reputation if customers do not have a positive experience. Brand promotion activities may not generate customer awareness or yield increased revenue. Even if they do, any increased revenue may not offset the expenses we incurred in building our brand. If we fail to successfully promote and maintain our brand, we may fail to attract enough new customers or retain enough existing customers to realize a sufficient return on our brand-building efforts, and our business could suffer.
We identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2022, and if we are not able to remediate this material weakness, identify additional material weaknesses in the future or otherwise fail to design, implement, and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, we may be unable to accurately report our financial results in a timely manner, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and materially and adversely affect our business and operating results.
We identified certain control deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that constituted a material weakness as of December 31, 2022. A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our financial statements will not be prevented
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or detected on a timely basis. Our evaluation was based on the criteria described in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013) by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission ("COSO"). This material weakness is as follows:
This material weakness resulted in material misstatements related to our preferred stock and additional-paid-in-capital accounts, and the classification of cash flows from operating and investing activities as of and for the year ended December 31, 2019, which resulted in the restatement of the 2019 Consolidated Financial Statements, errors identified and corrected in the aforementioned accounts prior to the issuance of financial statements as of and for the annual period ended December 31, 2020 and the quarterly period ended June 30, 2021, and in immaterial misstatements related to our cost of revenues, sales and marketing expense, research and development expense, general and administrative expense, and additional-paid-in-capital accounts, which resulted in the revision of our December 31, 2020 and June 30, 2021 financial statements. Additionally, this material weakness could result in a misstatement of substantially all of our accounts or disclosures would result in a material misstatement to the annual or interim Consolidated Financial Statements that would not be prevented or detected.
To respond to this material weakness, we have devoted, and plan to continue to devote, significant effort and resources to the remediation and improvement of our internal control over financial reporting. The elements of our remediation plan can only be accomplished over time, and we can offer no assurance that these initiatives will ultimately have the intended effect.
Any failure to design, implement, and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, could adversely impact our ability to report our financial position and results of operations on a timely and accurate basis, which may cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information. Ineffective internal control over financial reporting could limit our access to capital markets, adversely affect our results of operations and/or lead to a decline in the trading price of our common stock. If our financial statements are not filed on a timely basis, we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the stock exchange on which our common stock is listed. Additionally, ineffective internal control over financial reporting could expose us to an increased risk of fraud or misappropriation of assets and subject us to potential delisting from the stock exchange on which we list our common stock, to other regulatory investigations, and to civil or criminal sanctions.
Customer funds held by us are subject to market, interest rate, credit, and liquidity risks, as well as general economic and political conditions. The loss of these funds and fluctuations in rates of return could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We arrange for funds of our customers, including funds that will be remitted to suppliers, to be held in cash or cash equivalents, and these funds may be invested in highly liquid, investment-grade marketable securities and money market securities from time to time. Nevertheless, our customer fund assets are subject to general market, interest rate, credit, and liquidity risks. These risks may be exacerbated, individually or in aggregate, during periods of heavy financial market volatility.
The U.S. economy has also been experiencing a higher than normal level of inflation. The long-term impacts of inflation on the economy and our business are unclear. The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates in an effort to reduce inflation. These rate increases have in turn increased the interest we earn on funds held for buyers, which we recognize as payment revenue. However, the Federal Reserve’s continued response to the inflationary environment remains uncertain, and the cessation of interest rate increases and the potential lowering of interest rates are outside of our control. Slower increases, a halt in increases, or a reduction in interest rates could unfavorably impact our interest revenue and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We are licensed as a money transmitter (or statutory equivalent) in all U.S. jurisdictions where, to the best of our knowledge, licensure is required for our business. Accordingly, we are subject to direct regulation by the licensing authorities of the jurisdictions where we are licensed. In certain jurisdictions where we operate, we are required to hold eligible liquid assets, as defined by the relevant regulatory authority, equal to at least 100% of the aggregate amount of any outstanding customer liabilities. Our ability to manage and accurately account for the assets underlying our customer funds and comply with applicable liquid asset requirements requires a high level of internal controls. As our business continues to grow and we expand our product offerings, it may be necessary to scale the applicable internal controls. Our success requires significant public confidence in our ability to properly manage our customers’ balances and handle large and growing transaction volumes and amounts of customer funds. Any failure to maintain the necessary controls or to accurately manage our customer funds and the assets underlying our customer funds in compliance with applicable regulatory requirements could result in reputational harm, lead customers to discontinue or reduce their use of our products, and result in significant penalties and fines, up to and including the loss of our state money transmitter licenses, which would materially harm our business.
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In the event of a financial crisis, such as that experienced in 2008 and such as that which has resulted, or may result, from the COVID-19 pandemic, political tensions resulting in economic instability, such as due to military activity or civil hostilities among Russia and Ukraine and the related response, including sanctions or other restrictive actions by the United States and/or other countries, or other similar events, employment levels and interest rates may decrease with a corresponding impact on our business. As a result, we could experience a constriction in the availability of liquidity, which may impact our ability to fulfill our obligations to enable the movement of customer funds to the intended recipients. Additionally, we rely upon certain banking partners and other third parties to originate ACH payments, process checks, execute wire transfers, and issue VCCs, and these banking partners and other third parties could be similarly affected by a liquidity shortage or sanctions or other restrictive actions by governmental agencies, which may further exacerbate our ability to operate our business. Any material loss of or inability to access customer funds could have an adverse impact on our cash position and results of operations, could require us to obtain additional sources of liquidity, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Certain of our products and services expose us to credit risk.
Certain of our products and services, including our supplier invoice factoring product, expose us to credit risk. Our factoring product allows suppliers to receive advance payment on qualifying invoices. We may not receive payment on these purchased invoices from buyers and may otherwise unable to recoup owed amounts from customers. While the development, release, and timing of any new products remain at the sole discretion of the Company and may be subject to change, we intend to modify and expand this supplier product offering which would expose to additional credit risk. The success of any supplier advance payment product depends, in substantial part, on our ability to effectively manage non-payment and default risks. To manage such risks, we intend to use techniques designed to analyze the businesses’ past purchase and transaction histories, risk models and third-party factoring tools, and other indicators to help predict the risk profile of these buyers and suppliers and make pricing and eligibility decisions accordingly. These techniques may not accurately predict loss rates or provide inputs on risked-adjusted pricing due to inaccurate assumptions, fluctuating market conditions, changes in the macroeconomic environment, or flawed or insufficient transaction history or other data, among other factors. Should credit losses be significant with our supplier advance payment product, our business, financial position, and operating results may be adversely affected.
We depend on banks, bank partners and other third-party service providers to process transactions.
We depend on bank partners and other third-party service providers to process electronic payment transactions and check payments for our customers. We have entered into treasury services agreements and other arrangements with our bank partners and other third-party service providers for payment processing and related services. If these arrangements are terminated for any reason, or if services provided by our bank partners and other third-party service providers are interrupted, we could experience delays, interruptions, and additional costs in processing payments for our customers.
We also depend on third-party service providers for other critical functions, including customer invoicing and scanning solutions. We have entered into service agreements with these third-party service providers for scanning, indexing and related services, and these agreements include significant security, compliance, and operational obligations. If our agreements with the scanning and/or indexing partners are terminated for any reason, we could experience service interruptions as well as delays and additional expenses in arranging for new services.
Our business depends, in part, on our relationships with providers of accounting and ERP solutions.
Our relationships with accounting and ERP solutions partners are integral to our ability to deliver our products and services particularly to our buyer customers. We rely upon their cooperation to develop and maintain integrations between our products and services and their respective solutions. These integrations allow information to be communicated between our products and services and our customers’ accounting systems. These partners may also market and promote our products and services to customers. We may also compete with accounting and ERP solution providers from time to time that have developed or offer third party products and services that are competitive with our products and services.
Furthermore, if our current partners decided instead to design their own AP solutions, that could harm our business.
If we were unable to continue these relationships and add relationships with new accounting and ERP solutions partners, our growth prospects could be negatively impacted by not being able to offer necessary integrations to customers.
Our long-term growth strategy depends, in part, on strategic partnerships and indirect sales partners.
We intend to continue to expand and leverage our current strategic partner relationships and to develop new strategic partner relationships to expand our sales and marketing efforts that we believe will allow us to sell and market our services in existing and
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new markets. Establishing strategic partner relationships, particularly with our financial institution customers and accounting software providers, entails extensive and highly specific upfront sales efforts, with little predictability and various ancillary requirements.
For example, our partners may require us to submit to an exhaustive security audit, given the sensitivity and importance of storing their customer billing and payment data on our platform. As a result, formalizing and maintaining new strategic partner relationships involve a degree of effort and risks that may not be present or that are present to a lesser extent with direct customer sales. With strategic partners, the decision to enter into a relationship with us frequently requires the approval of multiple management personnel and technical personnel. Additionally, sales to strategic partners’ customers may require us to invest more time educating and selling to these potential customers. Purchases of our services by customers of strategic partners are also frequently subject to delays and require considerable efforts to negotiate and document relationships with them. Further, we may integrate our platform with our strategic partners’ own websites and apps, which requires significant time and resources to design and deploy both before and after marketing and sales efforts begin. If we are unable to increase sales of our services through strategic partners and to manage the costs associated with these relationships, including without limitation, integrating with their systems and ongoing training for their marketing and sales personnel, our business, financial position, and operating results may be adversely affected.
Our ability to attract new strategic partners may be limited by our commitments to provide our existing strategic partners with certain exclusivity and/or first rights to participate in certain channels or territories. We also may not be able to attract new strategic partners if our potential partners favor our competitors’ products or services over our services or choose to compete with our services directly. Certain of our strategic partners may have the resources and inclination to develop their own solutions to replace ours. Moreover, strategic partners could decide to focus on other market segments. Further, there can be no guarantee that our strategic partners will not choose to terminate their relationships with us for strategic or other reasons. If we are unsuccessful in establishing, growing, or maintaining our relationships with strategic partners, our ability to compete in the marketplace or to grow our revenue could be impaired, and our results of operations may suffer.
The loss of one or more of our key buyers or strategic partners could negatively affect our ability to market our platform.
We rely on our reputation and recommendations from key buyers and strategic partners in order to promote our platform. The loss of any of our key buyers or strategic partners could have a significant impact on our revenues, reputation and our ability to obtain new customers. Some of our key buyers have the ability to terminate their existing agreements without cause prior to the expiration of the applicable term and our suppliers, including our larger suppliers, are under no obligation to accept payments in a particular format. In addition, acquisitions of our buyers could lead to cancellation of our contracts with those customers by the acquiring companies, thereby reducing the number of our existing and potential customers, or the acquiring buyers may seek to leverage more favorable pricing and terms.
If we cannot maintain our company culture as we grow, we could lose the innovation, teamwork, passion and focus on execution that we believe contribute to our success and our business may be harmed.
We believe that a critical component of our success has been our company culture, which is based on our core values of ensuring customer success, focusing on results and striving for excellence. We have invested substantial time and resources in building our team within this company culture. As we grow and develop the infrastructure of a public company, we may find it difficult to maintain these important aspects of our company culture. If we fail to preserve our culture, our ability to retain and recruit personnel and to effectively focus on and pursue our corporate objectives could be compromised, potentially harming our business.
If we fail to offer high-quality customer support, or if our support is more expensive than anticipated, our business and reputation could suffer.
Both our buyers and suppliers rely on our customer support services to resolve issues and realize the full benefits provided by our products and services. High-quality support is also important for the renewal and expansion of our products and services with existing customers. We primarily provide customer support over chat, email and phone-based support. If we do not help our customers quickly resolve issues and provide effective ongoing support, or if our support personnel or methods of providing support are insufficient to meet the needs of our customers, our ability to retain customers, increase the density of our supplier network and acquire new customers could suffer, and our reputation with existing or potential customers could be harmed.
Uncertain or weakened economic conditions, including as a result of fears of a recession or an actual recession, a rising interest rate environment, inflation, supply chain disruptions, continuing global COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of any new variants, and geopolitical tensions including those resulting from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine,
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have adversely affected and may continue to adversely affect our buyers and suppliers and our business and results of operations.
Our overall performance depends on general economic conditions, which may be challenging at various times. Financial developments seemingly unrelated to us or our industry may adversely affect our buyers and suppliers and us. Domestic and international economies have from time-to-time been impacted by falling demand for a variety of goods and services, tariffs and other trade issues, threatened sovereign defaults and ratings downgrades, restricted credit, threats to major multinational companies, poor liquidity, reduced corporate profitability, volatility in credit, equity and foreign exchange markets, bankruptcies and overall uncertainty. For example, inflationary impacts and fears of a recession have created and may continue to create significant uncertainty in domestic markets and the short and long-term impact of these conditions on our business is highly uncertain at this time.
Domestic and global financial and credit markets have recently experienced extreme volatility and disruptions, including severely diminished liquidity and credit availability, declines in consumer confidence, declines in economic growth, rising interest rates, inflation, and uncertainty about economic stability. The financial markets and the global economy may also be adversely affected by the current or anticipated impact of military conflict, including the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, terrorism or other geopolitical events. Sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other countries in response to such conflicts, including the one in Ukraine, may also adversely impact the financial markets and the global economy, and any economic countermeasures by affected countries and others could exacerbate market and economic instability. There can be no assurance that further deterioration in financial and credit markets and confidence in economic conditions will not occur. Our general business strategy may be adversely affected by any such economic downturn, volatile business environment or continued unpredictable and unstable market conditions. If the current equity and credit markets deteriorate, it may make any necessary debt or equity financing more difficult, more costly and more dilutive. Failure to secure any necessary financing in a timely manner and on favorable terms could have a material adverse effect on our growth strategy, financial performance and stock price.
We cannot predict the timing, strength or duration of the current or any future potential economic slowdown in the United States or globally. These conditions have affected our buyers and suppliers and the rate of technology spending generally and could adversely affect our buyers and suppliers’ ability or willingness to use our services and could result in our buyers and suppliers more tightly managing spend and expenses or delaying purchasing which could in turn reduce the number of transactions and value of payments made on our network, any of which could adversely affect our results of operations.
Our risk management efforts may not be effective to prevent fraudulent activities by our customers or their counterparties or third parties, which could expose us to material financial losses and liability and otherwise harm our business.
We offer products and services, including software, that digitize and automate back-office financial operations for a large number of buyers and execute payments to their suppliers. We are responsible for verifying the identity of our buyers and their users, and we monitor transactions for fraud. We and our buyers and our suppliers have been in the past, and will continue in the future to be, targeted by parties who seek to commit acts of financial fraud using techniques such as stolen identities and bank accounts, compromised business email accounts, employee or insider fraud, account takeover, false applications, and check fraud. We may suffer losses from acts of financial fraud committed by our buyers and suppliers and their users, our employees or third-parties.
The techniques used to perpetrate fraud on our platform are continually evolving. In addition, when we introduce new products and functionality, or expand existing products, we may not be able to identify all risks created by the new products or functionality. Our risk management policies, procedures, techniques, and processes may not be sufficient to identify all of the risks to which we are exposed, to enable us to prevent or mitigate the risks we have identified, or to identify additional risks to which we may become subject in the future. Furthermore, our risk management policies, procedures, techniques, and processes may contain errors or our employees or agents may commit mistakes or errors in judgment as a result of which we may suffer large financial losses. The software-driven and highly automated nature of our platform could enable criminals and those committing fraud to steal significant amounts of money from businesses like ours. As greater numbers of customers use our platform, our exposure to material risk losses from a single customer, or from a small number of customers, will increase.
Our current business and anticipated growth will continue to place significant demands on our risk management efforts, and we will need to continue developing and improving our existing risk management infrastructure, policies, procedures, techniques, and processes. As techniques used to perpetrate fraud on our platform evolve, we may need to modify our products or services to mitigate fraud risks. As our business grows and becomes more complex, we may be less able to forecast and carry appropriate reserves in our books for fraud related losses.
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Further, these types of fraudulent activities on our platform can also expose us to civil and criminal liability, governmental and regulatory sanctions as well as potentially cause us to be in breach of our contractual obligations to our third-party partners and buyers or suppliers.
Our estimates of market opportunity and forecasts of market growth may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the market in which we compete achieves the forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow at similar rates as we could fail to capture the market share that we anticipate.
Market opportunity estimates and growth forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate. Our estimates and forecasts relating to the size and expected growth of our market may prove to be inaccurate. Even if the market in which we compete meets our size estimates and forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow at similar rates or we could fail to secure the portion of market share we expect.
Our business, which includes payment services, is subject to extensive government regulation and oversight. Our failure to comply with extensive, complex, overlapping, and frequently changing rules, regulations, and legal interpretations could materially harm our business and noncompliance with such laws can subject us to criminal and civil liability.
Financial Services Regulation
In addition to the regulatory regimes described elsewhere, the local, state, and federal laws, rules, regulations, licensing schemes, and industry standards that govern our payment services include, or may in the future include, those relating to banking, invoicing, cross-border and domestic money transmission, foreign exchange, payment processing and settlement services, and escheatment. These laws, rules, regulations, licensing schemes, and industry standards are enforced by multiple authorities and governing bodies in the United States, including federal regulators, self-regulatory organizations, and numerous state and local authorities.
As a licensed money transmitter in various U.S. states and territories, we are subject to a range of restrictions and ongoing compliance obligations under the money transmitter statutes (or their equivalent) administered by the banking departments of the various U.S. states and territories, including requirements with respect to the investment of customer funds, financial recordkeeping and reporting, reconciliation of customer funds, bonding, minimum capital, disclosure, and inspection, audit or examination by regulatory authorities concerning various aspects of our business. In a number of cases, evaluation of our compliance efforts depends on regulatory interpretations that could change over time. In the past, regulators have identified violations or alleged violations of certain statutory and regulatory regimes, and we have been subject to fines, a state consent order and financial penalties by state regulatory authorities due to their interpretation and application of their respective state money transmitter regime to our business model.
In the future, as a result of the financial services regulations applicable to our business, we will be subject to routine examinations by state and federal regulatory authorities; any identified violations or non-compliance during the course of such examinations could subject us to liability, including governmental fines, restrictions on our business, or other similar enforcement actions, and we could be forced to cease conducting certain aspects of our business with residents of certain jurisdictions, be forced to change our business practices in certain jurisdictions, or be required to obtain additional licenses, regulatory approvals, or other similar authorizations. We cannot make any assurances that we will be able to obtain or maintain any such licenses, regulatory approvals, and other similar authorizations, and there could be substantial costs and potential product changes involved in maintaining any such licenses, approvals, or other similar authorizations, which could have a material adverse effect on our business. In addition, there are substantial costs involved in maintaining and renewing those licenses, regulatory approvals, and other similar authorizations that we currently hold, and we could be subject to fines or other enforcement action if we are found to violate the various requirements applicable to us in connection with maintaining the same. These factors could impose substantial additional costs on us, involve considerable delay to the development or provision of our products or services to our customers, require significant and costly operational changes, or prevent us from providing our products or services in any given market.
Governmental authorities may impose new or additional rules on money transmission, including regulations that:
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Other Regulation
Our success and increased visibility may result in increased regulatory oversight and enforcement and more restrictive rules and regulations that apply to our business. We are subject to a wide variety of local, state and federal laws, rules, regulations, licensing schemes, and industry standards in the United States, which govern numerous areas important to our business. We will likely become subject to additional laws, rules, regulations, licensing schemes, and industry standards in other jurisdictions if we expand our operations internationally in the future. In addition to those laws and regulations described elsewhere, our business is also subject to, without limitation, rules and regulations applicable to: securities, labor and employment, immigration, competition, data usage and marketing and communications practices. These are subject to change, including by means of legislative action and/or executive orders and by way of evolving interpretations and applications of existing statutory and regulatory regimes by the applicable regulatory authorities. Thus, it may be difficult to predict how these changes will apply to our business and the way we conduct our operations, particularly as we introduce new products and services and expand into new jurisdictions. We may not be able to respond quickly or effectively to regulatory, legislative, or other developments, which, in turn, may impair our ability to offer our existing or planned features, products, and services and/or increase our cost of doing business.
Although we have a compliance program focused on the laws, rules, regulations, licensing schemes, and industry standards that we have determined apply to our business, and although we continue to prioritize investments in this program, we can make no assurances that our employees or contractors will not violate such laws, rules, regulations, licensing schemes, and industry standards. Any failure or perceived failure to comply with existing or new laws, rules, regulations, licensing schemes, or industry standards (including as a result of any changes to the interpretation or application of the same) may:
The complexity of U.S. federal and state regulatory and enforcement regimes, coupled with the scope of any future international operations and the evolving regulatory environment, could result in a single event giving rise to many overlapping investigations and legal and regulatory proceedings by multiple government authorities in different jurisdictions.
Any of the foregoing could, individually or in the aggregate, harm our reputation as a trusted provider, damage our brands and business, cause us to lose existing customers, prevent us from obtaining new customers, require us to expend significant funds to remedy problems caused by violations and to avoid further violations, expose us to legal or regulatory risk and potential liability, and adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.
We are subject to governmental regulation and other legal obligations related to privacy, data protection, and information security, and our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could harm our business, by resulting in litigation, fines, penalties, or adverse publicity and reputational damage that may negatively affect the value
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of our business and decrease the value of our common stock. Compliance with such laws could also result in additional costs and liabilities to us or inhibit sales of our products.
Our buyers and other users store personal and business information, financial information and other sensitive information on our platform. In addition, we receive, store, and process personal and business information and other data from and about actual and prospective customers and users, in addition to our employees and service providers. Our handling of data may subject us to a variety of laws and regulations, including regulation by various government agencies. Our data handling also is subject to contractual obligations and industry standards.
The U.S. federal government and various state and foreign governments have adopted or proposed limitations on the collection, distribution, use, and storage of data relating to individuals and businesses, including the use of contact information and other data for marketing, advertising, and other communications with individuals and businesses. In the United States, various laws and regulations apply to the collection, processing, disclosure, and security of certain types of data. The laws and regulations relating to privacy and data security are evolving, can be subject to significant change, and may result in ever-increasing regulatory and public scrutiny and escalating levels of enforcement and sanctions. Additionally, the scope and interpretation of the laws that are or may be applicable to us are often uncertain and may be conflicting, as a result of the rapidly evolving regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide.
Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with laws, regulations, policies, legal, or contractual obligations, industry standards, or regulatory guidance relating to privacy or data security, may result in governmental investigations and enforcement actions, litigation, fines and penalties, or adverse publicity, and could cause our customers and partners to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. We expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws, regulations, and industry standards relating to privacy, data protection, marketing, consumer communications, and information security, and we cannot determine the impact such future laws, regulations, and standards may have on our business. Future laws, regulations, standards, and other obligations or any changed interpretation of existing laws or regulations could impair our ability to develop and market new functionality, use particular forms of data, and maintain and grow our customer base and increase revenue. Future restrictions on the collection, use, sharing, or disclosure of data, or additional requirements for express or implied consent of our customers, partners, or end users for the use and disclosure of such information could require us to incur additional costs or modify our platform, possibly in a material manner, and could limit our ability to develop new functionality.
As we expand into new jurisdictions, the number of foreign laws, rules, regulations, licensing schemes, and industry standards governing our business will expand. In addition, as we expand our business and develop new products and services, we may become subject to additional laws, rules, regulations, licensing schemes, and industry standards. We may not always be able to accurately predict the scope or applicability of certain laws, rules, regulations, licensing schemes, or industry standards to our business, particularly as we expand into new areas of operations, which could have a significant negative effect on our existing business and our ability to pursue future plans.
We are subject to governmental laws and requirements regarding economic and trade sanctions, export controls, anti-money laundering, and counter-terror financing that could impair our ability to compete in international markets or subject us to criminal or civil liability if we violate them.
Although we currently only operate in the United States, in the future, we may seek to expand internationally. In that case, we would become subject to additional laws and regulations, and would need to implement new controls to comply with applicable laws and regulations. We are required to comply with U.S. export control and economic and trade sanctions administered by the OFAC. We have implemented policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance with these regulations and requirements, as well as similar requirements in other jurisdictions, to the extent applicable. However, we cannot assure you that such policies and procedures will effectively prevent violations of these laws in the future. If we fail to comply with applicable export control and economic and trade sanctions laws, we could be subject to fines or other enforcement actions, which could adversely affect our business. We are also subject to various AML and counter-terrorist financing laws and regulations around the world that prohibit, among other things, our involvement in transferring the proceeds of criminal activities. In the United States, most of our services are subject to AML laws and regulations, including the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, as amended by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, and its implementing regulations, or collectively, the BSA, and other similar laws and regulations. The BSA, among other things, requires money transmitters to develop and implement risk-based AML programs, to report large cash transactions and suspicious activity, and, in some cases, to collect and maintain information about customers who use their services and maintain other transaction records. Regulators in the U.S. and globally continue to increase their scrutiny of compliance with these obligations, which may require us to further revise or expand our compliance program, including the procedures we use to verify the identity of our customers and to monitor transactions on our system, including payments to persons outside of the United States. Regulators regularly re-examine the transaction volume thresholds at which we must obtain and keep applicable records or verify identities of customers, and any change in such thresholds could result in greater costs for compliance. Regulators and third-party auditors have identified gaps in our AML program, and we could be subject to potentially significant fines, penalties, inquiries, audits,
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investigations, enforcement actions, and criminal and civil liability if such gaps are not sufficiently remediated or our AML program is found to violate the BSA by a regulator.
We are subject to anti-corruption, anti-bribery, and similar laws, and non-compliance with such laws can subject us to criminal or civil liability and harm our business and reputation.
We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or the FCPA, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the U.S. Travel Act, and other anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws and regulations in any non-U.S. jurisdictions in which we do business. These laws generally prohibit companies, their employees, and their third-party intermediaries from promising, authorizing, making, offering, or providing, directly or indirectly, anything of value to foreign government officials or commercial partners for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business or securing an improper business advantage. These laws also require that we keep accurate books and records and maintain internal controls and compliance procedures designed to prevent any such actions.
As we increase our international business, our risks under these laws may increase. Although we currently only maintain operations in the United States, as we increase our international cross-border business and expand operations abroad, we may engage with business partners and third-party intermediaries to market our services and to obtain necessary permits, licenses, and other regulatory approvals. In addition, we or our third-party intermediaries may have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or state-owned or affiliated entities. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of these third-party intermediaries, our employees, representatives, contractors, partners, and agents, even if we do not explicitly authorize such activities; and we cannot assure that all of our employees and agents will comply with applicable anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws and internal policies.
Detecting, investigating, and resolving actual or alleged violations of anti-corruption laws can require a significant diversion of time, resources, and attention from senior management. In addition, noncompliance with anti-corruption or anti-bribery laws could subject us to whistleblower complaints, investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, enforcement actions, fines, damages, other civil or criminal penalties, injunctions, suspension or debarment from contracting with certain persons, reputational harm, adverse media coverage, and other collateral consequences. If any subpoenas are received or investigations are launched, or governmental or other sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal proceeding, our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects could be materially harmed. In addition, responding to any action will likely result in a materially significant diversion of management’s attention and resources and significant defense costs and other professional fees.
Indemnity provisions in various agreements potentially expose us to substantial liability for intellectual property infringement, data protection, and other losses.
Our agreements with partners and certain customers may include indemnification provisions under which we agree to indemnify them for losses suffered or incurred as a result of claims of intellectual property infringement, data protection, damages caused by us to property or persons, or other liabilities relating to or arising from our platform or other contractual obligations. Some of these indemnity agreements provide for uncapped liability and some indemnity provisions survive termination or expiration of the applicable agreement. Large indemnity payments could harm our business, operating results, and financial condition. Although we normally limit our liability with respect to such obligations in our contracts with direct customers and with customers acquired through our accounting firm partners, we may still incur substantial liability, and we may be required to cease use of certain functions of our platform or products, as a result of IP-related claims. Any dispute with a customer with respect to these obligations could have adverse effects on our relationship with that customer and other existing or new customers, and harm our business and operating results. In addition, although we carry insurance, our insurance may not be adequate to indemnify us for all liability that may be imposed, or otherwise protect us from liabilities or damages with respect to claims alleging compromises of customer data, and any such coverage may not continue to be available to us on acceptable terms or at all.
We could be required to collect additional sales taxes or be subject to other tax liabilities that may increase the costs our customers would have to pay for our offerings and adversely affect our operating results.
The vast majority of states have considered or adopted laws that impose tax collection obligations on out-of-state companies. States where we have a nexus may require us to calculate, collect, and remit taxes on sales in their jurisdiction. Additionally, the Supreme Court of the U.S. ruled in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. et al ("Wayfair") that online sellers can be required to collect sales and use tax despite not having a physical presence in the buyer’s state. In response to Wayfair, or otherwise, states or local governments may enforce laws requiring us to calculate, collect, and remit taxes on sales in their jurisdictions. We may be obligated to collect and remit sales and use tax in states in which we have not historically collected and remitted sales and use tax. A successful assertion by one or more states requiring us to collect taxes where we historically have not or presently do not do so could result in substantial tax liabilities, including taxes on past sales, as well as penalties and interest. The imposition by
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state governments or local governments of sales tax collection obligations on out-of-state sellers could also create additional administrative burdens for us, put us at a perceived competitive disadvantage if they do not impose similar obligations on our competitors, and decrease our future sales, which could adversely affect our business and operating results.
Our ability to use our net operating losses, or NOLs, to offset future taxable income may be subject to certain limitations.
As of December 31, 2022, our federal and state NOL carryforwards were $390.4 million and $384.3 million, respectively. The federal NOLs include approximately $139.0 million that may be used to offset up to 100% of future taxable income and the federal and state NOLs started to expire in the calendar year 2020, and will expire in future periods unless previously utilized. The NOL carryforwards subject to expiration could expire unused and be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities.
Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or the Tax Act, as modified by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, federal NOLs incurred in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017 may be carried forward indefinitely, but the deductibility of such federal NOLs in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2020 is limited to 80% of taxable income in such years. There is variation in how states have responded and may continue to respond to the Tax Act and CARES Act.
Separately, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, and corresponding provisions of state law, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” which is generally defined as a greater than 50% change, by value, in its equity ownership over a three-year period, the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change NOL carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes to offset its post-change income or taxes may be limited. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws. We may have experienced such ownership changes in the past, and we may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of subsequent shifts in our stock ownership, some of which are outside of our control. We have not conducted any studies to determine if our NOLs could be subject to limitation as a result of our IPO or any other such changes in ownership. For these reasons, our ability to utilize our NOL carryforwards and other tax attributes to reduce future tax liabilities may be limited, which would have a material adverse effect on our cash flows and results of operations.
Our 2022 Credit Agreement provides our lenders with a first-priority lien against substantially all of our and our subsidiaries’ assets and personal property, and contains financial covenants and other restrictions on our and our subsidiaries’ actions, which could limit our operational flexibility and otherwise adversely affect our financial condition.
Our 2022 Credit Agreement contains certain affirmative and negative covenants that restrict our and our subsidiaries’ ability to, among other things (in each case, subject to certain exceptions based on dollar caps or other conditions):
The 2022 Credit Agreement also contains financial covenants, measured on a consolidated basis:
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Our or our subsidiaries’ failure to comply with the covenants or payment requirements, or the occurrence of other events specified in our 2022 Credit Agreement, could result in an event of default under the 2022 Credit Agreement, which would give our lenders, in addition to other rights and remedies, the right to terminate their commitments to provide additional loans under the 2022 Credit Agreement and to declare all outstanding loans, together with accrued and unpaid interest and fees and any other outstanding amounts, to be immediately due and payable. In addition, we and our subsidiaries have granted our lenders under the 2022 Credit Agreement first-priority liens against substantially all of our and our subsidiaries’ assets and property as collateral. If the debt under our 2022 Credit Agreement was to be accelerated, we might not have sufficient cash on hand or be able to sell sufficient collateral to repay the obligations then due. In such an event, the lenders under our 2022 Credit Agreement would have the right to, among other remedies, enforce liens against our and our subsidiaries assets and property and seek other judicial and non-judicial enforcement of their rights, any or all of which would likely have an immediate adverse effect on our business and operating results.
If we are unable to effectively document or perfect our ownership over our proprietary technology and intellectual property, our ability to protect our proprietary rights against third parties might be adversely affected.
Historically, we have developed our proprietary technology and other intellectual property both internally, through development by our employees and consultants, and externally, through engaging third party developers in the United States and abroad. We generally enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with such employees, consultants and third party developers with the expressed intention that we own all proprietary rights in all applicable technology and intellectual property developed during the relationship. However, it is possible that these agreements may not have been properly entered into on every occasion with the applicable counterparty, and if one of these agreements were found to be defective under applicable law, it may not have effectively granted ownership of certain technology or other intellectual property to us. In such an event, there would be a risk that the applicable counterparty would not be available to (or would not be willing to) assist us in perfecting our ownership of the technology or intellectual property, which may have an adverse effect on our ability to protect our proprietary rights over such technology and intellectual property.
If we are unable to obtain necessary or desirable third-party technology licenses, our ability to develop platform enhancements may be impaired.
We utilize commercially available off-the-shelf technology in the development of our products and services. As we continue to introduce new features or improvements to our products and services, we may be required to license additional technologies from third parties. These third-party licenses may be unavailable to us on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. If we are unable to obtain necessary third-party licenses, we may be required to obtain substitute technologies with lower quality or performance standards, or at a greater cost, any of which could harm the competitiveness of our platform and our business. In the future, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our products and services or to develop enhancements to our technology, which licenses may not be available on terms that are acceptable to us, or at all. Our inability to use third-party software could result in disruptions to our business, or delays in the development of future offerings or enhancements of existing offerings, which could impair our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We use open-source software in our products, which could subject us to litigation or other actions.
We use open-source software in the development of our products and services. From time to time, there have been claims challenging the ownership of open-source software against companies that incorporate it into their products. As a result, we could be subject to lawsuits by parties claiming ownership of what we believe to be open-source software. Litigation could be costly for us to defend, have a negative effect on our operating results and financial condition, or require us to devote additional research and development resources to change our products. In addition, if we were to combine our proprietary software products with open-source software in a certain manner under certain open-source licenses, we could be required to release the source code of our proprietary software products. If we inappropriately use or incorporate open-source software subject to certain types of open-source licenses that challenge the proprietary nature of our products, we may be required to re-engineer such products, discontinue the sale of such products, or take other remedial actions.
Natural catastrophic events and man-made problems such as power-disruptions, computer viruses, data security breaches, war and terrorism may disrupt our business.
Natural disasters or other catastrophic events may cause damage or disruption to our operations, international commerce and the global economy, and thus could harm our business. We have a large employee presence in Charlotte, North Carolina and smaller employee groups in areas in and around Los Angeles, California, Houston, Texas, Salt Lake City, Utah, Birmingham, Alabama, and Boston, Massachusetts. In the event of a major earthquake, hurricane or catastrophic event such as fire, power loss, telecommunications failure, vandalism, cyber-attack, war, or terrorist attack, we may be unable to continue our operations and
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may endure system interruptions, reputational harm, delays in our application development, lengthy interruptions in our products, breaches of data security, and loss of critical data, all of which could harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.
Additionally, as computer malware, viruses, and computer hacking, fraudulent use attempts, phishing attacks, and other data security breaches have become more prevalent, we, and third parties upon which we rely, face increased risk in maintaining the performance, reliability, security, and availability of our solutions and related services and technical infrastructure to the satisfaction of our customers. Any such data security breach related to our network infrastructure or information technology systems or to computer hardware we lease from third parties, could, among other things, harm our reputation and our ability to retain existing customers and attract new customers.
In addition, the insurance we maintain may be insufficient to cover, or may not cover, our losses resulting from disasters, cyber-attacks, or other business interruptions, and any incidents may result in loss of, or increased costs of, such insurance.
The COVID-19 outbreak has materially impacted the U.S. and global economies generally, and our business specifically, and could continue to have a material adverse impact on our business, employees, buyers and suppliers and strategic partners.
The COVID-19 outbreak continues to materially impact the U.S. and global economies and the emergence of new variants could have a material adverse impact on our employees, customers and strategic partners. A pandemic, including COVID-19 or other public health epidemic, poses the risk that we or our employees, customers and other partners may be prevented from conducting business activities for an indefinite period of time, including due to spread of the disease within these groups or due to shutdowns that may be requested or mandated by governmental authorities. The COVID-19 pandemic and mitigation measures have also had an adverse impact on global economic conditions which could have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition. The extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic, or any other outbreak of an epidemic disease, impacts our results will depend on future developments that are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including new information that may emerge concerning the severity of the virus and the actions to contain its impact.
We cannot accurately forecast the potential impact of additional outbreaks, the impact of government restrictions that are implemented in response to new outbreaks, or the impact on the ability of our buyers and suppliers to remain in business, each of which could continue to have an adverse impact on our business. Due to the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, we will continue to assess the situation market-by-market.
The COVID-19 pandemic may also continue to adversely impact our operations, our employees and our productivity and the operations of our customers and our strategic partners. The disruption caused by the future outbreaks may negatively impact our ability to meet customer demand and our revenue and profit margins and we may experience delays or changes in customer demand, particularly if customer funding priorities change.
In addition, the disruption and volatility in the global and domestic capital markets caused by the pandemic may increase the cost of capital and limit our ability to access capital.
Both the health and economic impacts of the pandemic, and the future course of each, remain uncertain. For these reasons and other reasons that may come to light if the COVID-19 pandemic, or any other public health epidemic, and the associated protective or preventative measures expand, we may experience a material adverse impact on our business operations, revenues and financial condition; however, its ultimate impact is highly uncertain and subject to change. Further, to the extent the COVID-19 pandemic or any other outbreak of an epidemic disease adversely affects our business and financial results, it may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this section.
The increasing focus on environmental sustainability and social initiatives could increase our costs, harm our reputation and adversely impact our financial results.
There has been increasing public focus by investors, environmental activists, the media and governmental and nongovernmental organizations on a variety of environmental, social and other sustainability matters. We may experience pressure to make commitments relating to sustainability matters that affect us, including the design and implementation of specific risk mitigation strategic initiatives relating to sustainability. If we are not effective in addressing environmental, social and other sustainability matters affecting our business, or setting and meeting relevant sustainability goals, our reputation and financial results may suffer. In addition, we may experience increased costs in order to execute upon our sustainability goals and measure achievement of those goals, which could have an adverse impact on our business and financial condition.
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In addition, this emphasis on environmental, social and other sustainability matters has resulted and may result in the adoption of new laws and regulations, including new reporting requirements. If we fail to comply with new laws, regulations or reporting requirements, our reputation and business could be adversely impacted.
Changes in our effective tax rate or tax liability may adversely affect our operating results.
Our effective tax rate could increase due to several factors, including:
Any of these developments could adversely affect our operating results.
Any future litigation against us could be costly and time consuming to defend.
We may become subject to legal proceedings and claims that arise in the ordinary course of business, such as claims brought in connection with intellectual property disputes, claims brought by our customers in connection with commercial disputes, employment claims made by our current or former employees, or claims for reimbursement following misappropriation of customer funds or data.
The software industry is characterized by the existence of many patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and other intellectual and proprietary rights. Companies in the software industry are often required to defend against litigation claims based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. Our technologies may not be able to withstand any third-party claims against their use. In addition, many companies have the capability to dedicate substantially greater resources to enforce their intellectual property rights and to defend claims that may be brought against them. If a third party is able to obtain an injunction preventing us from accessing such third-party intellectual property rights, or if we cannot license or develop alternative technology for any infringing aspect of our business, we would be forced to limit or stop sales of our software or cease business activities related to such intellectual property. Any inability to license third-party technology in the future would have an adverse effect on our business or operating results and would adversely affect our ability to compete. We may also be contractually obligated to indemnify our customers in the event of infringement of a third party’s intellectual property rights.
Lawsuits are time-consuming and expensive to resolve and they divert management’s time and attention. Although we carry insurance, our insurance may not cover certain future claims, may not provide sufficient payments to cover all the costs to resolve one or more such claims, and might not continue to be available on terms acceptable to us. A claim brought against us that is uninsured or underinsured could result in unanticipated costs, thereby reducing our operating results and leading analysts or potential investors to reduce their expectations of our performance, which could reduce the trading price of our stock.
We cannot predict the outcome of lawsuits and cannot assure you that the results of any such actions will not have an adverse effect on our business, operating results, or financial condition.
If our technology and other proprietary rights are not adequately protected to prevent use or appropriation by our competitors, the value of our brand and other intangible assets may be diminished, and our business may be adversely affected.
We rely and expect to continue to rely on a combination of confidentiality and license agreements with our employees, consultants and third parties with whom we have relationships, as well as trademark, copyright, patent and trade secret protection laws, to protect our proprietary rights. We may also seek to enforce our proprietary rights through court proceedings or other legal actions. We have filed and we expect to file from time to time for trademark, copyright and patent applications. However, the steps we take to protect our intellectual property rights may be inadequate. We make business decisions about when to seek patent protection for a particular technology and when to rely upon trade secret protection, and the approach we select may ultimately prove to be inadequate. For example, we have not historically prioritized seeking patent protections for our technology and therefore we may have limited capacity to assert proprietary rights against third parties that may offer similar products, services or functionality. Even in cases where we seek patent protection, we cannot assure that the resulting patents will effectively protect every
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significant feature of our solutions and any U.S. or other patents issued to us may not be sufficiently broad to protect our proprietary technologies. Specifically, there can be no guarantee that others will not independently develop similar products, duplicate any of our solutions or design around our patents, or adopt similar or identical brands for competing platforms or technology. Furthermore, legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property rights are uncertain. Therefore, our registration applications may not be approved, third parties may challenge any copyrights, patents or trademarks issued to or held by us, third parties may knowingly or unknowingly infringe our intellectual property rights, and we may not be able to prevent infringement or misappropriation without substantial expense to us. If the protection of our intellectual property rights is inadequate to prevent use or misappropriation by third parties, the value of our brand, content, and other intangible assets may be diminished.
Further, intellectual property law, including statutory and case law, particularly in the United States, is constantly developing, and any changes in the law could make it harder for us to enforce our rights. In addition, we believe that the protection of our trademark rights is an important factor in product recognition, protecting our brand and maintaining goodwill. If we do not adequately protect our rights in our trademarks from infringement and unauthorized use, any goodwill that we have developed in those trademarks could be lost or impaired, which could harm our brand and our business. Failure to protect our domain names could also adversely affect our reputation and brand and make it more difficult for subscribers to find our products and services. We may be unable, without significant cost or at all, to prevent third parties from acquiring domain names that are similar to, infringe upon or otherwise decrease the value of our trademarks and other proprietary rights.
We enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and consultants and enter into confidentiality agreements with the parties with whom we have strategic relationships and business alliances. No assurance can be given that these agreements will be effective in controlling access to and distribution of our proprietary information. Further, these agreements do not prevent our competitors or partners from independently developing technologies that are substantially equivalent or superior to our platform.
In order to protect our intellectual property rights, we may be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect these rights. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights and to protect our intellectual property. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time-consuming and distracting to management and could result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property. Furthermore, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property rights. An adverse determination of any litigation proceedings could put our intellectual property at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and could put our related patents, patent applications and trademark filings at risk of not being issued or being cancelled. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential or sensitive information could be compromised by disclosure in the event of litigation. Our inability to protect our proprietary technology against unauthorized copying or use, as well as any costly litigation or diversion of our management’s attention and resources, could delay further sales or the implementation of our platform, impair the functionality of our platform, delay introductions of new functionality to our platform, result in our substituting inferior or more costly technologies into our platform, or injure our reputation. We will not be able to protect our intellectual property if we are unable to enforce our rights or if we do not detect unauthorized use of our intellectual property. Moreover, policing unauthorized use of our technologies, trade secrets and intellectual property may be difficult, expensive and time-consuming, particularly in foreign countries where the laws may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the United States and where mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be weak. If we fail to meaningfully protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights, our business, operating results and financial condition could be adversely affected.
Accordingly, we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property. Our failure to secure, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could seriously damage our brand and our business.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
The market price of our common stock may be volatile or may decline steeply or suddenly regardless of our operating performance and we may not be able to meet investor or analyst expectations. You may not be able to resell your shares at or above the market price of our common stock at the time you bought it and may lose all or part of your investment.
The market price of our common stock may fluctuate or decline significantly in response to numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control, including:
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In addition, extreme price and volume fluctuations in the stock markets have affected and continue to affect many technology and finance services companies’ stock prices. Stock prices often fluctuate in ways unrelated or disproportionate to a company’s operating performance. In the past, stockholders have filed securities class action litigation following periods of market volatility. If we were to become involved in securities litigation, it could subject us to substantial costs, divert resources and the attention of management from our business and seriously harm our business.
Moreover, because of these fluctuations, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. You should not rely on our past results as an indication of our future performance. This variability and unpredictability could also result in our failing to meet the expectations of industry or financial analysts or investors for any period. If our revenues or operating results fall below the expectations of analysts or investors or below any forecasts we may provide to the market, or if the forecasts we provide to the market are below the expectations of analysts or investors, the price of our common stock could decline substantially. Such a stock price decline could occur even when we have met any previously publicly stated revenue or earnings forecasts that we may provide.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that they might occur, could cause the price of our common stock to decline.
The price of our common stock could decline if there are substantial sales of our common stock, particularly sales by our directors, executive officers, and significant stockholders. We had a total of 199,466,958 shares of our common stock outstanding as of February 27, 2023.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that these sales might occur could cause the market price of our common stock to decline or make it more difficult for you to sell your common stock at a time and price that you deem appropriate and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. We are unable to predict the effect that sales, or the perception that our shares may be available for sale, will have on the prevailing market price of our common stock.
Certain of our stockholders have rights, subject to some conditions, to require us to file registration statements covering their shares and/or to include their shares in registration statements that we may file for ourselves or our stockholders, subject to market standoff and lockup agreements. The market price of the shares of our common stock could decline as a result of the sale of a substantial number of our shares of common stock in the public market or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell their shares.
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In addition, we have filed a registration statement to register shares reserved for future issuance under our equity compensation plans. Subject to the satisfaction of applicable exercise periods, the shares issued upon exercise of outstanding stock options or settlement of outstanding restricted stock units (“RSUs”) will be available for immediate resale in the United States in the open market.
We may require additional capital to support the growth of our business, and this capital might not be available on acceptable terms, if at all.
We have funded our operations to date primarily through equity financings, secured debt, sales of our products and services, and transaction fees. We cannot be certain when or if our operations will generate sufficient cash to fully fund our ongoing operations or the growth of our business. Additionally, we expect to continue to invest heavily in our business and expend substantial financial and other resources on:
These investments may not result in increased revenue growth in our business. If we are unable to increase our revenue at a rate sufficient to offset the expected increase in our costs, or if we encounter difficulties in managing a growing volume of payments, we may be required to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional capital, which may be dilutive to our current stockholders. Additional financing may not be available on terms favorable to us, if at all. If adequate funds are not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to invest in future growth opportunities, which could harm our business, operating results, and financial condition. Because our decision to issue securities in the future will depend on numerous considerations, including certain factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing, or nature of any future issuances of debt or equity securities. As a result, our stockholders bear the risk of future issuances of debt or equity securities reducing the value of our current stock and diluting their interests.
If securities or industry analysts either do not publish research about us or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about us, our business or our market, or if they change their recommendations regarding our common stock adversely, the trading price or trading volume of our common stock could decline.
The trading market for our common stock will be influenced in part by the research and reports that securities or industry analysts may publish about us, our business, our market or our competitors. If one or more analysts initiate research with an unfavorable rating or downgrade our common stock, provide a more favorable recommendation about our competitors or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our common stock price would likely decline. If any analyst who may cover us were to cease coverage of us or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause the trading price or trading volume of our common stock to decline.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future and, as a result, your ability to achieve a return on your investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our common stock.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock, and we do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. In addition, our 2022 Credit Agreement contains restrictions on our ability to pay cash dividends on our capital stock. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.
Delaware law, our status as a licensed money transmitter and provisions in our restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws could make a merger, tender offer or proxy contest difficult, thereby depressing the trading price of our common stock.
Our restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could depress the trading price of our common stock by acting to discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our management that the stockholders of our company may deem advantageous. For example, these provisions:
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In addition, as a licensed money transmitter, we are subject to a complex regulatory framework, at both the state and federal level. Most, if not all, states require that the state regulator be notified of a change in control of the licensed entity, and many states require prior notice and approval of a change in control. While the definition of control varies by state, some states consider the acquisition of 10% of a licensed entity’s outstanding securities by an investor (or group of affiliated investors) to constitute a change in control.
Any notice or consent requirements imposed by individual state or federal regulatory agencies or provisions of our restated certificate of incorporation or amended and restated bylaws or Delaware law that have 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.
Our restated certificate of incorporation provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (or, if and only if the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware lacks subject matter jurisdiction, any state court located within the State of Delaware or, if and only if all such state courts lack subject matter jurisdiction, the federal district court for the District of Delaware) is the sole and exclusive forum for the following types of actions or proceedings under Delaware statutory or common law: (i) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf; (ii) any action or proceeding asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our current or former directors, officers, or other employees or stockholders to us or our stockholders, or any action asserting a claim for aiding and abetting such breach of fiduciary duty; (iii) any action or proceeding asserting a claim against us or any of our current or former directors, officers or other employees arising out of or pursuant to any provision of the Delaware General Corporation Law, or DGCL, our restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws; (iv) any action or proceeding to interpret, apply, enforce or determine the validity of our restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws(including any right, obligation, or remedy thereunder); (v) any action or proceeding as to which the DGCL confers jurisdiction to the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware; and (vi) any action or proceeding asserting a claim against us or
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any of our current or former directors, officers, or other employees or stockholders that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine, in all cases to the fullest extent permitted by law and subject to the court’s having personal jurisdiction over the indispensable parties named as defendants. This provision would not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Exchange Act, or any other claim for which the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction. In addition, to prevent having to litigate claims in multiple jurisdictions and the threat of inconsistent or contrary rulings by different courts, among other considerations, our restated certificate of incorporation provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, to the fullest extent permitted by law, the federal district courts of the United States will be the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act, including all causes of action asserted against any defendant named in such complaint. For the avoidance of doubt, this provision is intended to benefit and may be enforced by us, our officers and directors, the underwriters to any offering giving rise to such complaint, and any other professional entity whose profession gives authority to a statement made by that person or entity and who has prepared or certified any part of the documents underlying the offering. However, as Section 22 of the Securities Act creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Securities Act or the rules and regulations thereunder, there is uncertainty as to whether a court would enforce such provision. Our restated certificate of incorporation further provides that any person or entity holding, owning or otherwise acquiring any interest in any of our securities shall be deemed to have notice of and consented to these provisions. Investors also cannot waive compliance with the federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder.
These choice of forum provisions may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or other employees. While the Delaware courts have determined that such choice of forum provisions are facially valid, a stockholder may nevertheless seek to bring such a claim arising under the Securities Act against us, our directors, officers, or other employees in a venue other than in the federal district courts of the United States. In such instance, we would expect to vigorously assert the validity and enforceability of the exclusive forum provisions of our restated certificate of incorporation. This may require significant additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions and we cannot assure you that the provisions will be enforced by a court in those other jurisdictions. If a court were to find either exclusive-forum provision in our restated certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur further significant additional costs associated with resolving the dispute in other jurisdictions, all of which could harm our business.
We must develop and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, and if we fail to develop and maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting, our ability to produce timely and accurate financial statements or comply with applicable laws and regulations could be impaired.
We are required to comply with the SEC’s rules including implementing effective processes and internal control over financial reporting to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the listing requirements of the Nasdaq Stock Market and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations increases our legal and financial compliance costs, makes some activities more difficult, time consuming, or costly, and increases demand on our systems and resources, particularly as we are no longer an emerging growth company. The Exchange Act requires, among other things, that we file annual, quarterly, and current reports with respect to our business and operating results. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting.
Compliance with these requirements may require significant resources and management oversight to maintain and, if necessary, improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting to meet this standard. As a result, management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could adversely affect our business and operating results. Although we have already hired additional employees to comply with these requirements, we may need to hire more employees in the future or engage outside consultants, which would increase our costs and expenses.
We are also required, pursuant to Section 404, to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. Effective internal control over financial reporting is necessary for us to provide reliable financial reports and, together with adequate disclosure controls and procedures, is designed to prevent material misstatements due to fraud or error. Any failure to implement required new or improved controls, or difficulties encountered in their implementation, could cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations. Ineffective internal controls could also cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information, which could have a negative effect on the trading price of our common stock.
This assessment must include disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting, as well as a statement that our independent registered public accounting firm has issued an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. An independent assessment of the effectiveness of our internal controls could detect problems that our management’s assessment might not. Undetected material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting could lead to financial statement restatements and require us to incur the expense of remediation.
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We are required to disclose material changes made in our internal control over financial reporting on a quarterly basis. We may need to undertake various actions, such as implementing new internal controls and procedures and hiring additional accounting or internal audit staff.
If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an unqualified opinion on the effectiveness of our internal control, including as a result of the material weakness described above, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could cause the price of our common stock to decline, and we may be subject to investigation or sanctions by the SEC. In addition, if we are unable to continue to meet these requirements, we may not be able to remain listed on the Nasdaq exchange.
An active trading market for our common stock may never develop or be sustained.
Our common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on October 13, 2021 under the symbol “AVDX.” Prior to our IPO, there was no public market for our common stock. Although our common stock is listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, we cannot assure you that an active trading market for our common stock will develop on that exchange or elsewhere or, if developed, that any market will be sustained. Accordingly, we cannot assure you of the likelihood that an active trading market for our common stock will develop or be maintained, the liquidity of any trading market, your ability to sell your shares of our common stock when desired or at the prices that you may obtain for your shares.
You may be diluted by the future issuance of common stock, preferred stock or securities convertible into common or preferred stock, in connection with our incentive plans, acquisitions, capital raises or otherwise.
We have 199,466,958 shares of common stock outstanding as of February 27, 2023 and our restated certificate of incorporation authorizes us to issue 1.6 billion shares of common stock and 50 million shares of preferred stock. Our board of directors will have the authority to determine the preferences, limitations and relative rights of the shares of preferred stock and to fix the number of shares constituting any series and the designation of such series, without any further vote or action by our stockholders.
In the future, we expect to obtain financing or to further increase our capital resources by issuing additional shares of our capital stock or offering debt or other equity securities, including senior or subordinated notes, or debt securities convertible into equity or shares of preferred stock. Issuing additional shares of our capital stock or other equity securities or securities convertible into equity may dilute the economic and voting rights of our existing stockholders or reduce the market price of our common stock or both. Debt securities convertible into equity could be subject to adjustments in the conversion ratio pursuant to which certain events may increase the number of equity securities issuable upon conversion. Shares of preferred stock, if issued, could have a preference with respect to liquidating distributions or a preference with respect to dividend payments that could limit our ability to pay dividends to the holders of our common stock. Our decision to issue securities in any future offering will depend on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, which may adversely affect the amount, timing, or nature of our future offerings. As a result, holders of our common stock bear the risk that our future offerings may reduce the market price of our common stock and dilute their stockholdings in us.
As of February 27, 2023, we have reserved 28,112,909 shares of common stock for issuance under the Company's 2021 Long-Term Incentive Plan (the “2021 Plan”), which amount is increased by shares subject to outstanding awards under our previous equity incentive plans that expire, are forfeited, or otherwise terminate, are settled in cash or are reacquired or withheld (or not issued) to satisfy a tax withholding obligation or the purchase or exercise price. The number of shares of common stock that will be reserved for issuance under our 2021 Plan will automatically increase on January 1 of each year by the lesser of (i) 5% of the total number of shares of our common stock outstanding on December 31 of the immediately preceding year or (ii) 18,023,020 shares. Any common stock that we issue, including under our current equity incentive plans or other equity incentive plans that we may adopt in the future, would dilute the percentage ownership held by the owners of our common stock. We have filed a registration statement on Form S-8 under the Securities Act, to register shares of our common stock or securities convertible into or exchangeable for shares of our common stock issued pursuant to our current equity incentive plans, including our 2021 Plan and our employee stock purchase plan. Any such Form S-8 registration statements will automatically become effective upon filing. Accordingly, shares issued under such plans will be available for sale in the open market.
ITEM 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments.
None.
ITEM 2. Properties.
We lease our approximately 201,000 square foot built to suit corporate headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina pursuant to a lease with an initial term that expires in 2032.
39
We have additional offices in Los Angeles, California, Sandy, Utah, Houston, Texas, and Birmingham, Alabama, and we have coworking space in Somerset, New Jersey and Marshfield, Massachusetts. In December 2021, we acquired a building that we were previously leasing comprised of approximately 60,000 square feet of office space that we use as flex space and to support our operations and additional real estate parcels that are adjacent to our corporate headquarters. We may further expand our facilities capacity as our employee base grows and we own approximately 17.1 acres of land adjacent to our current headquarters for future expansion.
ITEM 3. Legal Proceedings.
From time to time, we may be subject to legal proceedings and claims in the ordinary course of business, including commercial, intellectual property, employment, class action, whistleblower, and other litigation and claims, as well as governmental and other regulatory investigations and proceedings. In addition, third parties may from time to time assert claims against us in the form of letters and other communications. We are not currently a party to any legal proceedings that we believe to be material to our business or financial condition. The results of any future litigation cannot be predicted with certainty, and regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources, and other factors.
ITEM 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.
None.
40
PART II.
ITEM 5. Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.
Market Information for Common Stock
Our common stock has been listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “AVDX” since October 13, 2021. Prior to that date, there was no public trading market for our common stock.
Holders of Record
As of February 27, 2023, we had 282 holders of record of our common stock. The actual number of stockholders is greater than this number of record holders, as the number of record holders does not account for the number of stockholders who are beneficial owners, but whose shares are held in street name by brokers and other nominees.
Dividend Policy
We have not declared any cash dividends since becoming a public company. We currently intend to retain any future earnings to finance the growth and development of the business and, therefore, do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. In addition, our ability to pay dividends is restricted by the 2022 Credit Agreement, as discussed in Item 1A “Risk Factors,” Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and Note 11 "Long-term Debt" of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements contained within this Annual Report. Any future determination to pay cash dividends will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will be dependent upon our future financial condition, results of operations and capital requirements, general business conditions and other relevant factors as determined by our board of directors.
Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities; Use of Proceeds
Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities
The following sets forth information regarding all unregistered equity securities sold in the three months ended December 31, 2022:
None of the foregoing transactions involved any underwriters, underwriting discounts or commissions, or any public offering. Unless otherwise stated, the sales of the above securities were deemed to be exempt from registration under the Securities Act in reliance on Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act (and Regulation D or Regulation S promulgated thereunder) as transactions by an issuer not involving any public offering. The recipients of the securities in each of these transactions represented their intentions to acquire the securities for investment only and not with a view to or for sale in connection with any distribution thereof, and appropriate legends were placed on the share certificates issued in these transactions. All recipients had adequate access, through their relationships with us, to information about us. The sales of these securities were made without any general solicitation or advertising.
Use of Proceeds
On October 12, 2021, our Registration Statement on Form S-1, as amended (Reg. No. 333-259632), was declared effective in connection with the IPO of our common stock, pursuant to which we issued and sold 26,400,000 shares of common stock, par value $0.001 per share. The price per share to the public was $25.00. Gross proceeds from the IPO were $660.0 million and net proceeds, after deducting (i) underwriters’ discounts and commissions and (ii) offering expenses of $11.8 million, were approximately $608.6 million. Following the sale of these shares, the offering terminated. Shares of our common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on October 13, 2021.
On October 15, 2021, we used $169.0 million of the net proceeds to redeem the shares of redeemable preferred stock issuable upon conversion of our senior preferred stock.
On November 15, 2021, the underwriters notified us of the partial exercise of the overallotment option. Upon closing on November 18, 2021, we issued 544,928 shares of common stock at the offering price of $25.00 per share and received net proceeds of $12.8 million after deducting underwriters' discounts and commissions.
There have been no material changes in the planned use of proceeds from the IPO from those described in our Final Prospectus.
41
Stock Performance Graph
The following shall not be deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Exchange Act, or incorporated by reference into any of our other filings under the Exchange Act or the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, except to the extent we specifically incorporate it by reference into such filing.
This chart compares the cumulative total return on our common stock with that of the Russell Mid Cap Index, S&P 400 Information Technology Index, Russell 2000 Index, and Russell 3000 Index. The chart assumes $100 was invested at the close of market on October 13, 2021, in the common stock of AvidXchange Holdings, Inc., Russell Mid Cap Index, S&P 400 Information Technology Index, Russell 2000 Index, and Russell 3000 Index, and assumes the reinvestment of any dividends. The stock price performance on the following graph is not necessarily indicative of future stock price performance.
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Base Period |
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Company / Index |
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10/13/2021 |
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12/31/2021 |
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3/31/2022 |
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6/30/2022 |
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9/30/2022 |
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12/31/2022 |
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AvidXchange Holdings, Inc. |
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$ |
100.00 |
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$ |
60.38 |
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$ |
32.28 |
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$ |
24.62 |
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$ |
33.76 |
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$ |
39.86 |
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Russell Mid Cap Index |
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$ |
100.00 |
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$ |
103.68 |
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$ |
97.43 |
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$ |
80.68 |
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$ |
77.58 |
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$ |
84.34 |
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S&P 400 Information Technology Index |
|
$ |
100.00 |
|
|
$ |
105.39 |
|
|
$ |
96.76 |
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$ |
78.13 |
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$ |
76.35 |
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$ |
83.38 |
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Russell 2000 Index |
|
$ |
100.00 |
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|
$ |
100.15 |
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|
$ |
92.34 |
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|
$ |
76.18 |
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|
$ |
74.25 |
|
|
$ |
78.56 |
|
Russell 3000 Index |
|
$ |
100.00 |
|
|
$ |
107.29 |
|
|
$ |
101.27 |
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$ |
84.02 |
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$ |
79.95 |
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$ |
85.32 |
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ITEM 6. (Reserved)
42
ITEM 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.
The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our Consolidated Financial Statements and related notes and other financial information appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. As discussed in the section titled "Special Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements," the following discussion contains forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, estimates and beliefs. Our actual results could differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the section titled “Risk Factors” included in Item 1A of Part I of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and the risks discussed below and in our other SEC filings. The accompanying Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations gives effect to the four-for-one stock split effected on September 30, 2021.
Overview
AvidXchange was founded in 2000 to serve the AP automation needs of the middle market. In 2012, in response to customer demand for more efficient payment methods, we launched the AvidPay Network. We are now a leading provider of AP automation software and payment solutions for middle market businesses and their suppliers. Our SaaS-based, end-to-end software and payment platform digitizes and automates the AP workflows for more than 8,800 businesses (our buyers) and we have made payments to more than 965,000 supplier customers of our buyers (suppliers) over the past five years. While acquiring new and retaining existing relationships with buyers and suppliers are important to our business, the growth of our business is ultimately dependent upon the number of transactions we process, as well as our total payment volume. We developed our technology platform through years of working to solve our buyers’ unique middle market workflow challenges. Leveraging our domain expertise, we purpose-built a two-sided network that connects buyers and suppliers, drives digital transformation, increases efficiency and accuracy in AP workflows, accelerates payments, enables insight into critical analytics, and lowers operating costs for our buyers.
Our platform was purpose-built for the middle market based on our desire to deal with the business process complexities of our initial customers. We believe we have become a strategic platform for our customers’ CFOs, treasurers and finance teams by digitally transforming how they receive, manage and pay their bills. Supported by integrations to our customers’ middle market-oriented accounting and information systems, our platform automates the end-to-end AP workflows for our buyers and enhances the payment experience for our suppliers. We provide a SaaS-based solution automating and digitizing the capture, review, approval and payment of invoices for our buyers. Our two-sided payments network then connects our buyers with their suppliers, enabling invoice payments on behalf of a buyer and according to the supplier’s business rules, payment preferences and remittance data. We support a variety of payment methods depending on the supplier’s preference, including VCC, enhanced ACH (our AvidPay Direct) and physical check, while delivering enhanced remittance data to streamline the reconciliation process. Finally, we provide cash management solutions to our supplier network that include tools that provide custom views of invoices and an accelerator feature (our Invoice Accelerator). These additional features, and others in our product pipeline, allow us to both monetize and increase engagement on our two-sided payments network.
Our customers operate across a variety of verticals in which we have domain expertise, including real estate, HOAs, construction, financial services (including banks and credit unions), healthcare facilities, social services, education, and media. Certain segments of our customers, particularly the customers we acquired through the FastPay acquisition that focus on political advertising within our media vertical, are subject to seasonal and cyclical trends. In 2022, we processed approximately 70 million transactions representing over $215 billion in spend under management across our platform and, of that, moved $68 billion in total payment volume from our buyers to their suppliers. Spend under management represents the sum of (i) the aggregate dollar amount of payments processed by us, plus (ii) the aggregate dollar amount represented by the total number of invoices processed by us, in each case, during the specified period. As described in more detail below, we generate revenue from each transaction processed on a per transaction basis and earn interchange revenue from a portion of the total payment volume.
Our Business and Revenue Model
We sell our solutions through a hybrid go-to-market strategy that includes direct and indirect channels. Our direct sales force leverages their domain expertise in select verticals and over 205 referral relationships with integrated software providers, financial institutions and other partners to identify and attract buyers that would benefit from our AP software solutions and the AvidPay Network. Our indirect channel includes reseller partners and other strategic partnerships such as Mastercard, through MasterCard’s B2B Hub, which includes Fifth Third Bank and Bank of America, and other financial institutions, such as KeyBank, and third-party software providers such as MRI Software, RealPage and SAP Concur. Our referral and indirect channel partnerships provide us greater reach across the market to access a variety of buyers.
One of the ways that we evaluate our revenue model is by looking at our net transactions processed retention rate. We calculate the net transactions processed retention rate for a current period by dividing the (i) number of total transactions processed for customers in the comparable prior period by (ii) the number of total transactions processed for the same customers in the current
43
period. Accordingly, the net transactions processed retention rate is calculated solely based on transactions of prior period customers in the current period, regardless of whether or not the prior period customer remains a customer in the current period. Correspondingly, customers in the current period that were not customers in the prior period are excluded from the current period calculation of the net transactions processed retention rate. Net transactions processed retention rate, together with our key metric Transactions Processed (as described below in the section titled “Key Financial and Business Metrics”), enables us to both assess transaction volume attributable to retained customers in a period as well as determine transaction volume attributable to new customers during the same period. This annual metric allows us to quantify the activity of retained customers over time and illustrates both retention and expansion of the volume of total transactions processed for such customers. Our net transactions processed retention rate from 2019 to 2020 was 102%, from 2020 to 2021 it was 107%, and from 2021 to 2022 it was 103.5%.
Our revenues are recurring in nature and are derived from multiple sources, predominantly through software revenue from our buyers and revenue from payments made to their suppliers. The table below represents our revenues disaggregated by type of service performed (in thousands):
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|
Year Ended December 31, |
|
|||||||||
Disaggregation of Revenue: |
|
2022 |
|
|
2021 |
|
|
2020 |
|
|||
Software revenue |
|
$ |
99,541 |
|
|
$ |
87,885 |
|
|
$ |
68,063 |
|
Payment revenue |
|
|
213,842 |
|
|
|
157,930 |
|
|
|
115,745 |
|
Services revenue |
|
|
2,967 |
|
|
|
2,594 |
|
|
|
2,120 |
|
Total revenues |
|
$ |
316,350 |
|
|
$ |
248,409 |
|
|
$ |
185,928 |
|
Software revenue, payment revenue and services revenue are described below in the section titled "Components of Results of Operations."
Macroeconomic Environment's Impact of Revenue
Throughout 2022, we have continued to see the impact of several macroeconomic events on our business and on our buyers and suppliers. These events have included, but are not limited to, the continuing global COVID-19 pandemic including the emergence of new variants, general economic conditions including inflation, fears of a possible recession, ongoing supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical tensions including those resulting from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. While we continue to be encouraged by leading indicators in our sales process, the ongoing uncertainty created by these macroeconomic events could continue to have a negative impact on purchasing decisions by certain buyers, new sales and longer sales cycles. These events have made it and may continue to make it more difficult for us to acquire new buyers and to close new sales opportunities which in turn adversely impacts revenue growth in future periods.
The U.S. economy is also currently experiencing a higher than normal level of inflation. The long-term impacts of inflation on the economy and our business remain unclear. On the one hand, our revenue could be positively impacted by inflation as the value of our customer's payments could rise, increasing our payment volume and the base on which we earn interchange revenue. Also, inflationary pressure could be a catalyst for sales acceleration associated with increased interest by potential customers in automating back-office processing. Additionally, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates in an effort to reduce inflation. These rate increases have in turn increased the interest we earn on funds held for buyers, which we recognize as payment revenue. Conversely, the impact of inflationary pressures on the macro economy could slow the spending of our customers and decrease payment volume. Inflation could also negatively impact our operating costs by increasing costs incurred by us to operate our business due to higher costs from our vendors and increased personnel costs, some of which we may not be able to recoup from our customers. The impact of inflation on our business and on our buyers and suppliers in future periods remains highly uncertain, as does the Federal Reserve’s response to these conditions. We may not see these impacts of inflation in future periods, which could lead to difficulty in comparing our current consolidated financial results to our results in future reporting periods.
Key Factors Affecting Our Performance
Acquiring new buyers and suppliers
To sustain our growth, we need to continue to sell our AP software and payment solutions to new buyers. New buyers add software revenue and those that use our payment solutions, will allow us to continue adding new suppliers to our network, increasing payment volume across our platform and providing us with the opportunity to generate additional revenue from the payments our buyers make to their suppliers. Our financial performance will depend in large part on the overall demand for our platform particularly from middle market buyers and their suppliers.
Expanding our relationships with existing buyers and suppliers
The growth of our software revenue is dependent upon the number of invoice and payment transactions processed across our platform. The number of transactions that our buyers submit through our platform is often based on their experience implementing and using our products and services, realized or perceived value, and confidence in the accuracy and timeliness of our services.
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Although we often include minimum transaction commitments in our buyer agreements, our growth is dependent on our buyers using our platform to process their invoice and payment transactions and otherwise serve their AP needs.
Payment revenue is a significant component of our overall revenue and is dependent upon the payment spend volume submitted by our buyers and processed through our AvidPay Network. Payment revenue is also dependent upon the continued acceptance by suppliers in our network of electronic payment types that result in interchange revenue and net interchange rates. Our growth will depend on our continued ability to deliver electronic payments to existing suppliers in a manner that is consistent with their internal business rules, payment preferences, and perceived value.
We also experience growth from buyers when we cross sell existing products and services or introduce new products and services.
Investing in sales and marketing
We intend to increase our sales and marketing spend to drive awareness and generate demand to acquire new buyers and to grow our supplier network. We also intend to invest in new relationships with accounting software providers and other strategic partners. Our investments in supporting these relationships have been significant and will continue, and we expect such investments to include education and training initiatives such as webinars, industry trade show presentations, and developing sell-sheet case studies. We expect our sales and marketing expenses to increase as we continue to grow.
Growing our network
We will continue to add buyers and suppliers to our proprietary AvidPay Network and to invest in features and functionality to drive value across our network. We expect to add payment methods to our platform over time.
Investing in our platform and products
We are making investments in our technology to maintain and enhance our position as a leading provider of AP automation software and payment solutions for middle market businesses and their suppliers. To drive adoption and increase penetration within our base, we have and will continue to introduce new products and features. We believe that investment in research and development contributes to our long-term growth but may also negatively impact our short-term profitability. We will continue to leverage emerging technologies and invest in the development of more features that meet and anticipate the needs of both buyers and suppliers. As a result, we expect our expenses related to research and development to increase as we continue to grow. These efforts will require us to invest significant financial and other resources.
Pursue strategic mergers and acquisitions
Notwithstanding challenging market conditions that persisted throughout 2022, which impacted the pool of potential opportunities, we will continue to seek to supplement our organic growth by pursuing strategic mergers and acquisitions to expand into new verticals and horizontal capabilities, capture unmonetized or under-monetized spend, and enhance and expand products and capabilities.
For example in July 2021, we acquired all of the equity interests of FastPay, a leading provider of payments automation solutions for the media industry. This acquisition expands our portfolio of automated payments technologies and services to middle market companies across the media landscape in the United States. Additionally in January 2022, we acquired a customer list and a non-compete agreement of media payments company, PayClearly, to further expand media payments.
Key Financial and Business Metrics
We regularly review several financial and business metrics to measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, prepare financial projections, and make strategic decisions. We believe that these key business metrics provide meaningful supplemental information for management and investors in assessing our historical and future operating performance. The calculation of the key metrics and other measures discussed below may differ from other similarly-titled metrics used by other companies, securities analysts or investors.
|
|
Year Ended December 31, |
|
|
Period-to-Period Change as Percentage |
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
2022 |
|
|
2021 |
|
|
2020 |
|
|
2022 to 2021 |
|
|
2021 to 2020 |
|
|
|||||
Transactions processed |
|
|
70,168,806 |
|
|
|
62,457,962 |
|
|
|
52,757,295 |
|
|
|
12.3 |
% |
|
|
18.4 |
% |
|
Transaction yield |
|
$ |
4.51 |
|
|
$ |
3.98 |
|
|
$ |
3.52 |
|
|
|
13.3 |
% |
|
|
13.1 |
% |
|
Total payment volume (in millions) |
|
$ |
68,202 |
|
|
$ |
52,114 |
|
|
$ |
37,880 |
|
|
|
30.9 |
% |
|
|
37.6 |
% |
|
Transactions processed
We believe that transactions processed is an important measure of our business because it is a key indicator of the use by both buyers and suppliers of our solutions and our ability to generate revenue, since a majority of our revenue is generated based on
45
transactions processed. We define transactions processed as the number of invoice transactions and payment transactions, such as invoices, purchase orders, checks, ACH payments and VCCs, processed through our platform during a particular period.
Transaction yield
We believe that transaction yield is an important measure of the value of our solutions to buyers and suppliers as we scale. We define transaction yield as the total revenue during a particular period divided by the total transactions processed during such period.
Total payment volume
We believe total payment volume is an important measure of our AvidPay Network business as it quantifies the demand for our payment services. We define total payment volume as the dollar sum of buyers’ AP payments paid to their suppliers through the AvidPay Network during a particular period.
Components of Results of Operations
Revenue
We generate revenue from the following sources: (i) software, (ii) payments, and (iii) services.
Software Revenue
We generate software revenue from our buyers primarily through (i) fees calculated based on the number of invoices and payment transactions processed and (ii) recurring maintenance and SaaS fees. Software revenue is typically billed to and paid by our buyers on a monthly basis. Our software offerings, many of which are built for specific verticals, address the needs of buyers and together they comprise our suite of predominately cloud-based solutions designed to manage invoices and automate the AP function. We generally sign multi-year contracts with buyers and revenue is recognized over the term of the contract. We also receive initial upfront implementation fees and software maintenance fees for ongoing support, which are recognized ratably over the term of the applicable support period.
Payment Revenue
We generate revenue from the payments our buyers make to their suppliers through (i) offering electronic payment solutions to suppliers, (ii) fees charged to suppliers from our invoice factoring product, and (iii) interest on funds held for buyers pending disbursement.
Our electronic payment solutions currently include VCC and an enhanced ACH payment product, or AvidPay Direct, which eliminate paper checks and increase the speed of payment to the supplier. AvidPay Direct also provides suppliers with enhanced remittance data allowing the supplier to reconcile the payment and the underlying invoice. VCC revenues result from interchange fees applied to the spend processed and are recorded net of fees and incentives. AvidPay Direct revenue is based on a per transaction fee that we charge to suppliers that generally includes a cap and is based on the spend per payment and is recorded net of incentives.
Our invoice factoring product, Invoice Accelerator, provides certain suppliers with the opportunity to better manage cash flows and receive payments even faster by allowing suppliers to receive advance payment on qualifying invoices. Revenues are generated on a per transaction basis for each payment that is advanced. We currently fund the purchase of invoices from our balance sheet.
Interest income represents interest received from buyer deposits held during the payment clearing process. We receive interest on funds held through our contractual relationship with our buyers, which we recognize as payment revenue. The rate we earn on buyer funds is difficult to predict in the short and long term and will continue to be impacted by the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy and any adjustments that are made in response to inflation. Due to the current high levels of inflation in the U.S. economy, and the resulting increases in interest rates, we experienced an increase in revenues generated on funds held during the payment clearing process during 2022. This level of interest income on buyer deposits may not be sustainable in future years or in nearer term periods depending on the Federal Reserve’s future actions.
Our media payments business includes customers that are involved in political advertising in the U.S. Revenue from these customers is cyclical as it is connected to U.S. election advertising spend which tends to increase during significant election years, such as mid-term and presidential elections. In 2022, we experienced growth in our media payments business due to spending associated with the 2022 mid-term elections. Due to the intermittent nature of the U.S. election cycle, we expect a significant decrease in these revenues during fiscal year 2023.
We utilize service providers to process a substantial portion of our payment revenue that is derived from interchange fees earned on payment transactions processed as VCCs. A large percentage of our revenue is processed by a small number of providers and our revenue is also dependent on the rates we are able to negotiate with these providers. See Note 2 “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for disclosures regarding this concentration.
46
Services Revenue
Services revenue includes fees charged to process buyer change in service requests.
Total Revenue
We expect our total revenue to increase year over year due to an increase in the number transactions processed, and the number of buyers and suppliers using the AvidPay Network, and that payment revenue should comprise a greater proportion of total revenue as the volume of transactions on the AvidPay Network continue to increase.
Cost of Revenues and Operating Expenses
Cost of Revenues
Cost of revenues includes personnel related costs, which include direct compensation, fringe benefits, short- and long-term incentive plans and stock-based compensation expense. Cost of revenues includes teams responsible for buyer and supplier onboarding and setup, invoice processing, payment operations, money movement execution, and customer service. Personnel costs also include internal labor associated with the employees who monitor the performance and reliability of our buyer and supplier solutions and the underlying delivery infrastructure (i.e., application and data hosting administration, product support and escalations, payment monitoring and settlement functions).
Cost of revenues also includes external expenses that are directly attributed to the processing of invoice and payment transactions. These expenses include the cost of scanning and indexing invoices, printing checks, postage for mailing checks, expenses for processing payments (ACH, check, and wires), bank fees associated with buyer deposits held during the payment clearing process, and other transaction execution costs. Additionally, cost of revenues includes fees paid to third parties for the use of their technology, data hosting services, customer relationship management tools used in the delivery of our services or in support of the delivery infrastructure, and adjustments to the allowance for uncollectible advancements processed through Invoice Accelerator. Lastly, cost of revenues includes estimates for treasury losses that occur in treasury operations. Treasury losses include various unrecoverable internal payment processing errors that occur in the ordinary course of business, such as duplicate payments, overpayments, payments to the wrong party and reconciliation errors.
We have elected to exclude amortization expense of capitalized developed software and acquired technology, as well as allocations of fixed asset depreciation expense and facility expenses from cost of revenues.
Our long-term strategy to transition to public cloud services and decommission on-premise infrastructure hosted in co-located datacenters was substantially completed in the second quarter of 2022.
We expect our cost of revenues as a percentage of revenue to decrease as we continue to realize operational efficiencies and shift more of our transactions to electronic payments.
Sales and Marketing
Sales and marketing consists primarily of costs related to our direct sales force and partner channels that are incurred in the process of setting up go-to-market strategies, generating leads, building brand awareness and acquiring new buyers and suppliers, including efforts to convert suppliers from paper check payments to electronic forms of payments and efforts to enroll them into the Invoice Accelerator solution.
Personnel costs include salaries, wages, direct and amortized sales commissions, fringe benefits, short- and long-term incentive plans and stock-based compensation expense. Most of the commissions paid to the direct sales force are incremental based upon invoice and payment volume from the acquisition of a new buyer and are deferred and amortized ratably over an estimated benefit period of five years.
The partner ecosystem consists of reseller, referral and accounting system partners. Compensation paid to referral and accounting system partners in exchange for the referral and marketing efforts of the partner is classified as sales and marketing expense.
In addition, we focus on generating awareness of our platform and products through a variety of sponsorships, user conferences, trade shows, and integrated marketing campaigns. Costs associated with these efforts, including travel expenses, external consulting services, and various technology applications are included in sales and marketing as well.
We expect our sales and marketing expenses to increase in absolute dollars while remaining fairly consistent as a percentage of revenue as we continue to expand our market presence, grow our customer base, and continue to develop new offerings to sell to our buyers and suppliers. We are focused on the efficient deployment of marketing resources to drive our sales efforts and expect to continue to increase marketing activities over the coming periods.
Research and Development
Research and development efforts focus on the development of new products and business intelligence tools or the enhancements of existing products and applications, as well as large scale infrastructure projects that improve the underlying architecture of our technology.
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The main contributors of research and development costs are (i) personnel related expenses, including fringe benefits, short- and long-term incentive plans and stock-based compensation expense, and (ii) fees for outsourced professional services. We capitalize certain internal and external development costs that are attributable to new products or new functionality of existing products and amortize such costs to depreciation and amortization on a straight-line basis over an estimated useful life, which is generally three years.
We also incur research and development costs attributable to the use of software tools and technologies required to facilitate our research and development activities. Examples of such costs include fees paid to third parties to host lower technical environments and the associated virtual machine ware fees paid to support agile development efforts, and fees paid for software tools and licenses used in quality control testing and code deployment activities.
We expect our research and development expense to increase in absolute dollars, but to decrease as a percentage of revenue over the longer term as we are able to efficiently deploy our development resources against a larger revenue base.
General and Administrative
General and administrative expenses consist primarily of our finance, human resources, legal and compliance, facilities, information technology, administration, and information security organizations. Significant cost contributors are (i) personnel expenses, including fringe benefits, short- and long-term incentive plans and stock-based compensation expense, and (ii) costs of software applications, including end user computing solutions, and various technology tools utilized by these organizations. Occupancy expenses, which include personnel, rent, maintenance and property tax costs are not allocated to other components of the statements of operations and remain in general and administrative expenses. General and administrative expenses are reduced by incentives we have received from state and local government agencies as part of various local job development investment grants.
In 2022, general and administrative expenses also include restructuring costs incurred in connection with a planned reduction of our U.S. workforce. Restructuring costs consist of one-time severance charges to be paid to affected employees. The plan was implemented and completed in the second half of 2022.
Additionally, in 2022, general and administrative expenses included a benefit related to the resolution of a purchase accounting liability from the FastPay acquisition in 2021.
While we expect our general and administrative expenses to decrease as a percentage of revenue over the longer term, we expect our general and administrative expenses to increase in absolute dollars over the shorter term as we continue to build out our infrastructure to support our operations as a public company, and to support a larger customer base.
Impairment and Write-Off of Intangible Assets
Impairment and write-off of intangible assets is the reduction from carrying value to fair value for assets or asset groups whose carrying value is not recoverable and also includes charges determined based on our estimation of the amount of obsolescence of previously capitalized software development costs.
Depreciation and Amortization
Depreciation and amortization expense includes depreciation of property and equipment over the estimated useful life of the applicable asset, as well as amortization of acquired intangibles (i.e., technology, customer list and tradename) with a useful life between 3 and 15 years, and amortization of capitalized software development costs with an estimated benefit of 3 years.
Other Income (Expense)
Other income (expense) consists primarily of interest expense on our bank borrowings and headquarters finance leases, offset by interest income on non-customer corporate funds. Additionally in periods before our IPO, other income (expense) included changes in the fair value of our derivative instrument, which required adjustments to fair value each reporting period.
Income Tax Expense (Benefit)
Income tax expense (benefit) consists of federal and state income taxes.
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Results of Operations
The following table sets forth our results of operations for the periods presented (in thousands, except share and per share data):
|
|
Year Ended December 31, |
|
|||||||||
|
|
2022 |
|
|
2021 |
|
|
2020 |
|
|||
Revenues |
|
$ |
316,350 |
|
|
$ |
248,409 |
|
|
$ |
185,928 |
|
Cost of revenues (exclusive of depreciation and amortization expense) |
|
|
117,864 |
|
|
|
100,090 |
|
|
|
83,755 |
|
Operating expenses |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
Sales and marketing |
|
|
77,733 |
|
|
|
63,939 |
|
|
|
47,910 |
|
Research and development |
|
|
83,905 |
|
|
|
65,147 |
|