Item 1A. Risk Factors.
Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. Before deciding to invest in or to maintain an investment in our securities, you should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and related notes thereto
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included elsewhere in this Annual Report. Our business, as well as our reputation, financial condition, results of operations and price of our securities could also be adversely affected any of these risks and other risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently do not believe are material. In that event, the market price of our securities could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment.
Risk Factor Summary
The following summary of risk factors should be carefully considered. These are not the only risks we face. Additional risks that are unknown or currently considered less significant may also affect our business or financial results. If any of these risks occur, our business, financial condition, results of operations, or stock price could be materially and adversely affected. For further details, please see the full discussion of risk factors below.
• AV technology is emerging and rapidly evolving and involves significant risks and uncertainties.
• We have incurred net losses since inception and may not achieve or maintain profitability.
• Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter.
• Our technology may have limited performance, and technology development and commercialization may take us longer to complete than we currently anticipate.
• Any failure to commercialize our solution at scale may have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
• We rely on a limited number of customers for a significant portion of our revenue.
• We depend on our commercial agreements with Atlas .
• AV technology presents the risk of significant injury, including fatalities.
• The Kodiak Driver, our virtual driver system that combines advanced AI-powered software with modular, vehicle-agnostic hardware, may not function as intended due to flaws or errors in our software, hardware, and systems, product defects, or due to human error.
• Any flaws or misuse of AV technology, whether actual or perceived, intended or inadvertent, by us or third parties, may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
• We operate in a highly competitive market, and we may be unable to compete effectively, including against competitors who may have greater resources.
• Our success is contingent on our ability to execute our DaaS business model, including by maintaining, managing, retaining, and expanding our existing customer relationships and obtaining new customers.
• Recent and further changes in the tariff and trade policies of the United States or of other countries could increase manufacturing costs, decrease demand for our solution, disrupt supply chains, or otherwise adversely affect our business and financial condition.
• We depend on the experience and expertise of our senior management team, engineers, and certain other key employees.
• We rely on our third-party suppliers, OEMs, upfitters, service providers and partners, some of which are single or limited-source suppliers or providers of certain key components for, and services used in connection with, the Kodiak Driver.
• We are subject to substantial regulations, including regulations governing motor carriers and autonomous vehicles.
• We may not be able to adequately establish, maintain, protect, and enforce our technology and intellectual property rights or prevent others from unauthorized use of our technology and intellectual property rights.
• We may be subject to intellectual property infringement claims, which, whether meritless or not, may be expensive and time consuming to defend, distract management, require us to pay significant damages and limit our ability to use certain technologies.
• A significant portion of our historical revenue has come from our contracts with the U.S. Department of War ( “ DoW ” ) and our failure to receive and maintain government contracts or changes in the contracting or fiscal
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policies of the U.S. Government may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
• We require significant capital to fund our operations and growth.
• Real or perceived inaccuracies in our assumptions and estimates to calculate certain metrics, including our Cumulative Hours of Paid Driverless Operations.
• General business and economic conditions, and risks related to the long-haul trucking, industrial trucking, oil and gas, and defense industries ecosystems, may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
• The sale of securities registered for resale and future sales of substantial amounts of our common stock in the public markets, or the perception that such sales could occur, may cause the market price of our securities to drop significantly, even if our business is doing well.
• There is no guarantee that the Public Warrants will ever be in the money, and they may expire worthless.
• Your Public Warrants may be redeemed prior to their exercise at a time that is disadvantageous to you.
Risks Related to Our Business
AV technology is an emerging and rapidly evolving technology and involves significant risks and uncertainties, any of which could impede or delay our ability to scale.
AV technology operates in environments where safety and precision are critical. There are a number of challenges in bringing a new and innovative technology to the market, including public perception of the technology and its performance and safety, long development cycles, specialized skills and expertise requirements of personnel, inconsistent and evolving regulatory frameworks, the potential for novel legal claims, and a need to build public trust in the real-world operations of an emerging technology. If we are delayed in overcoming, or are not able to overcome, these challenges, our commercial prospects, business, financial condition, and results of operations may be adversely affected, and we may not be able to sustain a viable business.
We may not succeed at commercial scale, or at all. The successful commercialization of the Kodiak Driver at scale involves many challenges and uncertainties, including:
• achieving acceptably safe autonomous performance as determined by us, our customers, government and regulatory agencies, our partners and the general public;
• continued development of the Kodiak Driver, including system design, product features, vehicle integrations and operating domain and geographical expansion, based on the needs of our customers;
• successfully completing system testing, validation, and to the extent required, safety approvals, including with respect to government and regulatory agencies and customer- or partner-specific requirements;
• maintaining relationships with third parties, including OEMs, third-party suppliers of the component parts of the Kodiak Driver, upfitters, large language model providers, and other technology providers that support our product development and service providers and other third parties who support our commercialization strategy;
• preserving our core intellectual property rights and obtaining rights from third parties for intellectual property that may be critical to our current and future research and development activities;
• continuing to fund and maintain our technology development activities while scaling our commercial operations; and
• obtaining or maintaining approvals, licenses, or certifications from regulatory agencies, if required.
We have incurred net losses since inception, and we may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
We have incurred net losses since our inception. During the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023, we incurred net losses of $585.5 million, $69.5 million, and $56.9 million, respectively. We intend to continue making investments in our business, particularly with respect to scaling driverless commercial operations of the Kodiak Driver, which may take longer than we currently expect or may never occur. We expect such investments will include continued investments in sales and marketing, development of new product features, infrastructure, expansion of our operations, and
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general and administrative functions, including legal, regulatory, compliance, security, and accounting expenses related to our business. These investments may not result in increased revenue or growth in our business and may contribute to future losses. We have incurred, and expect to incur in the future, losses for a number of reasons, including further investments in scaling our commercial operations, unexpected expenditures or costs, and the other risks described in this “ Risk Factors ” section. If we are unable to successfully address these risks as we encounter them, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be adversely affected.
Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter.
Legacy Kodiak was founded in 2018, and since then we have been focused on developing driverless technology. We began driverless commercial operations in December 2024. Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter. Risks and challenges we have faced or expect to face include our ability to:
• design, develop, test, and validate the Kodiak Driver for the variety of commercial applications and environments in which we plan to deploy, such as on-highway and off-highway operations, industrial applications, and defense applications;
• produce and deliver our technology at an acceptable level of safety and performance;
• properly price our solution;
• plan for and manage our costs;
• hire, integrate, and retain talented people;
• forecast our revenue as well as budget for and manage our expenses;
• attract new partners and customers and retain and expand our deployment with existing partners and customers;
• navigate an evolving and complex regulatory environment;
• manage our supply chain and supplier relationships, including any tariff-related impacts on our supply chain;
• anticipate and respond to macroeconomic changes and changes in the markets in which we operate;
• maintain and enhance the value of our reputation and brand;
• effectively manage our growth and business operations, including the impacts of unforeseen market changes on our business;
• develop and protect intellectual property; and
• successfully develop new features, applications, and services to enhance the experience of our customers.
If we fail to address the risks and difficulties that we face, including those associated with the challenges listed above, as well as those described elsewhere in this section titled “Risk Factors,” our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected. Further, because we have limited historical financial data and operate in a rapidly evolving market, any predictions about our future revenue and expenses may not be as accurate as they may be if we had a longer operating history or operated in a more predictable market. We have encountered in the past, and will encounter in the future, risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies with limited operating histories in rapidly changing industries. We use assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties to plan and operate our business. If our assumptions are incorrect or change, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our results of operations may differ materially from our expectations and our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be adversely affected.
Our technology may have limited performance, and technology development and commercialization may take us longer to complete than we currently anticipate.
Commercial operation of driverless technology requires that we meet very high reliability standards for safety, performance and uptime. We may be unable to release new features or customize products that meet our intended commercial use cases or customer requirements in a timely manner or at all, and therefore experience more limited monetization of our technology. We believe the Kodiak Driver can operate in a wide range of environments, including a variety of road conditions, speeds, weather and traffic patterns, as well as different truck types and truck loads. However, if
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the Kodiak Driver, or its hardware or software fails to perform at scale in such environments, or if our technology development takes longer than currently projected, our commercial competitiveness, prospects, business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.
Further, technological development or commercialization at scale has taken longer than initially anticipated in the AV industry. While we have successfully launched commercial operations with the Kodiak Driver in an off-highway setting, it may take us more time than anticipated to expand our safety case for driverless operations for on-highway scenarios, to scale across our areas of operations, or to establish and grow our existing or future customer or partner relationships. Our future business depends in large part on our ability to continue to develop and successfully commercialize the Kodiak Driver. Our ability to develop, deliver, and commercialize the Kodiak Driver at scale to support or perform autonomous and driverless operations on a variety of vehicle types and in a variety of conditions is still largely unproven. Any failure to meet our technological and commercialization objectives may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
The Kodiak Driver may not be accepted and adopted by the market, the public, regulators or other stakeholders at the pace we expect or at all.
AV technology is still nascent and is neither generally understood nor universally accepted. We are at risk of adverse publicity which may result in decreased customer demand for, public acceptance of, or increased regulatory concerns regarding our technology. If we cannot gain sufficient trust in our technology, we will be unable to commercialize to scale as intended. For example, we may experience adverse publicity or media reports that argue autonomous technology is replacing human jobs or disrupting the economy. Labor unions may also raise concerns about autonomous truck safety, displacing drivers or otherwise negatively affecting employment opportunities for their members. This has in the past resulted in, and could in the future result in, negative publicity, lobbying efforts to U.S. local, state, and federal authorities, or equivalent authorities in the foreign jurisdictions in which we seek to do business, to implement legislation or regulations that make it more difficult to operate our business or boycotts of us or our users. Such negative publicity, media attention, or the activities of labor or other interest groups may cause current and future partners or customers to limit or terminate their business with us, which may significantly impact our ability to grow our business.
As the market for autonomous vehicles develops, the differences in the approaches of Kodiak and others may become more widely known to suppliers, insurers, regulators, and others. Until these distinctions are known and appreciated, the actions of a single market participant may be imputed to the autonomous industry as a whole. As such, as a result of any negative action or inaction by a third party, it is possible that suppliers, insurers, regulators, and others may refuse or cease to interact with or conduct business with the autonomous vehicle industry as a whole, including Kodiak.
If the market does not accept and adopt our services and technology at the pace we expect or at all, it may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Any failure to commercialize our solution at scale may have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We are a relatively new enterprise that is just beginning to commercially scale our business. For instance, in December 2024, we announced the delivery of our first Kodiak Driver-powered, customer-owned driverless trucks to Atlas. Following successful real-world operations and achievement of certain milestones, in March 2025, Atlas committed to deploying the Kodiak Driver on 100 Atlas-owned trucks, subject to the terms of a Master Services Agreement between us and Atlas, effective as of July 17, 2024 (as supplemented, the “Atlas MSA”). Relationships with Atlas and other current customers are important to our existing operations. We also need to both successfully scale driverless operations with Atlas and other customers and attract new customers to commercially scale our business. As part of our scaling efforts, we may encounter considerable challenges in entering new markets and undertaking sales and marketing activities, many of which are beyond our control. The likelihood of our success must be considered in light of these potential risks, expenses, complications, delays, and the competitive environment in which we operate. Consequently, there is substantial uncertainty that our business model will prove successful and sustainable. We may not be able to generate significant revenue or achieve profitability. In addition, any failure to commercialize our solutions within our projected timelines may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Any investment in us is therefore highly speculative and may result in the loss of your entire investment.
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We rely on a limited number of customers for a significant portion of our revenue. The loss of, or a reduction in our commercial relationship with, any of those customers may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
A significant portion of our revenue has been generated from a limited number of customers, and we expect that to continue in the near term. For example, for the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023, we recognized revenue from the U.S. Army of $1.0 million, $13.3 million, and $15.0 million , respectively, which represented 26%, 89%, and 89% , respectively, of our revenues in such periods. While our contract with the U.S. Army was amended in connection with our work with the U.S. Marines and is still effective and the contract may be used for other work through its expiration in October 2026, there are currently a limited number of contracted deliverables to be completed. Government contracts, and associated revenue, particularly those with the DoW and its service branches, can be episodic in nature and difficult to predict from period to period. Further, we have historically derived a significant portion of our defense revenue from contracts pursuant to programs funded by governmental agencies, such as the DoW and the U.S. Army. A prolonged federal government shutdown may negatively impact the funding of, or eliminate, such programs or other programs we may otherwise be able to apply for or participate in, and shutdown and funding related delays in the contracting process may result in our incurring substantial labor or other costs without reimbursement, all of which may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
In 2024, we partnered with Atlas and deployed our first Kodiak Driver-powered, customer-owned trucks. In March 2025 upon the achievement of certain milestones, Atlas committed to deploying the Kodiak Driver on 100 Atlas-owned trucks, subject to the terms of the Atlas MSA. Until we have scaled our commercial operations in on-highway operations and other applications of the Kodiak Driver, we expect our contract with Atlas to account for a growing portion of our revenue as we continue to deploy additional trucks to Atlas. For example, for the year ended December 31, 2025 , we recognized revenue from Atlas of $1.8 million, which represented 46% of our total revenue.
As we continue to scale our commercial business, the composition of our significant customers may vary. We believe our business, financial condition, and results of operations for the foreseeable future will continue to depend on the deployment of the Kodiak Driver by a relatively limited number of customers into their fleets.
Consequently, our financial results may fluctuate significantly from period to period based on the actions of one or more significant customers. A customer may decide not to license the Kodiak Driver or take other actions that affect us for reasons that we cannot anticipate or control. Those reasons could relate to the customer’s financial condition, changes in the customer’s business strategy or operations, changes in technology, the introduction of alternative competing products, or the perceived quality or cost-effectiveness of the Kodiak Driver. Our customers may not perform as well as their competitors, which may cause them to delay or reduce the amount of business they do with us, which may in turn impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Customers’ individual or aggregate needs may decline due to a number of factors, including supply chain challenges and macroeconomic conditions. Our agreements with customers may be cancelled, including for reasons outside of our control. In addition, our customers may seek to renegotiate the terms of agreements or renewals, or choose not to renew or expand their licenses of the Kodiak Driver. The loss of or a reduction in sales or anticipated sales to any customer or our inability to attract new significant customers and partners may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We depend heavily on our commercial agreements with Atlas. If we are not able to maintain and expand our relationship with Atlas, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.
We are party to the Atlas MSA, pursuant to which we license to Atlas, through its logistics subsidiary, Fountainhead Logistics, LLC, the Kodiak Driver and provide related services, on Atlas-owned trucks. Under the Atlas MSA, Atlas subscribes to the Kodiak Driver, paying an annual fee per vehicle. A four-year term commences under the Atlas MSA on the date the vehicle upfitted with the Kodiak Driver is delivered to and accepted by Atlas. The Atlas MSA remains in effect so long as there are active licenses of the Kodiak Driver thereunder.
As of December 31, 2025 , Atlas is our sole customer with driverless vehicles integrated into their fleet. Until we have scaled our business, we expect the Atlas MSA to account for a significant and growing portion of our revenue. Although we anticipate that the Atlas MSA will generate revenue for us through the initial order of 100 Kodiak Driver-powered, Atlas-owned trucks and beyond, we may fail to satisfy our obligations under the Atlas MSA, Atlas may elect not to enter into additional orders for the Kodiak Driver, and we may not otherwise realize the anticipated benefits at the time or to the degree we anticipate, or at all. The loss of all or a portion of the revenue attributable to the Atlas MSA may
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adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Further, while Atlas is contractually obligated to deploy the Kodiak Driver on 100 Atlas-owned trucks at an agreed-upon schedule, Atlas is not required to license the Kodiak Driver in any additional trucks beyond this figure. Atlas may also license the Kodiak Driver slower than anticipated or seek a delay or defer delivery of Kodiak Driver-powered trucks, which may be exacerbated by the volatility and swings in productivity that have historically affected oil and gas industry participants.
Atlas has certain contractual rights in the MSA that could prevent, in limited circumstances, the Kodiak Driver being licensed to its competitors both performing transportation services and geographic locations where Atlas operates. Furthermore, both we and Atlas have the ability to terminate the Atlas MSA under certain circumstances. If Atlas terminates the Atlas MSA or does not elect to license more than 100 Kodiak Drivers, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects may be adversely affected.
AV technology presents the risk of significant injury, including fatalities. Any incidents with our technologies could cause us to be subject to product liability claims that may result in significant direct or indirect costs and could adversely affect our brand image in our target markets, all of which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
AV technology presents the risk of significant injury, including fatalities. We may be subject to claims if our technology is involved in a crash and people are injured or allege to be injured or our technology causes or is alleged to have caused property damage. The occurrence of any errors or defects in our products may make us liable for damages and legal claims. In addition, we may incur significant costs to correct such issues, potentially including product recalls. Any negative publicity related to the perceived quality of our technology may affect our brand image, customer demand, and regulator and public trust. Also, liability claims may result in litigation, including class actions, the occurrence of which may be costly, lengthy and distracting and may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Any product recall or material incident in the future may result in adverse publicity, damage our brand and reputation and may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In the future, we may voluntarily or involuntarily initiate a recall if any vehicles powered by our AV technology prove to be defective or non-compliant with applicable FMVSSs. Such recalls involve significant expense and diversion of management attention and other resources, which may adversely affect our brand image in our target markets, as well as our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Once we scale our commercial operations, we may be required to obtain specialized insurance, which may not be available to the capacity or on the terms that we require to achieve the economics we expect. Further, any insurance that we carry may not be sufficient or it may not apply to all situations. Similarly, our customers and partners may be subjected to claims as a result of such accidents and bring legal claims against us. Any of these events may adversely affect our brand, relationships with customers and partners, business, financial condition, and results of operations.
The Kodiak Driver may not function as intended due to flaws or errors in our software, hardware, and systems, product defects, or due to human error, which may adversely affect our business.
Our AV technology is highly technical and complex and may contain undetected flaws, errors or vulnerabilities that may adversely affect our business, particularly to the extent such flaws, errors or vulnerabilities are not detected and remedied quickly. Certain errors or defects in our solutions may only be discovered after they have been tested, commercialized, and deployed. We have from time to time found defects and errors in our software and hardware, internal systems, manual processes, and technical integrations with third-party systems, including as a result of updates to our software, hardware and systems. Additionally, new errors or vulnerabilities may be introduced in the future. In connection with any such defects or errors, we may also face government inquiries or investigations, recalls and litigation, including with respect to personal injury or property damage. As a result of such defects or errors, we may incur additional costs or expenses to remediate the issues. We rely on component and product suppliers to manufacture components incorporated into the Kodiak Driver. As a result, our control over production and distribution is limited, and it is uncertain what effect such diminished control may have on the quality of our products. If there are defects in the manufacture of our hardware components, we may face similar negative publicity, investigations, and litigation, and we may not be fully compensated by our suppliers for any financial or other liability that we suffer as a result. As our business grows in size and complexity, these risks may increase.
We may also provide incremental releases of software updates and functional enhancements for our solutions, which increase the possibility of errors. The solutions we provide are designed to process complex environments and control
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complex components, all with high data loads and fast processing speeds. Any errors, data leaks, security breaches or incidents, disruptions in services, or other performance problems with our solutions caused by external or internal actors may hurt our reputation and damage our and our customers’ businesses. Such incidents may disrupt the proper functioning of our solutions, cause errors, result in loss or unavailability of, unauthorized access to, or disclosure of, proprietary, confidential or otherwise sensitive data of us or our customers, or other destructive outcomes. Moreover, errors in our hardware or software design or manufacture may cause product safety issues. Any of the foregoing issues may lead to product recalls, result in costly and time-consuming efforts to redesign and redistribute our products, give rise to regulatory inquiries and investigations, and result in reimbursement obligations, lawsuits and other liabilities and losses, any of which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Any flaws or misuse of AV technology, whether actual or perceived, intended or inadvertent, by us or third parties, may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
AV technology is in the early stages of development and will continue to evolve. Similar to many innovations, AV technology presents risks and challenges. Some of those risks and challenges include potential misuse by third parties which negatively impact public confidence, violate applicable laws and regulations, or undermine safety. Such misuse may affect customer perception, public opinion, and the views of policymakers and regulators and result in decreased adoption of autonomous technology. While we have adopted a series of measures to prevent misuse of our technologies, we cannot assure you that any of our existing and future measures will be sufficient, effective, or that our technologies will not be misused or applied in a way that is inconsistent with our intention or public expectations.
Furthermore, any inappropriate or abusive usage of AV technology, whether actual or perceived, intended or inadvertent, and whether by us or by third parties, or flaws or deficiencies in AV technology, actual or perceived, in our solution or those of our competitors, may impair the general acceptance of autonomous technology by society, attract negative publicity and adversely affect our reputation, violate applicable laws and regulations. Any such misuse could subject us to legal or administrative proceedings, pressures from stockholders and/or labor organizations, and other public interest groups or heightened scrutiny by regulators. Each of the foregoing events may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Unauthorized control or manipulation of systems in autonomous vehicles may cause them to operate improperly or not at all, or compromise their safety and cybersecurity, which may result in loss of confidence in us and our solutions and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
There have been reports of vehicles being “hacked” to grant access to and operation of the vehicles to unauthorized persons. Kodiak Driver-powered autonomous vehicles contain complex information technology networks and systems and are designed with built-in data connectivity. We have implemented, and continue to implement, measures intended to prevent unauthorized access to the information technology networks and systems installed in such vehicles. However, hackers or unauthorized third parties may attempt to gain unauthorized access to modify, alter, or use such networks and systems to gain control of, or to change, such vehicles’ functionality and performance characteristics, or access our Operations Center or Assisted Autonomy systems, or access data stored in or generated by us or our solutions. As techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to or sabotage systems change frequently and may not be known until launched against us or our third- party service providers, there can be no assurance that we will be able to anticipate, or implement adequate measures to protect against, these attacks. Any such incidents may result in unexpected control of or changes to the vehicles’ functionality and safe operation and may result in legal claims or proceedings against us and negative publicity, which may adversely affect our brand and reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations.
We have provided, and may in the future provide, certain progress and performance metrics, including the Autonomy Readiness Measure. These metrics are subject to inherent challenges in measurement; real or perceived inaccuracies in such metrics and metrics values that are below expectations could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
We have provided, and may in the future provide, a measure of our progress toward the long-haul launch of the Kodiak Driver (the “Autonomy Readiness Measure” or “ARM”). The ARM is the weighted function of completeness of our safety case, which is an internally-derived, claims-based approach that provides a generalized structured argument to addressing safety items implicated by developing and operating self-driving technology on public roads. There are inherent challenges in calculating the ARM, including the fact that management judgment is used, including when applying weighting to individual pieces of evidence that support the claims that we are making in our safety case based on, among
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other things, complexity, effort required to complete, scope of the Company’s commercial launch route, as well as when evaluating the percentage complete of a particular piece of evidence. If individual pieces of evidence supporting the claims of our safety case turn out to be more complex, more challenging to complete, insufficiently comprehensive or conclusive, or more time or capital intensive than we originally anticipated, adjustments will be required to be made to our calculations of the ARM. If our ARM is not an accurate representation of our progress toward long-haul launch, or investors perceive this measure not to be accurate, or we discover material inaccuracies in the safety case or our calculations of the ARM, our reputation may be significantly harmed, the timing of the long-haul launch of the Kodiak Driver could be delayed, and our stock price could decline, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, our internal systems and tools have a number of limitations, and our methodologies for tracking the ARM may change over time, which could result in unanticipated changes to the metrics or estimates that we publicly disclose. If the internal systems and tools we use to track these metrics are not an accurate indicator of our performance or contain other technical errors, the data we report may not be accurate. While these numbers are based on what we believe to be reasonable estimates of our metrics for the applicable period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring our progress toward our long-haul launch.
Our brand and reputation may be harmed by negative publicity or safety and other concerns regarding the Kodiak Driver and our company. Failure to maintain, protect and enhance our brand may limit our ability to expand or retain our customer base, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We must maintain and enhance our brand identity and reputation and increase market awareness of the Kodiak Driver and our company. The successful promotion of our brand will depend on our efforts to achieve widespread acceptance of our technology and solutions, as well as attract and retain customers. We also need to maintain our current market leadership and successfully differentiate our technology and solutions from our competitors. These efforts require substantial expenditures and management attention. We anticipate that those expenditures will increase as our market becomes more competitive, and as we expand our operations. These investments in brand promotion and thought leadership may not yield increased revenue in amounts that offset the increased expenses we incur, or at all, and may require investment of substantial management time. Our brand value and reputation also depend on our ability to provide safe, secure and trustworthy solutions, address customer needs, and protect and use our customers’ and partners’ data in a manner that meets their expectations. Any safety or security incidents or the reporting or perception that they have occurred could result in legal claims or proceedings, regulatory inquiries, investigations and other proceedings, or negative publicity, any of which could harm our reputation or our brand. Damage to our reputation and loss of brand equity may reduce demand for our solutions, cause us to lose customers, and require additional resources to rebuild our reputation and restore the value of our brand, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
From time to time, we may receive negative publicity, including negative comments on social media platforms or through traditional media about our company, our business, our directors and management, our brand, our technology and solutions, our workforce impacts, our suppliers, our customers or other business partners. This negative publicity may be the result of malicious harassment or unfair competition acts by third parties. We could become subject to government or regulatory investigation as a result of such third-party conduct. We might also be required to spend significant time and incur substantial costs to defend ourselves against such third-party conduct. We may be unable to refute the claims within a reasonable period of time, or at all. Any such negative publicity could negatively impact our brand and reputation, and may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We operate in a highly competitive market and some market participants have substantially greater resources. If we are unable to compete effectively, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.
The markets in which we operate are highly competitive and are characterized by rapid technological change. Our future success will depend on our ability to scale our commercial operations and adoption of our solutions in a timely manner to stay ahead of existing and new competitors. Several companies, including Aurora Innovation, Nuro, Tesla, Waabi, Waymo, and Zoox, are investing heavily in building AV technology. These companies compete with us directly and indirectly by offering AV technology for the same or similar use cases. If our competitors, including those mentioned above, develop superior technology, or are perceived to have better technology, they may capture market opportunities and establish relationships with customers and partners that might otherwise have been available to us. Further, certain of our competitors have greater financial, marketing, R&D, and other resources than we do, and in certain circumstances are supported by large multinational corporations. In the event that one or more of these competitors broadly commercializes
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their technology before or more successfully than we do, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.
We may experience difficulties in managing our growth and expanding our operations.
We expect to experience significant growth in the scope and nature of our operations and commercial deployments. Our ability to manage our operations and future growth will require us to continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls, compliance programs, and business processes. We are currently in the process of strengthening our compliance programs, including in relation to cybersecurity, privacy and anti-corruption. We may also need to reduce our reliance on manual operations in the areas of billing and reporting and make certain other improvements to support our complex arrangements and the rules governing revenue and expense recognition for our future operations. We may not be able to implement improvements in an efficient or timely manner. We may also discover deficiencies in existing controls, programs, systems and procedures, which may have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations as well as the accuracy of our reporting.
Our success is contingent on our ability to successfully execute our DaaS business model, including by maintaining, managing, executing, retaining, and expanding our existing customer relationships and obtaining new customers.
Our DaaS business model, which we launched in December 2024 in connection with our partnership with Atlas, and our AV technology is integrated into customer vehicles. Any failure to successfully maintain, manage, execute, retain, and expand these existing customer relationships and obtain new customers operating under our DaaS model may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
In addition, customers may be less likely to adopt our solution if they are not convinced that our business will succeed or that our operations and technology will continue in the long term. Similarly, suppliers and other third parties will be less likely to invest time and resources in developing business relationships with us if they are not convinced that our business will succeed. Accordingly, in order to build and maintain our business, we must maintain confidence among partners, customers, suppliers, and other parties in our solution, long-term financial viability and business prospects. Maintaining such confidence may be particularly complicated by certain factors including those that are largely outside of our control. Such factors include our limited operating history, lack of customer familiarity with our technology, any delays in scaling deployments, delivery and service operations to meet demand, competition and uncertainty regarding the future of AVs compared with market expectations.
For our DaaS business model to be successful, we will need to enter into additional long-term contracts and commercial arrangements on acceptable terms with new and existing customers. In the event we are not able to enter into such contracts, we may not be able to implement our DaaS business model in the timeframe anticipated, or at all. This could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our inability to plan and manage our costs may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
As we grow, we expect our expenses to increase. In order to become a profitable business, we must continuously push initiatives to optimize supporting cost components such as autonomous and truck systems maintenance, cloud storage, telecommunications and satellite data feeds, facilities, operations and personnel costs. In addition, we must manage hardware costs by engineering cost-effective designs for our platform components, achieve adequate scale, manage tariffs, and finalize hardware specifications while enabling continued software improvements. Planning for and managing costs will require significant coordination with our suppliers, partners, and customers. We may not adequately plan for or achieve adequate cost management as expected or at all, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Recent and further changes in the tariff and trade policies of the United States or of other countries could increase manufacturing costs, decrease demand for our solution, disrupt supply chains, or otherwise adversely affect our business and financial condition.
There is currently significant uncertainty about the future relationship between the United States and its trading partners with respect to trade policies, tariffs, and similar policies affecting cross-border operations. The U.S. Government has made and continues to make significant additional changes in U.S. trade policy, specifically tariffs, and may continue to take future actions that could negatively impact our business, including escalating tariffs on the import of goods from most U.S. trading partners. For example, since February 2025, the United States has imposed additional 10-35% fentanyl-
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related tariffs on certain goods from China, Canada, and Mexico with exceptions for items qualifying for duty-free treatment under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (“USMCA”), and additional reciprocal tariffs on China (currently 10%). The U.S. Government has also implemented Section 232 tariffs on various items based on a finding that certain imports threaten to impair U.S. national security , including but not limited to certain articles of steel and aluminum (currently 50%); passenger vehicles, trucks, and automotive components (currently 25%); and articles of copper (currently 50%). In addition, the U.S. Department of Commerce has initiated Section 232 investigations into additional products, including semiconductors and related manufacturing equipment, processed critical minerals, and derivative products; when these investigations are complete, the U.S. Government may decide to levy additional tariffs on such products. The U.S. Government has also imposed, increased, or maintained Section 301 tariffs of 7.5%-100% on certain commodities from certain U.S. trading partners, most prominently China and Brazil. Since April 2025, the U.S. Government has also imposed additional reciprocal tariffs of between 10%-125% on imports from most U.S. trading partners, with certain products exempt from these reciprocal tariff measures, including but not limited to items subject to Section 232 tariffs and certain semiconductors, computers, and other products derivative of critical minerals. However, the scope of these tariffs and exclusions is subject to change.
The recent changes in tariff and trade policy underscore the uncertainty regarding the future relationships between the United States and its trading partners. In response to these and other U.S. trade measures, China, Canada, and other affected countries have taken retaliatory actions to respond. Such actions include the imposition of retaliatory tariffs on imports of products of U.S. origin, the imposition of export controls on a wide array of products (including rare earth metals and other critical minerals), as well as other actions. The adoption of retaliatory actions by China prompted the United States to further increase its tariff measures, and continued escalation of tariffs and trade measures could result in the outbreak of a trade war. The trade and tariff policies of the United States and other countries are currently fluid and subject to further changes.
These and future changes to trade policy and tariffs could negatively impact our business. While we plan to obtain components from multiple sources whenever available and desirable, some of the components used in our hardware and technology are currently purchased from a single or limited number of suppliers. These single or limited source suppliers are located in China, the European Union and Mexico. Thus, while we will make efforts to mitigate the impacts of escalated tariffs on our supply chain, we may be unsuccessful in fully mitigating these effects, or unable to do so at reasonable cost. Recent increases in the tariffs imposed by the United States or other countries may: (i) have an uncertain effect on the manufacture of our products, including affecting the availability of our products, or of materials used in our products; (ii) affect the prices at which our products, or materials used in our products, may be obtained; (iii) result in customers delaying orders pending additional certainty in the tariff landscape; and (iv) may have other effects. Should the trade relationships between the United States and its trading partners remain strained or worsen, our business, liquidity, financial condition, and results of operations may therefore be materially and adversely affected.
We depend on the experience and expertise of our senior management team, engineers, and certain other key employees. The loss of any executive officer or key employee, or the inability to identify, recruit and retain qualified employees in a timely manner, may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our success depends largely upon the continued services of our executive officers, engineers, and certain other key employees. We rely on our executive officers, engineers, and key employees in the areas of business strategy, research and development, marketing, communications, sales, services, and general and administrative functions. We compete for talent with other companies, including companies that are larger and have greater resources than we do. Competition for talent in the AV and AI industries, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, is intense and often leads to increased compensation and other personnel costs. In addition, our compensation arrangements, such as our equity award programs, may not always be successful in attracting new employees and retaining and motivating our existing employees. Our continued ability to compete effectively depends on our ability to attract substantial numbers of qualified new employees and to retain and motivate our existing employees. Also, to the extent we hire employees from competitors or other companies, we may be subject to allegations that they have been improperly solicited or divulged proprietary or other confidential information of their former employers. Any material departures of our executive management team, engineers, or key employees, may individually or in the aggregate, adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Furthermore, changes to our board of directors and senior management, and unfavorable publicity regarding succession planning may adversely affect our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel. We do not maintain meaningful key-person insurance for any member of our senior management team or any other key employee.
We do not have employment agreements with our executive officers or other key personnel that require them to continue to work for us for any specified period. Accordingly, our executive officers and other key personnel may
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terminate their employment with us at any time. The loss of one or more of our executive officers, engineers, or key employees may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We rely on our third-party suppliers, OEMs, upfitters, services providers and partners, some of which are single or limited-source suppliers or providers of certain key components for, and services used in connection with, the Kodiak Driver, and are thus susceptible to supply shortages, long lead times for components, supply changes, and limitations or constraints on service provider support availability or capacity.
We rely on third-party suppliers, OEMs, upfitters, service providers and partners to design, develop, industrialize, manufacture, and supply components for the Kodiak Driver. While we plan to obtain components from multiple sources whenever available and desirable, some of the components used in our hardware and technology are currently purchased from a single or limited number of suppliers. Further, our agreement with Bosch provides for certain exclusivity rights should components reach certain quality, pricing, volume and other levels. We refer to these suppliers as our single or limited source suppliers. Some of the components we obtain from single or limited source suppliers are manufactured in China, and the pricing of these components has been and may continue to be significantly affected by tariffs.
Components from single or limited source suppliers are susceptible to supply shortages, long lead times, and changes in trade policies and other supply changes, any of which may disrupt our supply chain and may delay the scaling of our commercial operations. If we change suppliers for any components, significant delays may occur, including initial delays for software and hardware integration, engineering, and validation. Changing suppliers may also create a delay or shortage in supply and changes to manufacturing processes. These delays may adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and delay the scaling of our product.
We currently rely on partners, such as Roush, for vehicle integration, or upfitting, of the Kodiak Driver and for remote monitoring and remote assistance services. Collaboration with third parties to provide these services is subject to risks that are outside of our control. As we scale our operations, we expect to increase our reliance on these third parties.
We have in the past, and may in the future, experience delays in development and production when and if our suppliers do not meet agreed upon timelines or experience capacity constraints. There is also a risk of potential disputes with suppliers, OEMs, and partners which may stop or slow our ability to integrate the Kodiak Driver in customer fleets. If OEMs, suppliers or other partners determine that they will not support AV deployments or limit how AV technology can be deployed, including ODD expansion, using their components, or if we are unable to work collaboratively with such partners to integrate the Kodiak Driver with commonly used commercial trucks, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected. In addition, we cannot guarantee that our suppliers, OEMs, or upfitting partners will not deviate from agreed-upon quality standards, which could result in delays or, if undetected by us, quality issues that may adversely affect our brand and reputation, business, prospects and results of operations.
We may be unable to enter into agreements with suppliers, OEMs, or upfitting partners on terms and conditions acceptable to us. As a result, we may need to contract with other third parties or significantly add to our own production capacity. While we believe that we could establish alternate supply or service partner relationships, we may be unable to do so in the short term, or at all, at prices or quality levels and/or on terms that are favorable to us. Accordingly, we may experience significant delays while re-engineering our system to accept replacement parts. We may not be able to engage other third parties or establish or expand our own production capacity to meet our needs on acceptable terms, or at all. The expense and time required to adequately complete any transition may be greater than anticipated. Any of the foregoing may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We are subject to cybersecurity risks related to our operational systems, security systems, infrastructure, integrated software and partners’ and customers’ data processed by us or third-party vendors. Any material failure, security breach or other cyber incidents may prevent us from effectively operating our business, and could result in investigations, litigation, or penalties, any of which may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We are at risk for breaches or other cyber incidents of operational systems, including business, financial, accounting, product development, data processing or production processes, owned by us or our third-party vendors or suppliers; facility security systems, owned by us, our customers, or our third-party vendors or suppliers; in-product technology owned by us or our third-party vendors or suppliers; our integrated software or artificial intelligence; and partner, customer, or driver data that we process or our third-party vendors or suppliers process on our behalf. Any such cyber incident may materially disrupt operational systems; result in loss of intellectual property, trade secrets or other proprietary or competitively
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sensitive information; compromise certain information of partners, customers, employees, suppliers, drivers or others; jeopardize the security of our facilities; or affect the performance of the Kodiak Driver. A cyber incident may be caused by disasters, insiders, through inadvertence or with malicious intent, or malicious third parties using sophisticated, targeted methods to circumvent firewalls, encryption and other security defenses, including hacking, fraud, trickery or other forms of deception. The techniques used by cyber attackers change frequently and may be difficult to detect for long periods of time. Although we maintain and continue to develop measures designed to protect us against security breaches and other cyber incidents, such measures require frequent updates and improvements. We cannot guarantee that such measures will be adequate to detect, prevent or mitigate cyber incidents. The implementation, maintenance, segregation and improvement of systems and measures designed to prevent cyber incidents requires significant management time, support and cost.
Moreover, there are inherent risks associated with developing, improving, expanding and updating current measures, including the disruption of our data management, procurement, production, finance, supply chain and sales and service processes. These risks may affect our ability to manage our data, procure parts or supplies or produce, sell, deliver and service our solutions, adequately protect our intellectual property or achieve and maintain compliance with, or realize available benefits under, applicable laws, regulations and contracts. We cannot be sure that the measures upon which we rely, including those of our customers, third-party vendors or suppliers, will be effectively implemented, maintained or expanded as planned. If we do not successfully implement, maintain or expand these systems as planned, our operations may be disrupted, our ability to accurately and timely report our financial results may be impaired, and deficiencies may arise in our internal control over financial reporting, which may impact our ability to certify our financial results. Moreover, our proprietary information or intellectual property may be compromised or misappropriated, or data (including personal information) could be exfiltrated or improperly used. Any material failure, security breach or other cyber incident may prevent us from effectively operating our business, cause us to lose competitive advantages, and subject us to investigations, litigation, or penalties, any of which may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. If these systems do not operate as we expect them to, we may be required to expend significant resources to make corrections or find alternative sources for performing these functions. In addition, our cyber insurance coverage may not be sufficient to cover all the losses we may experience as a result of a cyber incident.
Interruptions, outages, or failures of information technology and communications infrastructure and systems that we rely upon may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We currently rely on a variety of information technology and communications infrastructure and related systems, including cloud computing, cloud storage and telecom and satellite data feeds. For example, we use Amazon Web Services (“AWS”), which had a material outage in October 2025, to host portions of our technology and support our technology development. The availability and effectiveness of our services depend on the continued operation of AWS, and other third- party information technology and communications systems. Our systems, and those of our third-party service providers, including AWS, are vulnerable to damage, interruption, or any other compromise as the result of, among others, physical theft, fire, terrorist attacks, natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, power losses or shortages, war, telecommunications and satellite communication failures, viruses, denial or degradation of service attacks, ransomware, social engineering schemes, insider theft or misuse or other attempts to harm our systems. We use reputable third-party service providers or vendors to process a significant portion of our data. However, these providers are also vulnerable to harms similar to those that may damage our systems, including sabotage and cyberattacks, which may cause potential disruptions to our business, or unauthorized access to or use of our data, including personal information. Because our technology requires significant processing power, it may become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve our performance, especially during peak usage times, as we expand the use of the Kodiak Driver. Some of our systems may not be fully redundant, and our disaster recovery planning cannot account for all eventualities. Any problems with our communications, infrastructure, third-party cloud hosting providers or similar systems may result in lengthy interruptions to our business, adversely affecting our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Risks Related to the Government Contracts
A significant portion of our historical revenue has come from our contracts with the DoW, and our failure to receive and maintain government contracts or changes in the contracting or fiscal policies of the U.S. Government may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We have historically derived a significant portion of our revenue from contracts with U.S. Government agencies, in particular contracts with the U.S. Army for the automation of ground vehicles. Sales to such government agencies are subject to a number of challenges and risks. Selling to government agencies can be highly competitive, expensive, and time-consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that these efforts will generate
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a sale. We also must comply with laws and regulations relating to the formation, administration, and performance of contracts, and contract clauses including those arising from law, regulations and executive orders, all of which impose obligations and provide U.S. Government customers rights, many of which are not typically found in commercial contracts.
Accordingly, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected by certain events or activities, including:
• changes in fiscal or contracting policies or decreases in available government funding, particularly in the event of a federal government shutdown;
• changes in government programs, funding priorities, and requirements;
• changes in the political environment, including before or after a change to the leadership within the government administration, and any resulting uncertainty or changes in policy or priorities and resultant funding;
• changes in government administration and national and international priorities, including developments in the geopolitical environment;
• changes in the government’s attitude towards the capabilities that we offer, especially in the areas of national defense;
• changes in the government’s attitude towards us as a company or our solutions as viable or acceptable autonomy solutions;
• appeals, disputes, or litigation relating to government procurement, including bid protests by unsuccessful bidders on potential or actual awards of contracts to us by the government;
• the adoption of new laws or regulations or changes to existing laws or regulations;
• budgetary constraints, including automatic reductions as a result of “sequestration” or similar measures and constraints imposed by any lapses in appropriations for the federal government or certain of its departments and agencies;
• influence by, or competition from, third parties with respect to pending, new, or existing contracts with government customers;
• potential delays or changes in the government appropriations or procurement processes, including as a result of events such as war, incidents of terrorism, natural disasters, and public health concerns or epidemics;
• increased or unexpected costs or unanticipated delays caused by other factors outside of our control, such as supply chain constraints; and
• government exercises of contractual rights, including the right to terminate contracts when in the government’s interest; exercise contract options; the right to reduce orders under or otherwise modify contracts; cancel multi-year contracts and related orders if funds for contract performance for any subsequent year become unavailable; and prohibit future procurement awards with a particular agency due to a finding of organizational conflicts of interest based upon prior related work performed for the agency that would give a contractor an unfair advantage over competing contractors, or the existence of conflicting roles that might bias a contractor’s judgment.
Any such event, activity, or action, among others, may cause governmental agencies to delay or refrain from purchasing our solutions in the future, reduce the size or payment amounts of purchases from existing or new government customers, or otherwise adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
In addition, we may be required to compete for contracts in a competitive bidding process. We may compete directly with other suppliers or align with a prime or subcontractor competing for a contract. We may not be awarded the contract if the pricing or product offering is not competitive, either at our level or the prime or subcontractor level. In addition, in the event we are awarded a contract, we are subject to protests by losing bidders of contract awards that can result in the reopening of the bidding process, re-evaluation and new award of the contract to another bidder. In addition, we may be subject to multiple rebid requirements over the life of a program in order to continue to participate in such program, which can result in the loss of the program or significantly reduce our revenue or margin from the program. Further, the U.S. Government or a government contractor customer could require us to relinquish data rights to a product in connection with performing work on a government contract, which could lead to a loss of valuable technology and intellectual property in order to participate in a government program.
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Significant costs may be incurred to ensure compliance with requirements unique to government contracts. Uncertainty exists with regard to proposed and future changes to government contract regulatory requirements, and such changes could subject our company to increased risks and costs. We may be subject to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (“FAR”) and agency supplemental acquisition regulations including the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (“DFARS”) as well as other contractual terms that subject us to federal cybersecurity requirements. U.S. Government customers contractually require us to notify them of security breaches or other cyber incidents. If an actual or perceived breach of security measures, unauthorized access to our system or the systems of the third-party vendors that we rely upon, or any other cybersecurity threat occurs, we may face direct or indirect liability, costs, damages, or contract termination. In addition, our reputation in the industry and with current and potential customers may be compromised, our ability to attract new customers could be negatively affected, and our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. Amendments to DoW cybersecurity requirements, such as through amendments to the FAR or DFARS, may increase our costs or delay the award of contracts if we are unable to certify that we satisfy such cybersecurity requirements.
Certain of our customer contracts may be terminated by the customer at any time for convenience and/or may contain other provisions permitting the customer to discontinue contract performance, and if terminated contracts are not replaced, our results of operations may differ materially and adversely from those anticipated. In addition, our contracts with government customers often contain provisions with additional rights and remedies favorable to such customers that are not typically found in commercial contracts.
All or substantially all of our contracts, including our government contracts, contain termination for convenience provisions. Customers that terminate such contracts may also be entitled to a pro rata refund of the amount of the customer deposit for the period of time remaining in the contract term after the applicable termination notice period expires. Government contracts often contain provisions and are subject to laws and regulations that provide government customers with additional rights and remedies not typically found in commercial contracts. These rights and remedies allow government customers, among other things, to:
• terminate existing contracts for convenience with short notice;
• reduce orders under or otherwise modify contracts;
• for some contracts, (i) demand a refund, make a forward price adjustment, or terminate a contract for default if a contractor provided inaccurate or incomplete data during the contract negotiation process and (ii) reduce the contract price under triggering circumstances, including the revision of price lists or other documents upon which the contract award was predicated;
• cancel multi-year contracts and related orders if funds for contract performance for any subsequent year become unavailable;
• decline to exercise an option to renew a multi-year contract or issue task orders in connection with indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts;
• claim rights in solutions, systems, or technology produced by us, appropriate such work-product for their continued use without continuing to contract for our services, and disclose such work-product to third parties, including other government agencies and our competitors, which could harm our competitive position;
• prohibit future procurement awards with a particular agency due to a finding of organizational conflicts of interest based upon prior related work performed for the agency that would give a contractor an unfair advantage over competing contractors, or the existence of conflicting roles that might bias a contractor’s judgment;
• subject the award of contracts to protest by competitors, which may require the contracting federal agency or department to suspend our performance pending the outcome of the protest and may also result in a requirement to resubmit offers for the contract or in the termination, reduction, or modification of the awarded contract;
• suspend us from doing business with the applicable government; and
• control or prohibit the export of our services.
If a customer were to unexpectedly terminate, cancel, or decline to exercise an option to renew with respect to one or more of our significant contracts, or if a government were to suspend or debar us from doing business with such government, our business, financial condition, and results of operations would be materially harmed.
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Failure to comply with laws, regulations, or contractual provisions applicable to our business could cause us to lose U.S. Government customers or our ability to contract with the United States and other governments.
As a government contractor, we must comply with laws, regulations, and contractual provisions relating to the formation, administration, and performance of government contracts and inclusion on government contract vehicles, which affect how we and our partners do business with government agencies. As a result of actual or perceived noncompliance with government contracting laws, regulations, or contractual provisions, we may be subject to audits and internal investigations. This may prove costly to our business financially, divert management time, tarnish our brand among customers and potential customers, affect our ability to hire, attract and maintain qualified employees, or limit our ability to continue selling our platforms and services to our government customers. These laws and regulations may impose other added costs on our business. Failure to comply with these or other applicable regulations and requirements, including non-compliance in the past, could subject us to investigations, administrative proceedings, sanctions, enforcement actions, disgorgement of profits, claims for damages, civil and criminal penalties, termination of contracts and suspension or debarment from government contracting for a period of time with government agencies. Any negative outcome from such inquiries or investigations or failure to prevail in any possible civil or criminal litigation, damages, penalties, disruption, or limitation in our ability to do business with a government could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property Rights
We may not be able to adequately establish, maintain, protect, and enforce our technology and intellectual property rights or prevent others from unauthorized use of our technology and intellectual property rights, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Our efforts to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights and prevent third parties from violating our intellectual property rights may be costly and time-consuming, or less effective than anticipated.
Our technology and intellectual property rights are a valuable asset of our business. Our success depends in part on our ability to protect our core technology and intellectual property rights. Failure to adequately protect our technology or intellectual property rights may result in the loss of our ability to maintain a competitive advantage. Even if we are able to protect our technology and intellectual property rights, our competitors may be able to offer similar products and services without infringing our rights. We rely on a combination of patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets, in addition to employee and third-party nondisclosure agreements, intellectual property assignment agreements, intellectual property licenses, and other contractual rights, to establish, maintain, protect and enforce our rights in our technology and intellectual property rights, including trade secrets and other confidential information. Intellectual property laws and our procedures and restrictions provide only limited protection. Any of our intellectual property rights may be challenged, invalidated, circumvented, infringed or misappropriated. If we fail to protect our intellectual property rights adequately, we may lose an important advantage in the markets in which we compete. While we take measures to protect our technology and intellectual property rights, such efforts may be insufficient or ineffective, and any of our intellectual property rights may be challenged, which may result in them being narrowed in scope or declared invalid or unenforceable. Other parties may also independently develop technologies that are substantially similar or superior to ours, and we may not be able to prohibit uses of such technologies. We may also be forced to bring claims against third parties, or defend claims that they may bring against us, to determine the ownership or other rights in technology or intellectual property rights we regard as our own. The measures we take to protect our technology and intellectual property rights from unauthorized use by others may not be effective and there can be no assurance that our intellectual property rights or enforcement efforts will be sufficient to protect against others offering products, services or technologies that are substantially similar or superior to ours or that compete with our business.
To the extent that our employees, consultants, contractors, advisors and other third parties use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights in related or resulting know-how and inventions. While we seek to protect our rights in such know-how and inventions, the measures we take may not be sufficient. Costly and time-consuming litigation may be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our proprietary rights, and failure to obtain or maintain protection for our know-how and inventions may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
New regulations related to AI tools and the effects of such tools on the protectability of intellectual property are still being developed. Regulations may limit whether AI may generate or create enforceable intellectual property rights when AI tools are used. The use of AI tools by competitors may make identification of infringement of our intellectual property more difficult to detect.
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We may in the future be involved in litigation to enforce our intellectual property rights and to protect our trade secrets. Our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights or trade secrets may be met with defenses, counterclaims and countersuits, including challenges on the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property. Any litigation initiated by us concerning the violation by third parties of our intellectual property rights is likely to be expensive and time-consuming and is likely to be distracting to management. Any such litigation could lead to the invalidation of, or render unenforceable, our intellectual property rights, or may otherwise have negative consequences for us. Further, detecting unauthorized use of our technology or intellectual property rights may be difficult, expensive, and time consuming, and we may not be able to identify and seek to prevent such uses. 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, may delay the introduction and implementation of new technologies. This could result in us being required to substitute inferior or more costly technologies into the Kodiak Driver, or injure our reputation and the goodwill associated with our brand and business operations. Moreover, in certain foreign countries where the intellectual property laws may not be as protective as those in the United States and where mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be weak, we may be unable to stop others from infringing or misappropriating our intellectual property rights. If we fail to meaningfully establish, maintain, protect and enforce our intellectual property and proprietary rights, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.
We believe that our patents are fundamental to our solutions in the area of AV technology. Unauthorized parties may attempt to copy or reverse engineer our technology or certain aspects of our solutions that we consider proprietary. AI tools may make it easier for unauthorized parties to create copies of or reverse engineer our technologies. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our patents, to prevent unauthorized parties from copying or reverse engineering our solutions, to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others or to block the importation of infringing products into the United States. Initiation of any action related to patents may have multi-faceted responses, including defenses and counterclaims in the initiated action, invalidity actions in other governmental agencies, and other actions in other jurisdictions, possibly internationally. Such defenses could result in the invalidation or narrowing of our patent rights.
Whether initiated by us or a third party, any such litigation may result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources and attention. Additionally, it may force us to acquire intellectual property rights or licenses, which may involve substantial royalty or other payments and may not be available on acceptable terms, or at all. This may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Even if we obtain favorable outcomes in litigation, we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies, especially in the context of unauthorized parties copying or reverse engineering our solutions.
We rely on licenses from third parties for technology and intellectual property rights that are critical to our business, and we may lose the rights to use such technology or intellectual property rights if those agreements are terminated or not renewed.
We rely on licenses from certain of our partners and other third parties for technology and intellectual property rights that are or may become critical to our business. Termination of our current or future license agreements may cause us to have to negotiate new or restated agreements with less favorable terms or cause us to lose our rights under the original agreements. In such event, we could also incur delays and costs associated with the procurement of licenses for substitute technology or intellectual property rights, which may not be of the same quality or effectiveness as those provided under the prior license.
In the case of a loss of intellectual property rights used in the Kodiak Driver or our other proprietary systems, we may not be able to continue to integrate certain components into our solution or for our operations. We could also experience disruption to our manufacturing and procurement processes as we test and requalify any potential replacement technology. Even if we retain the licenses, the licenses may not be exclusive with respect to such component design or technologies, which may aid our competitors and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We may be subject to intellectual property infringement claims, which, whether meritless or not, may be expensive and time-consuming to defend, distract management, require us to pay significant damages and limit our ability to use certain technologies, any of which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The industry in which our business operates is characterized by a large number of patents, some of which may be of questionable scope, validity or enforceability, and some of which may appear to overlap with other issued patents. As a
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result, there is a significant amount of uncertainty in the industry regarding patent protection and infringement. In recent years, there has been a significant volume of litigation globally, including in the AV industry involving patents and other intellectual property rights, including suits initiated by non-practicing entities, such as patent holding companies. Third parties have asserted, and may in the future assert, that we have infringed, misappropriated or otherwise violated their intellectual property rights. We may not be able to obtain a license on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. As we face increasing competition and as a public company, the possibility of third parties asserting claims against us relating to intellectual property rights grows. Such claims and litigation may involve one or more of our competitors seeking to use their patents and other intellectual property rights to obtain a competitive advantage. Such claims could also be initiated by patent holding companies or other adverse intellectual property rights holders who have no relevant product and service revenue. Patents, patent applications and other intellectual property rights may provide little or no deterrence to these rights holders in bringing intellectual property rights claims against us. Patent holding companies may also be advantaged in a lawsuit by limited costs, at least in part because they do not provide products or services.
There may be intellectual property rights held by others, including issued or pending patents, that cover significant aspects of our technologies or business methods. We cannot assure you that we are not infringing or violating or have not infringed or violated any third-party intellectual property rights or that we will not be held to have done so or be accused of doing so in the future. Our use of AI tools in the development of our product may introduce infringement risks that may be harder for us to detect. In addition, because patent applications can take many years to issue and are not initially published for the public to view, there may be applications now pending of which we are unaware, which may later result in issued patents that technology may infringe. Given the highly competitive nature of the space in which we operate, we expect that in the future we may receive notices that claim we or our collaborators have misappropriated or misused other parties’ intellectual property rights, particularly as the number of competitors in our market grows.
Regardless of the merits, defending ourselves against any intellectual property claims brought by third parties may be time-consuming and could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our resources. These claims and any resulting lawsuits, if resolved adversely to us, may subject us to significant liability for damages, impose temporary or permanent injunctions against our solution, technologies or business operations, or invalidate or render unenforceable our intellectual property rights. We may not be able to obtain necessary licenses on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.
If our technology is determined to infringe a valid and enforceable patent, or if we wish to avoid potential intellectual property litigation on any alleged infringement, misappropriation or other violation of third party intellectual property rights, we may be required to do one or more of the following: (i) cease development, sales, provision or use of our solutions that incorporate, use, implement, or rely on the asserted intellectual property right; (ii) obtain a license from the owner of the asserted intellectual property right, which may be unavailable on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, or which may be non-exclusive, in which case our competitors and other third parties may obtain access to the same technologies licensed to us; (iii) pay substantial royalties or other damages; or (iv) redesign our technology or one or more aspects or systems of the Kodiak Driver to avoid any infringement or allegations thereof. These options may not always be commercially feasible. Additionally, in our ordinary course of business, we agree to indemnify our customers, partners and other commercial counterparties for claims of infringement of intellectual property rights arising out of their use of our technology, so we may face liability to our business partners or third parties for indemnification, the costs of defending the claim, or other remedies in the event that a claim subject to our indemnification obligation is made against them.
We license third-party technology or intellectual property rights. Consequently, we could face claims that our use of such in-licensed technology or exercise of such intellectual property rights infringes, misappropriates or otherwise violates the intellectual property rights of others. In such cases, we may be permitted to seek indemnification from our licensors under our agreement with the licensor. However, our rights to indemnification may be unavailable or insufficient to cover our costs and losses.
We also may not be successful in attempts to redesign our technology to avoid any alleged infringement. A successful claim of infringement against us, or our failure or inability to develop and implement non-infringing technology or receive a license for the infringed intellectual property rights on acceptable terms and on a timely basis, could adversely affect our business and results of operations. Furthermore, such lawsuits, regardless of their merit or success, would likely be time-consuming and expensive to resolve and might divert management’s time and attention from our business, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Also, such lawsuits, regardless of their merit or success, may harm our reputation with customers and in the industry at large.
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Our applications for patents or other intellectual property rights registration may not issue or be registered, which may adversely affect our ability to prevent others from commercially exploiting products and technologies similar to ours.
Registration of intellectual property rights can be an expensive and time-consuming process. This may involve both research as to the pre-existing rights of other parties and engagement with complex government procedures and documentation. It is possible that examiners, registrars, and other government authorities who oversee applications for registration of intellectual property rights would contest the validity or registrability of our intellectual property rights. Overcoming such registration challenges could require significant effort and expense. Regulations and procedures related to the examination of patent applications related to AI technologies continue to evolve. Existing or future pending patent applications may not be drafted in a manner sufficient to meet future requirements of examination. If we are not able to timely obtain registrations for our intellectual property rights, this will negatively affect our ability to enforce the same against infringers, which may in turn create risks for our business as said infringers continue to operate.
We cannot be certain that we are the first inventor of the subject matter to which we have filed a particular patent application, or if we are the first party to file such a patent application. If another party has filed a patent application that covers the same subject matter as the application we have submitted, we may not be entitled to the protection sought by the patent application. As a result, we cannot be certain that the patent applications that we file will issue, or that our issued patents will afford protection against competitors with similar technology. In addition, our competitors may design around our issued patents. Any unanticipated issues in the scope of the patent protection we seek may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Further, changes to patent law, or the inability to enforce our patents in certain jurisdictions, may limit the scope of our patents, limit the enforceability or validity of our patents, or be limited by subject matter eligibility, in part or fully.
Parties in various jurisdictions and/or overlapping markets may be currently using brands, logos, or trademarks that are the same as or confusingly similar to those that we currently use or intend to use. While we will endeavor to avoid the use of any brand or trademark which would cause consumer confusion, it is possible that the use of our brands or trademarks could create consumer confusion in certain markets or jurisdictions. In such an event, we may be required to modify or discontinue the use of our existing brands or trademarks in part or in whole. Any efforts to redesign or replace existing branding may be costly, disrupt customer recognition or public perception, require substantial marketing investments to rebuild brand awareness, or otherwise result in delays or disruption to the effective marketing of our solution. Any of these may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our patents may expire and may not be extended, our patent applications may not be granted and our patent rights may be contested, circumvented, invalidated, or their scope limited. As a result, we may not be able to prevent others from developing or exploiting competing technologies, which may adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
We cannot be certain that we will be granted patents pursuant to our pending applications. Even if our patent applications succeed and we are issued patents in accordance with them, these patents may still be contested, circumvented or invalidated in the future. Future innovations by others may provide opportunities to design around our granted patents. In addition, the rights granted under any issued patents may not provide us with meaningful protection or competitive advantages. The claims under any patents that issue from our patent applications may not be broad enough to prevent others from developing technologies that are similar or that achieve results similar to ours. The intellectual property rights of others may also bar us and our customers and licensees from exploiting any patents that issue from our pending applications or may otherwise limit the scope of any issued patent claims.
Numerous patents and pending patent applications owned by others exist in the fields in which we have developed and are developing our technology. These patents and patent applications might have priority over our patent applications and may result in our patent applications not being issued or being subject to significant limitations in their scope. Finally, in addition to those who may claim priority, any of our existing or pending patents may also be challenged by others on the basis that they are otherwise invalid or unenforceable.
Certain of our innovations are embodied in proprietary information that may not be patentable or subject to copyrights, trademark, trade dress or service mark protection.
Certain of our innovations are embodied in proprietary information, such as trade secrets, know-how and confidential information, such that those innovations may not be patentable or subject to copyright, trademark, trade dress, service mark
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protection or other registrable intellectual property, or that we believe is best protected by means that do not require public disclosure. We generally seek to protect this proprietary information by entering into third-party confidentiality agreements and consulting services or employment agreements that contain non-disclosure and non-use provisions with our employees, consultants, contractors and other third parties. However, we may fail to enter into the necessary agreements, and even if entered into, these agreements may be breached or may otherwise fail to prevent disclosure or misappropriation of our proprietary information, may be limited as to their term and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized disclosure or use of proprietary information. Trade secrets or confidential information may also be willfully or unintentionally disclosed, including by employees, who may leave our company and join our competitors.
Notwithstanding contractual protections, we have limited control over the protection of our trade secrets held or used by our customers, OEMs, upfitters, suppliers and partners, and may lose future trade secret protection if any unauthorized disclosure of such information occurs. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained by a competitor or other third party from our customers, OEMs, upfitters, suppliers and partners, we may have no right to prevent them from using that trade secret to compete with us. If any of our trade secrets were to be disclosed, whether lawfully or otherwise, to a competitor or other third party, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.
While we maintain policies to prevent trade secrets or confidential information from being disclosed in an inappropriate manner to third-party controlled large language models or other artificial intelligence, breaches of these policies, or unauthorized disclosures by third parties, may result in disclosure of information to third parties and could result in loss of our trade secrets or disclosure of our trade secrets or confidential information to our competitors. In addition, our proprietary information may be independently developed by our competitors or other third parties and we would have no basis to stop such uses. Any failure to protect our trade secrets or other proprietary information may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Furthermore, laws regarding trade secret rights in certain markets where we operate may afford little or no protection to our trade secrets.
We also rely on physical and electronic security measures to protect our proprietary information, but we cannot provide assurance that these security measures will not be breached or provide adequate protection for our property or any proprietary information that we hold. There is a risk that third parties may obtain and improperly utilize or disclose our proprietary information to our competitive disadvantage. We may not be able to detect or prevent the unauthorized use of such information or take appropriate and timely steps to enforce our intellectual property rights.
We may be subject to claims that we or our employees have wrongfully used or disclosed trade secrets or other proprietary information of our employees’ former employers, which, whether or not meritless, could be distracting to management, expensive and time-consuming to defend, and result in significant liability and harm our reputation, any of which may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our industry is highly competitive, specifically with respect to management, engineers and other key employees, and claims of trade secret misappropriation have been made in the past between competitors. We may be subject to claims that we or our employees have inadvertently, purposefully, or otherwise used or disclosed trade secrets or other proprietary information of an employee’s former employer. While we use reasonable efforts to advise against, and require our employees not to use any trade secrets or proprietary information from their former employers in the development of our technology and intellectual property, we cannot guarantee that our processes or requirements will be effective. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims, whether or not they have merit. Even if we are successful in defending against these claims, litigation may result in substantial costs and demands on management resources. If we fail in defending such claims, in addition to paying significant monetary damages, we may also lose the ability to utilize valuable intellectual property rights or retain key personnel. A loss of key personnel or their work product, or the ability to use proprietary information we regarded as our own, may hamper or prevent our ability to scale our commercial operations, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, if we are required to re-design or re-engineer our technology as a result of any such litigation, whether or not such litigation has merit, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be adversely affected.
Our software contains third-party open-source software components, which may expose us to information security vulnerabilities, result in failures, errors, and defects, and may not be supported now or in the future. Our failure to comply with the terms of the underlying open-source software licenses may restrict our ability to sell our products, give
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rise to claims for infringement or breach of contract, or require us to disclose and license certain of our proprietary source code.
Our software contains components that are licensed under so-called “open-source,” “free” or other similar licenses. Use and distribution of open-source software may entail greater risks than use of third-party commercial software, as open-source licensors generally do not provide support, warranties, indemnification, or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code. Accordingly, we cannot assure that the authors of such open-source software will implement or push updates to address security risks or will not abandon further development and maintenance. In addition, the public availability of such software may make it easier for others to compromise, copy or reverse-engineer our technology. Many of the risks associated with the use of open-source software cannot be eliminated. If not properly addressed, these risks could negatively affect our business, our intellectual property and the security of our systems, products and services. To the extent that our systems depend upon the successful operation of the open-source software it uses, any undetected errors or defects in such open-source software may prevent the deployment or impair the functionality or security of our systems or applications, delay the introduction of new solutions, result in a failure of our systems, products or services, and injure our reputation. For example, undetected errors or defects in open-source software may render it vulnerable to breaches or cyberattacks and make our systems more vulnerable to security breaches and other cyber incidents.
Open-source software is made available to the general public on an “as-is” basis under the terms of a non-negotiable license. Open-source license terms are often ambiguous, sporadically and unpredictably enforced, and there is little legal precedent governing their interpretation. Certain open-source licenses may give rise to obligations to disclose or license our source code or other intellectual property rights if such open-source software is integrated with our proprietary software or distributed in certain ways. We currently combine our proprietary software with open-source software, but not in a manner that we believe requires the release of the source code of our material proprietary software to the public. If we combine or distribute our proprietary software with open-source software in a manner that is determined to require disclosure of our proprietary software under the terms of an open-source license, we may decide to release the source code to our proprietary software as open-source software or cease using the relevant open-source software which might be costly or otherwise difficult to replace. In addition, if the license terms for newer versions of the open-source software that we use change, we may be forced to re-design or re-engineer our software, incur additional costs or discontinue the use of certain offerings if re-designing or re-engineering may not be accomplished in a timely manner.
Although we monitor our use of open-source software to avoid subjecting material proprietary software to unintended conditions, there is a risk that these licenses may be construed in a way that may impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our offerings. We may be subject to lawsuits by parties claiming ownership of what we believe to be open-source software or claiming non-compliance with the terms and conditions of an open-source license. Should that occur, we may incur significant legal costs defending ourselves against such allegations. If we were held to have breached or to have failed to fully comply with such terms and conditions, we may face infringement claims or other liability, including contractual liability, may be required to seek costly licenses from third parties to continue providing our technology, including on terms that are not economically feasible, to re-design or re-engineer our technology, or to make generally available, in source code form our proprietary code, any of which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results. We cannot guarantee that we have used open-source software in a manner that will not subject us to liability or in a manner that is consistent with our current policies and procedures.
We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights globally, and changes in U.S. intellectual property law may diminish the value of our intellectual property rights in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our products.
Decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court involving patent rights may have a significant impact on our ability to protect our technology and enforce our intellectual property rights. In addition, the extent to which intellectual property rights can be used to protect artificial intelligence, datasets, weights, and biases is not yet settled under U.S. law, and is subject to change. Any change to the treatment of intellectual property rights, or to the available scope of intellectual property rights in such technologies, may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Further, the standards applied by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) and foreign patent offices in granting patents are not always applied uniformly or predictably. For example, there is no uniform worldwide policy regarding patentable subject matter or the scope of claims allowable for business methods. As such, we do not know the degree of future protection that we will have on our technologies, products, and services. While we will endeavor to protect
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our technologies, products, and services with intellectual property rights such as patents, as appropriate, the process of obtaining patents is time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes unpredictable.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on several patent cases in recent years, such as Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc . and Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International , and the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit has ruled on cases such as Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox. Corp . In each case the courts have either narrowed the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances or weakened the rights of patent owners in certain situations. In addition to increasing uncertainty with regard to our ability to obtain patents in the future, these rulings have created uncertainty with respect to the value of patents, once obtained. Depending on decisions by the U.S. Congress, the federal courts, and the USPTO, the laws and regulations governing patents may change in unpredictable ways, which may weaken our ability to obtain new patents or to enforce our existing patents and patents that we might obtain in the future. Actions in foreign jurisdictions may create similar problems or may create divergent issues based on uncertain or different results.
Risks Related to Our Legal and Regulatory Environment
We are subject to substantial regulations, including regulations governing motor carriers and autonomous vehicles, and unfavorable changes to, whether initiated by regulators or through the pressure of organized labor, or failure by us to comply with, these regulations may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Currently, there are no FMVSSs or Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (“FMCSRs”) that expressly relate to the performance of AV technology. Further, there are currently no widely accepted uniform standards regarding AV technology and its commercial use. We work closely with law enforcement and regulators, and we have built organizational, operational, and safety processes to ensure that the performance of our technology meets rigorous standards. However, these measures may not meet future regulatory requirements enacted by government bodies. We may also be subject to future regulatory requirements that could limit the operation and commercialization of AV technology. In some jurisdictions, we may be required to present our own safety justification and evidence base, and in other areas it is possible that we may be required to pass specific autonomous safety tests. The failure to pass these safety tests or receive appropriate regulatory approvals for commercialization may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We move freight in interstate and intrastate commerce as a motor carrier authorized by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”) and other state transportation agencies and are subject to rules and regulations related to the safe operation on public roadways. Failure to comply with these rules and regulations may result in inquiries, investigations, and possible termination of motor carrier authority. For example, we are subject to the FMCSRs, including certain regulations that may be difficult for the Kodiak Driver to comply with. Most notably, operators of commercial motor vehicles, including us and our customers, are required in certain circumstances to place warning devices around trucks, including Kodiak Driver-powered trucks, stopped on the side of public roadways. While FMCSA recently approved an exemption process for warning triangle placement, we may not receive an exemption from USDOT, or USDOT may not change or eliminate this regulation, to provide us with an alternative approach to complying with this requirement or other similar operational requirements. Also, in installing our product onto the base vehicles, we must ensure the vehicles are not taken out of FMVSS compliance. Failure to do so may subject us to significant liabilities and possible barring of further vehicle development.
It is also possible that future autonomous regulations are not standardized, and our technology becomes subject to differing regulations across jurisdictions (e.g. federal, state, local, and international). For example, in Europe, certain vehicle safety regulations apply to automated braking and steering systems, and certain treaties also restrict the operations of certain higher levels of automation. As of December 31, 2025, 24 U.S. states have passed legislation allowing for the deployment of driverless trucks, and most other states allow testing with a safety driver in the vehicle. Many other states are considering legislation and regulations that may adversely affect autonomous and driverless technologies. Despite advances in U.S. state legislation, there is currently no comprehensive U.S. federal framework for autonomous vehicle deployment. This regulatory patchwork, and the ongoing legislative and regulatory efforts at various jurisdictional levels, may hinder the commercial deployment of our technology and adversely affect our business prospects and financial condition.
Further, organized labor, in particular the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, has opposed driverless technology and is increasingly using its political influence to attempt to slow or stop driverless deployment. In 2025, supporters of
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organized labor in approximately 20 states introduced legislation that would require human drivers to be physically present in all commercial motor vehicles equipped with AV technology. These states included California, Colorado, Delaware, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. As of December 31, 2025, no such introduced legislation has become law; however, organized labor and other opponents to driverless development may ultimately be successful and, even if unsuccessful, we may spend significant time and resources in opposition to such efforts, any of which may adversely affect our business, prospects, and results of operations.
Changes in automotive or autonomy safety regulations, enforcement of such regulations, or concerns about AV technologies that result in regulation of the AV ground transportation industry may adversely affect our business.
Government vehicle safety regulations could have a substantial impact on our business, prospects, and our future plans. Government safety regulations are subject to change based on a number of factors that are not within our control. Such factors include new scientific or technological data, adverse publicity regarding industry recalls and perceived or actual safety risks associated with autonomous ground transportation technology, crashes involving autonomous vehicles, domestic and foreign political developments or considerations, and litigation relating to autonomous vehicles. Changes in government regulations, especially in autonomous ground transportation and the ground transportation industry may adversely affect our business. If government priorities shift and we are unable to adapt to changing regulations, our business may be adversely affected.
The costs of complying with safety regulations may increase as regulators impose more stringent compliance and reporting requirements in response to product recalls and safety issues in the automotive industry. As the trucks that carry our systems go into production, we will be subject to existing stringent requirements under the Vehicle Safety Act, including a duty to report, subject to strict timing requirements, safety defects. The Vehicle Safety Act imposes potentially significant civil penalties for violations including the failure to comply with such reporting actions.
We are also subject to the existing U.S. Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation Act (the “TREAD Act”), which requires motor vehicle equipment manufacturers, such as us, to comply with “Early Warning” requirements by reporting certain information to the NHTSA such as information related to defects or reports of injury. The TREAD Act imposes criminal liability for violating such requirements if a defect subsequently causes death or bodily injury. In addition, the Vehicle Safety Act authorizes NHTSA to require a manufacturer to recall and repair vehicles that contain safety defects or fail to comply with U.S. federal motor vehicle safety standards. Sales into foreign countries may be subject to similar regulations.
Failures, or perceived failures, to comply with privacy or cybersecurity laws and regulations may adversely impact our business, and such legal requirements are evolving, uncertain and may require changes to our policies and operations, which could increase our costs or prevent us from effectively operating our business.
Our current and potential future operations and sales subject us to privacy and cybersecurity laws and regulations, including with respect to our collection, use, storage, disclosure, transfer and security of data, including personal data. Among other things, these regimes may impose cybersecurity requirements, disclosure requirements, and restrictions on personal data collection, uses, and sharing that may impact our operations and the development of our business. These requirements are evolving rapidly, with new laws and regulations proposed and enacted frequently in various jurisdictions, including the United States. Our solutions may evolve both to address evolving laws and regulations, potential customer or partner requirements, or to add new features and functionality that may change our privacy or cybersecurity obligations. Therefore, the full impact of these privacy and cybersecurity regimes on our business is unknown. Further, as laws and regulations change, or their interpretation changes, we may be required to implement measures that could adversely impact our expected business or commercial operations, and these changes could be costly to implement, result in increased risks to our business and operations, or otherwise adversely impact our business and operations or opportunities for commercialization of our technologies.
We are assessing the continually evolving privacy and cybersecurity regimes applicable to our business and measures we believe are appropriate in response. Since these privacy and cybersecurity regimes are evolving, uncertain and complex, we may need to update or enhance our compliance measures as our products, markets and customer and partner demands further develop. These updates or enhancements could require implementation costs. In addition, we may not be able to monitor and react to all developments in a timely manner. The compliance measures we do adopt may prove or be perceived to be ineffective. Any failure, or perceived failure, by us to comply with current and future regulatory, partner or customer-driven privacy or cybersecurity requirements may result in significant liability or costs. Any such actual or perceived failure could also result in a material loss of revenue resulting from the adverse impact on our reputation and
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brand, disruption to our business and relationships, and diminished ability to retain or attract partners and customers. Such events may result in governmental enforcement actions and prosecutions, private litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity, and may cause partners and customers to lose trust in us, which may have an adverse effect on our reputation and business, financial condition and results of operations.
An uncertain and evolving legal and regulatory environment relating to artificial intelligence may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We use artificial intelligence in our operations, product development, services, and our solution, and we rely on certain third-party artificial intelligence technologies in our operations, including generative AI-based VLMs. AI technologies are subject to evolving laws, regulations, guidance, and industry standards, which may expose us to legal liability or regulatory risk, including with respect to privacy, cybersecurity, publicity, contractual, or other rights. Litigation or other proceedings may be initiated by certain individuals claiming infringement of rights such as intellectual property, privacy or personality rights with respect to data we us to train our artificial intelligence models. We have adopted a series of measures, including the implementation of policies and management systems, to mitigate such risks. However, we cannot guarantee that these measures will be effective.
The use of artificial intelligence technologies also presents emerging ethical and social issues. Those issues may draw public scrutiny or controversy and may also create or assist in producing unexpected results, errors, or inadequacies, any of which may be difficult to detect. Issues relating to our use of artificial intelligence and the evolving legal and regulatory landscape applicable to such technologies may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We are subject to economic sanctions and export and import control laws and regulations. Our failure to comply with these laws and regulations may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our solutions are subject to U.S. economic sanctions, export controls and import control laws and regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, U.S. Customs regulations, and various economic and trade sanctions regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Additionally, U.S. economic sanctions apply to activities to our personnel in the United States as well as our personnel that are U.S. persons wherever located. U.S. economic sanctions and export control laws and regulations may prohibit the shipment of certain products and services to U.S. embargoed or sanctioned countries, governments, and persons, as well as shipments for certain end uses (e.g., military end uses). In addition, complying with customs laws, frequently changing U.S. tariff obligations, sanctions and export controls laws and regulations for a particular geography may be time-consuming and result in the delay or loss of revenue opportunities. Exports of our products and technology, and imports of items, including components, must be made in full compliance with applicable U.S. laws and regulations. If we fail to comply with these laws and regulations, we and certain of our employees may be subject to substantial civil or criminal penalties, including the possible loss of export or import privileges, fines that may be imposed on us and responsible employees or managers and, in extreme cases, the incarceration of responsible employees or managers.
We are subject to anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, financial and economic sanctions and similar laws, and non-compliance with such laws can subject us to administrative, civil and criminal fines and penalties, collateral consequences, remedial measures and legal expenses, all of which may adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations and also our reputation.
We are subject to anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, financial and economic sanctions and similar laws and regulations in various jurisdictions in which we conduct business or in the future may conduct activities, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the “FCPA”), the U.K. Bribery Act 2010, and other anti-corruption laws and regulations. The FCPA and the U.K. Bribery Act 2010 prohibit us and our officers, directors, employees and business partners acting on our behalf, including agents, from corruptly offering, promising, authorizing or providing anything of value to a “foreign official” for the purposes of influencing official decisions or obtaining or retaining business or otherwise obtaining favorable treatment. The FCPA also requires companies to make and keep books, records and accounts that accurately reflect transactions and dispositions of assets and to maintain a system of adequate internal accounting controls. The U.K. Bribery Act 2010 and other laws also prohibit non-governmental “commercial” bribery and soliciting or accepting bribes. A violation of these laws or regulations may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and also our reputation. While we have policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance with these regulations, we cannot assure you that none of our directors, officers, employees, representatives, consultants, agents, and business partners will engage in improper conduct for which we may be held responsible.
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Our non-compliance with anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering or financial and economic sanctions laws may subject us to whistleblower complaints, adverse media coverage, investigations, severe administrative, civil and criminal sanctions, collateral consequences, remedial measures and legal expenses. Should any of the foregoing occur, it could adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations and also our reputation. Responding to any investigation or action could also result in a materially significant diversion of management’s attention and resources and significant defense costs and other professional fees. In addition, changes in economic sanctions laws in the future may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We are subject to, and must remain in compliance with, environmental laws and regulations that may adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
We are subject to federal, state, local and foreign laws, regulations and ordinances relating to the protection of the environment. Such laws and regulations include those relating to emissions to the air, discharges to surface and subsurface waters, safe drinking water, greenhouse gases and the management of hazardous substances, oils and waste materials, as well as those specific to logistics for the oil and gas industry. Compliance with such laws and regulations can be costly, and our failure to comply with existing or new laws and regulations may result in the assessment of fines or penalties, the revocation or denial of permits, or the issuance of orders enjoining performance of some of our operations. Furthermore, under certain environmental laws and regulations, generators of waste materials, and current and former owners or operators of facilities, can be subject to liability for investigation and remediation costs at locations that have experienced or otherwise been affected by releases or contamination from hazardous substances or petroleum products, without regard to whether the generator, owner or operator knew of or caused the contamination or release. Liability under these laws and regulations has been interpreted to be strict, joint and several unless the harm is divisible and there is a reasonable basis for allocation of the responsibility. Accordingly, we may have to make expenditures for investigation or remediation costs incurred by governmental entities or third parties in connection with any releases or contamination at current or former properties. Environmental liabilities may arise and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
Concern over climate change, including the impact of global warming, has led to legislative and regulatory efforts to limit carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, and these efforts may continue, particularly at the state and local levels. Emission-related regulatory actions and climate disclosure requirements could result in increased costs that may adversely impact our results of operations. Such regulatory actions may require changes in our operating practices or require additional reporting disclosures. Compliance with climate-related disclosure laws and regulations may also increase our exposure to litigation or governmental investigations or proceedings. We may also encounter difficulties in collecting and managing data that affect timely compliance or incur significant costs to comply with increased regulation regarding environmental monitoring and climate disclosure requirements. More generally, compliance with environmental laws and regulations can require significant expenditures. In addition, we may incur costs to comply with such current or future laws and regulations, the violation of which may lead to substantial fines and penalties.
We are subject to, and must remain in compliance with, numerous laws and governmental regulations concerning the manufacturing, use, distribution, and sale of our technology. Some of our customers or partners may also require that we comply with their own unique requirements relating to these matters.
We develop and sell technology that contains electronic components. Such components may be subject to or may contain materials that are subject to government regulation in both the locations where manufacture and assembly of our products takes place, as well as the locations where we sell our solutions. This is a complex process which requires continual monitoring of regulations to ensure that we and our suppliers are in compliance with existing regulations in each market where we operate and where we intend to operate. If there is an unanticipated new regulation that significantly affects our use and sourcing of various components or requires more expensive components, that regulation may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Some of our customers or partners may also require that we comply with their own unique requirements relating to these matters. If we fail to adhere to such requirements or new regulations or fail to continually monitor updates to existing regulations, we may be subject to litigation, loss of customers or partners or negative publicity, any of which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Risks Related to Financial and Tax Matters
We require a significant amount of capital to fund our operations and growth. If we cannot obtain sufficient capital on acceptable terms, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be adversely affected.
The development and commercialization of our AV technology and solutions are capital-intensive. Our limited operating history means we have limited historical data on the demand for our solutions. As a result, our future capital requirements are uncertain and actual capital requirements may differ from those currently anticipated, particularly as we incur additional costs associated with operating as a public company. We expect to focus our investments on scaling our commercial operations and expect to continue investing in R&D to further enhance our AV technology. We may need to seek equity or debt financing , including in the near term in the form of issuing equity and equity-linked securities and incurring additional indebtedness, to fund a portion of our future expenditures. Such financing might not be available to us in a timely manner, on terms that are acceptable, or at all.
Our ability to obtain the necessary financing to carry out our business plan is subject to a number of factors, including general market conditions, our financial condition, investor acceptance of our business plan, regulatory requirements and the scale of our commercial operations. We may raise these additional funds through the issuance of equity, equity-linked, or debt securities. To the extent that we raise additional financing by issuing equity securities or equity-linked securities, our stockholders may experience substantial dilution. To the extent we engage in additional debt financing, we may become subject to further restrictive covenants that may limit our flexibility in conducting future business activities. Financial institutions may request credit enhancements such as third-party guarantees and pledges of equity interest in order to extend loans to us. We cannot be certain that additional funds will be available to us on attractive terms when required, or at all. If we cannot raise additional funds when we need them, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.
Our estimates of our cash needs may prove inaccurate in which case we may need to raise capital or change our operating plans and timelines.
We are spending significant amounts to develop our business and have estimated how much cash we will need on a quarterly basis until we raise additional funds or become cash flow positive. These estimates are based on our current operating plan and are subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control. Our estimates regarding our cash requirements may prove inaccurate, causing the actual amount to differ from our estimates. We expect to seek additional funding through debt or equity offerings to fund our operating plan. We may also find that our business operations are more expensive than we currently anticipate or that these efforts may not result in revenues, which may further increase our cash needs and losses. If our cash expenditures are higher than expected, we may need to raise additional capital or adjust our operating plans and timelines. There can be no assurance that we will be able to raise additional capital on acceptable terms or at all.
We have relied upon, and may continue to rely upon, certain assumptions and estimates to calculate certain metrics, including our Cumulative Hours of Paid Driverless Operations, and real or perceived inaccuracies in such metrics may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Certain of the metrics and figures that we disclose, such as Cumulative Hours of Paid Driverless Operations, have been calculated using internal company data that has not been independently verified. While these metrics and figures are based on what we believe to be reasonable calculations for the applicable periods of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring these metrics and figures. We regularly review our metrics, and may adjust our processes for calculating metrics and other figures to improve their accuracy, but these efforts may not prove successful, and we may discover material inaccuracies. In addition, our methodologies for calculating these metrics may be updated from time to time and may differ from the methodologies used by other companies to calculate similar metrics and figures. We may also discover unexpected errors in the data that we are using that resulted from technical or other errors.
In addition, our total addressable market and opportunity estimates are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may prove inaccurate. The projections, forecasts and estimates that we disclose from time to time relating to the expected size and growth of the markets for AV technology may prove similarly imprecise. There is no guarantee that we will be able to successfully commercialize our solutions at scale within the addressable market opportunities presented. Even if the market in which we compete meets our size estimates and growth forecasts, our business could fail to grow at the levels we expect or at all for a variety of reasons outside our control, including competition in our industry. If securities analysts or investors do not consider any metric we may disclose in the
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future to be accurate representations of our business, or if we discover material inaccuracies in our estimates, then the market price of our securities may decline, and our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be adversely affected.
If our judgments or estimates relating to our critical accounting policies are based on assumptions that change or prove to be incorrect, our results of operations may fall below expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price.
The preparation of our financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make judgments, estimates, and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates in part on historical experience, market observable inputs, if available, and various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as provided in the section titled “ Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Critical Accounting Estimates .” Significant judgments, estimates, and assumptions used in preparing our financial statements include, or may in the future include, those related to revenue recognition, stock-based compensation, and valuation of financial instruments. Our results of operations may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which may cause our results of operations to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the trading price of our securities.
Our current and future insurance coverage may not be adequate to protect us from all business risks or may be prohibitively expensive.
In the ordinary course of business, we may be subject to losses resulting from product liability, accidents, acts of God, errors and omissions, cyber claims, and other claims against us, for which we may have insufficient insurance coverage or no insurance coverage. Further, because we operate in a new and thus inherently risky industry, insurance policies may not be available to us on terms and rates that are acceptable to us or at all. In addition, as a general matter, the policies that we do have may include significant deductibles or self-insured retentions. Accordingly, we cannot be certain that our current and future insurance coverage will be sufficient to cover all future losses or claims against us. A loss that is uninsured or which exceeds policy limits may require us to pay substantial amounts, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Further, actions or inactions of others in our industry, through no fault of our own, may materially increase the cost of insurance and/or materially decrease the coverage available to us on commercially reasonable terms. Insurance policies may not exist, or may be insufficient, for possible novel claims or causes of action which may be pled or come into existence in the future based upon our continued development of new technologies.
If we are unable to develop and maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results in a timely manner, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and adversely affect our business and operating results.
As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and Nasdaq listing standards. Among other things, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and related Exchange Act rules require that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that we evaluate and report on our system of internal controls. In addition, we are required to have our independent public accounting firm attest to and report on our internal control over financial reporting when we cease qualifying as an “emerging growth company” pursuant to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (the “JOBS Act”).
We are continuing to develop and refine our disclosure controls and other procedures that are designed to assure that information required to be disclosed by us in the reports that we will file with the SEC is recorded, processed, summarized, and reported within the time periods specified in SEC rules and forms and that information required to be disclosed in reports under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to management, including our principal executive and financial officers, to allow timely decisions regarding disclosure. We are also continuing to improve our internal control over financial reporting. We have expended, and anticipate that we will continue to expend, significant resources to maintain and improve the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting.
Our current controls and any new controls that we develop may become inadequate because of changes in the conditions in our business. Further, weaknesses in our disclosure controls or our internal control over financial reporting may be discovered in the future. Any failure to develop or maintain effective controls, or any difficulties encountered in
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their implementation or improvement, may harm our results of operations or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations and may result in a restatement of our financial statements for prior periods. Any failure to implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting may also adversely affect the results of periodic management evaluations and annual independent registered public accounting firm attestation reports regarding the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting that we will eventually be required to include in our periodic reports that will be filed with the SEC. Ineffective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting may also cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial and other information, which would likely adversely affect the market price of our securities. In addition, if we are unable to continue to meet these requirements, we may not be able to remain listed on Nasdaq.
Any failure to maintain effective disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations and may cause a decline in the market price of our securities.
Unanticipated changes in effective tax rates, adverse outcomes resulting from examination of our income, changes in tax laws or regulations, changes in our ability to utilize our net operating loss, or other tax-related changes may adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition, and results of operations.
We are subject to income and other taxes in the United States and other jurisdictions, each of which has its own rules. Our current and future effective tax rates may be subject to volatility or adversely affected by a number of factors, including changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities; expected timing and amount of the release of any tax valuation allowances; tax effects of stock-based compensation; changes in tax laws, regulations or interpretations thereof; or lower than anticipated future earnings in jurisdictions where we have lower statutory tax rates and higher than anticipated future earnings in jurisdictions where we have higher statutory tax rates. In addition, we may be subject to audits of our income, sales and other transaction taxes by taxing authorities. Outcomes from these audits may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our current and future effective tax rates may be affected by changes in the mix of earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities and changes in tax laws or their interpretation. In addition, we may be subject to tax audits by various tax jurisdictions. Although we believe our tax liabilities are reasonably estimated and accounted for in accordance with applicable laws and principles, an adverse resolution by one or more taxing authorities may have a material impact on the results of our operations.
Recent changes and currently proposed changes in tax laws may have a material adverse effect on our business, cash flow, results of operations or financial conditions.
We are and will be generally subject to tax laws, regulations, and policies of several taxing jurisdictions. In addition, potential changes in tax laws, as well as other factors, may cause us to experience fluctuations in our future tax obligations and effective tax rates and otherwise adversely affect our future tax positions and/or our future tax liabilities. For example, in August of 2022, the United States enacted a 1% stock repurchase excise tax and a 15% alternative minimum tax on adjusted financial statement income as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Additionally, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (or “OBBB Act”), enacted on July 4, 2025, among other changes, added Section 174A to the Code, permitting the deduction of certain U.S. research and development expenditures incurred in tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2025, but expenditures attributable to research and development conducted outside the U.S. continue to be required to be capitalized and amortized over a 15-year period. We are currently evaluating the full impact of the OBBB Act on us. Further, many countries, and organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (the “OECD”) have proposed implementing changes to existing tax laws. The OECD has made proposals regarding the implementation of global minimum tax of at least 15% for multinationals with global revenue exceeding certain thresholds, known as “Pillar Two.” The OECD and participating jurisdictions have agreed to a “side-by-side” elective safe harbor that would exempt electing U.S.-parented multinational entities from certain provisions of Pillar Two for fiscal years beginning on or after January 1, 2026. Any of these or other developments or changes in U.S. federal, state, or international tax laws or tax rulings may adversely affect our current and future effective tax rate and our operating results. There can be no assurance that our current and future effective tax rates or tax payments will not be adversely affected by these or other developments or changes in law.
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Our ability to utilize our net operating loss carryforwards may be limited.
As of December 31, 2025 , we had estimated U.S. federal and state net operating loss carryforwards of approximately $288.7 million and $ 180.9 million , respectively. Our U.S. state net operating loss carryforwards subject to expiration will begin to expire in 2039 . In general, we may potentially use these net operating losses to offset taxable income for U.S. federal and state income tax purposes. Furthermore, our U.S. federal net operating losses generally may only be used to offset 80% of our taxable income. This may require us to pay U.S. federal income taxes in future years despite generating a loss for U.S. federal income tax purposes in prior years. Limitations under state law may differ. We have established a valuation allowance against the carrying value of these deferred tax assets.
In addition to the potential net operating loss limitations previously noted above, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code, a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” is subject to limitations on its ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards to offset future taxable income. The limitations apply if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” which is generally defined as a greater than 50 percentage point change (by value) in its equity ownership by one or more stockholders or groups of stockholders who own at least 5% of a company’s stock over a rolling three-year period. If we have experienced an ownership change at any time since our incorporation, we may already be subject to limitations on our ability to utilize our existing net operating loss carryforwards and other tax attributes to offset taxable income or tax liability. In addition, future changes in our stock ownership, which may be outside of our control, may trigger an ownership change. Similar provisions of state tax law may also apply to limit our use of accumulated state tax attributes. As a result, even if we earn net taxable income in the future, our ability to use our pre-change net operating loss carryforwards and other tax attributes to offset such taxable income or tax liability may be subject to limitations, which may potentially result in increased future income tax liability to us. In addition, for state income tax purposes, there may be periods during which the use of net operating loss carryforwards is suspended or otherwise limited, which could accelerate or permanently increase state taxes owed. For example, California recently enacted legislation that limits the use of state net operating losses for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2024 and before January 1, 2027.
We may incur substantial indebtedness which may adversely affect our business and limit our ability to plan for or respond to changes in our business.
We have in the past incurred and may continue to incur substantial indebtedness. Our ability to make payments on our debt obligations and to fund planned capital expenditures depends on our ability to generate cash from our future operations. To a certain extent, this, is subject to financial, competitive, legislative, regulatory and other factors that are beyond our control. In addition, if we cannot service our indebtedness, we may have to take actions such as selling assets, seeking additional equity or reducing or delaying capital expenditures, strategic investments and alliances, any of which may impede the implementation of our business plans, prevent us from entering into transactions that may otherwise benefit our business and/or adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. We may not be able to refinance our indebtedness or take such other actions, if necessary, on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.
Our credit facilities contain restrictive covenants and other terms that may impair our ability to conduct business.
Among other things, and in each case subject to certain exceptions, our credit facilities contain a number of customary affirmative and negative covenants that will limit or restrict our ability to: incur additional indebtedness (including guaranty obligations); incur liens; engage in mergers, consolidations, liquidations and dissolutions; sell assets; pay dividends and make other payments in respect of capital stock; make acquisitions, investments, loans and advances; make payments on or modify the terms of certain existing indebtedness; engage in certain transactions with affiliates; enter into pledges with respect to our intellectual property; and change our line of business. As a result of these covenants and restrictions, we are limited in how we conduct our business. We may also be unable to raise additional debt or other financing to compete effectively or to take advantage of new business opportunities. Our ability to comply with these covenants and restrictions may be affected by events beyond our control. Breaches of these covenants and restrictions may result in a default under the credit facilities, which would give the lenders the right to terminate their commitments to provide additional loans under the credit facilities and to declare all borrowings, together with accrued and unpaid interest and fees, to be immediately due and payable. The terms of any future indebtedness we may incur may include additional restrictive covenants. We may not be able to maintain compliance with these covenants. If we fail to do so, we may not be able to obtain waivers from the lenders or amend the covenants, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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We may be unable to generate sufficient cash flow to satisfy our significant debt service obligations, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Our ability to make scheduled payments on or to refinance our debt obligations depends on our financial condition and results of operations, which are subject to prevailing economic and competitive conditions and to certain financial, business, legislative, regulatory, and other factors beyond our control. We may not be able to maintain a level of cash flows from operating activities sufficient to permit us to pay the principal, premium, if any, or interest on our indebtedness. If our cash flows and capital resources are insufficient to fund our debt service obligations, we may be forced to reduce or delay strategic acquisitions and partnerships, capital expenditures, and payments on account of other obligations, seek additional capital, restructure, or refinance our indebtedness, or sell assets. These alternative measures may not be successful and may not permit us to meet our scheduled debt service obligations. Our ability to restructure or refinance our debt will depend on the condition of the capital markets and our financial condition at such time. Any refinancing of our debt could be at higher interest rates and could require us to comply with more onerous covenants, which could further restrict our business operations. In addition, we cannot assure you that we will be able to refinance any of our indebtedness on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.
If we are unable to repay or otherwise refinance our indebtedness when due, or if any other event of default is not cured or waived, the applicable lenders could accelerate our outstanding obligations or proceed against the collateral granted to them to secure that indebtedness. Should that occur, it could force us into bankruptcy or liquidation. In the event the applicable lenders accelerate the repayment of our borrowings, we may not have sufficient assets to repay that indebtedness. Any acceleration of amounts due under the agreements governing our credit facilities or the exercise by the applicable lenders of their rights under the security documents could have a material and adverse effect on our business.
There is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a “going concern.”
Although our audited financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023 were prepared under the assumption that we will continue our operations as a going concern, we have incurred and expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses. Management has concluded that these circumstances raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern, and the reports of our independent registered public accounting firms that accompany our financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023 include an explanatory paragraph which states certain conditions exist that raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern in relation to the foregoing.
Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including the rate of adoption of the Kodiak Driver and our DaaS model and the associated revenue growth, the expenses associated with such growth, and the timing and extent of our research and development efforts. If we are unable to raise sufficient capital when needed, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected, and we may need to significantly modify our operational plans to continue as a going concern. We do not anticipate that our cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2025 , which includes the net cash proceeds from the consummation of the business combination, will be sufficient to meet our capital requirements for at least one year under our current operating plan. We expect to seek additional funding from debt or equity offerings, which may result in substantial dilution or additional restrictive covenants. If we do not generate sufficient cash to fund our operating plan, we may also adjust our operating plan to reduce our research and development initiatives, lower our anticipated growth plans or liquidate our assets, among other things. To the extent any or all of these events were to occur, our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects may be materially and adversely affected. In conjunction with such a liquidation, the values we receive for our assets in liquidation or dissolution may be significantly lower than the values reflected in our financial statements. Our lack of cash resources and our potential inability to continue as a going concern may adversely affect our stock price and our ability to raise new capital or to enter into critical contractual relations with third parties due to concerns about our ability to meet our contractual obligations.
The financial statements contained elsewhere in this report do not include any adjustments that might result from our inability to continue as a going concern. Please see the section of this Annual Report titled “ Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources ” for additional information.
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Risks Related to Our Securities
There can be no assurance that we will be able to comply with the continued listing standards of Nasdaq.
Our common stock and Public Warrants are listed on Nasdaq under the symbols “KDK” and “KDKRW,” respectively. Although we currently meet the continued listing standards set forth in the Nasdaq listing standards, we cannot assure you that our securities will continue to be listed on Nasdaq in the future. To continue listing our securities on Nasdaq, we must maintain certain financial, distribution and share price levels. Generally, we must maintain a minimum market capitalization (generally $50 million), a minimum market capitalization attributable to publicly held shares (generally $15 million) and a minimum number of holders of our securities (generally 400 public holders).
If Nasdaq delists our securities from trading on its exchange and we are not able to list our securities on another stock exchange, we expect our securities could be quoted on an over-the-counter market. If this were to occur, we could face significant material adverse consequences, including:
• a limited availability of market quotations for our securities;
• reduced liquidity for our securities;
• a determination that our securities are a “penny stock” which will require brokers trading in our securities to adhere to more stringent rules and possibly result in a reduced level of trading activity in the secondary trading market for our securities;
• a limited amount of news and analyst coverage; and
• a decreased ability to issue additional securities or obtain additional financing in the future.
An active trading market for our securities may not develop, which may limit your ability to sell such securities.
Although we list our common stock and Public Warrants on Nasdaq under the ticker symbols “KDK” and “KDKRW,” respectively, an active trading market for such securities may never develop or be sustained. A public trading market having the desirable characteristics of depth, liquidity and orderliness depends upon the existence of willing buyers and sellers at any given time, such existence being dependent upon the individual decisions of buyers and sellers over which neither we nor any market maker has control. The failure of an active and liquid trading market to develop and continue would likely have a material adverse effect on the value of our common stock and Public Warrants. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital to continue to fund operations by issuing our common stock and Public Warrants.
Delaware law and our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws contain certain provisions, including anti- takeover provisions, that limit the ability of stockholders to take certain actions and could delay or discourage takeover attempts that stockholders may consider favorable.
Our Certificate of Incorporation, Bylaws and the DGCL contain provisions that could have the effect of rendering more difficult, delaying, or preventing an acquisition deemed undesirable by our Board and therefore depress the trading price of our common stock. These provisions could also make it difficult for stockholders to take certain actions, including electing directors who are not nominated by the then-current members of our Board or taking other corporate actions, including effecting changes in management. Among other things, our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws include provisions regarding:
• the ability of our Board to issue shares of our preferred stock, known as “blank check” preferred stock, and to fix by resolution or resolutions the designations, powers, preferences and rights, and the qualifications, limitations or restrictions thereof, of any series of our preferred stock, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquirer;
• the limitation of the liability of, and the indemnification of, our directors and officers;
• the right, subject to the rights of holders of our preferred stock to elect directors under specific circumstances, of our Board to appoint a director to fill a vacancy or unfilled seat created by the expansion of our Board or the resignation, death or removal of a director, which prevents stockholders from being able to fill vacancies or other unfilled seats on our Board;
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• the requirement, so long as our Board is classified, that directors may only be removed from our Board for cause and upon the affirmative vote of the holders of at least the majority of the total voting power of our issued and outstanding common stock entitled to vote in the election of directors, voting as a single class;
• the requirement that, subject to the terms of any series of our preferred stock, a special meeting of stockholders may be called only by: (i) our Board acting pursuant to a resolution adopted by a majority of the directors then serving on our Board; (ii) the chairperson of our Board; or (iii) our Chief Executive Officer or president and the explicit prohibition on stockholders calling a special meeting, which could delay the ability of stockholders to force consideration of a proposal or to take action, including the removal of directors;
• controlling the procedures for the conduct and scheduling of our Board and stockholder meetings;
• the requirement for the affirmative vote of holders of at least 66 2/3% of the total voting power of all of our then outstanding voting securities entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class, to amend or modify certain provisions in our Certificate of Incorporation which could preclude stockholders from bringing matters before annual or special meetings of stockholders and delay changes in our Board and also may inhibit the ability of an acquirer to effect such amendments to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt;
• the ability of our Board to alter or amend our Bylaws, which may allow our Board to take additional actions to prevent an unsolicited takeover and inhibit the ability of an acquirer to amend our Bylaws to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt; and
• advance notice procedures with which our stockholders must comply to nominate candidates to our Board or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which could preclude stockholders from bringing matters before annual or special meetings of stockholders and delay changes in our Board and also may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain our control.
These provisions, alone or together, could delay or prevent hostile takeovers and changes in control or changes in our Board or management.
As a Delaware corporation, we are generally subject to provisions of Delaware law, including the DGCL.
Any provision of our Certificate of Incorporation, Bylaws or Delaware law that has the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control could limit the opportunity for 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 Bylaws designate a state or federal court located within the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for certain types of actions and proceedings, and the federal district courts as the exclusive forum for Securities Act claims, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to choose the judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, stockholders or employees.
Our Bylaws provide that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (or, if the Court of Chancery does not have jurisdiction, another state court in Delaware or the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware) shall, to the fullest extent permitted by law, be the sole and exclusive forum for (i) any derivative action, suit or proceeding brought on our behalf, (ii) any action, suit or proceeding asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our director, stockholder, officer or other employee to us or our stockholders, (iii) any action, suit or proceeding arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL, our Certificate of Incorporation or our Bylaws (as either may be amended from time to time) or (iv) any action, suit or proceeding asserting a claim governed by the internal affairs doctrine, except for, as to each of (i) through (iv) above, any claim as to which such court determines that there is an indispensable party not subject to the jurisdiction of such court (and the indispensable party does not consent to the personal jurisdiction of such court within 10 days following such determination). If any action the subject matter of which is within the scope of the immediately preceding sentence is filed in a court other than the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware (a “Foreign Action”) in the name of any stockholder, such stockholder shall be deemed to have consented to (i) the personal jurisdiction of the state and federal courts in the State of Delaware in connection with any action brought in any such court to enforce the provisions of the immediately preceding sentence and (ii) having service of process made upon such stockholder in any such action by service upon such stockholder’s counsel in the Foreign Action as agent for such stockholder. Our Bylaws also provide that, to the fullest extent permitted by law, the federal district courts of the United States will be the sole and exclusive forum for the resolutions of any complaint asserting a cause or causes of action arising under the Securities Act. This provision in our Bylaws would not address or apply to claims that arise under the Exchange Act. Section 27 of the Exchange Act creates exclusive federal jurisdiction
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over all suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or the rules and regulations under the Exchange Act. To the extent these provisions could be construed to apply to such claims, there is uncertainty as to whether a court would enforce such provisions in connection with such claims, and stockholders cannot waive compliance with the federal securities laws and the rules and regulations under the federal securities laws.
Any person or entity purchasing, holding or otherwise acquiring any interest in any of our securities will be deemed to have notice of and consented to the provisions of our Bylaws described in the preceding paragraph. These exclusive-forum provisions may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum of its choosing for disputes with us or our directors, officers, stockholder or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits against us and our directors, officers, stockholders and other employees. The enforceability of similar exclusive-forum provisions in other companies’ certificates of incorporation has been challenged in legal proceedings, and it is possible that, in connection with one or more actions or proceedings described above, a court could rule that this provision in our Bylaws is inapplicable or unenforceable. If a court were to find these exclusive-forum provisions to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving the dispute in other jurisdictions, which could harm our results of operations.
Our Certificate of Incorporation does not limit the ability of the SPAC Sponsor, certain affiliates or funds associated with the SPAC Sponsor or our non-employee directors to compete with us.
Ares Acquisition Holdings II LP (the "SPAC Sponsor"), certain affiliates or funds associated with the SPAC Sponsor and our non-employee directors and their respective affiliates engage in a broad spectrum of activities, including investments in similar business activities or lines of business in which we now engage or propose to engage. In the ordinary course of their business activities, the SPAC Sponsor, certain affiliates or funds associated with the SPAC Sponsor and our non-employee directors and their respective affiliates may engage in activities in which their interests conflict with our interests or those of our stockholders. Our Certificate of Incorporation provides that, to the fullest extent permitted by law, none of the SPAC Sponsor, certain affiliates or funds associated with the SPAC Sponsor, our non-employee directors or any of their respective affiliates (including any non-employee director who serves as our officer in such person’s director and officer capacities) has any duty to refrain from engaging, directly or indirectly, in the same business activities or similar business activities or lines of business in which we engage or propose to engage or otherwise competing with us, our stockholders, or any of our affiliates.
Further, to the fullest extent permitted by law, in the event that any of the SPAC Sponsor, certain affiliates or funds associated with the SPAC Sponsor and our non-employee directors and their respective affiliates acquires knowledge of a potential transaction or other business opportunity which may be a corporate opportunity for itself, herself or himself and us or any of our affiliates, they will have no duty to communicate or offer such transaction or other business opportunity to us or any of our affiliates and will not be liable to us or our stockholders or to any of our affiliates for breach of any fiduciary duty as a stockholder, director or officer of ours solely by reason of the fact that they pursue or acquire such corporate opportunity for themselves, offer or direct such corporate opportunity to another Person, or do not communicate information regarding such corporate opportunity to us or any of our affiliates. The SPAC Sponsor, certain affiliates or funds associated with the SPAC Sponsor and their respective directors and officers may pursue, in their capacities other than as directors of our Board, acquisition opportunities that may be complementary to our business, and, as a result, those acquisition opportunities may not be available to us. The SPAC Sponsor, certain affiliates or funds associated with the SPAC Sponsor and their respective directors and officers may have an interest in pursuing acquisitions, divestitures and other transactions that, in its judgment, could enhance its investment, even though such transactions might involve risks to you.
Our business and operations could be negatively affected if we become subject to any securities litigation or stockholder activism, which could cause us to incur significant expense, hinder execution of business and growth strategy and impact our stock price.
In the past, following periods of volatility in the market price of a company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been brought against that company. Stockholder activism, which could take many forms or arise in a variety of situations, has been increasing recently. Volatility in the stock price of our common stock or other reasons may in the future cause it to become the target of securities litigation or stockholder activism. Securities litigation and stockholder activism, including potential proxy contests, could result in substantial costs and divert management’s and our Board’s attention and resources from our business, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, such securities litigation and stockholder activism could give rise to perceived uncertainties as to our future, adversely affect its relationships with service providers and make it more difficult to attract and retain
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qualified personnel. We may also be required to incur significant legal fees and other expenses related to any securities litigation and activist stockholder matters.
Further, our stock price could be subject to significant fluctuation or otherwise be adversely affected by the events, risks and uncertainties of any securities litigation and stockholder activism.
Risks Related to Our Warrants
We may amend the terms of the Public Warrants in a manner that may be adverse to holders of Public Warrants with the approval by the holders of at least 50% of the then-outstanding Public Warrants. As a result, the exercise price of your Public Warrants could be increased, the exercise period could be shortened and the number of common stock purchasable upon exercise of a Public Warrant could be decreased, all without your approval.
The Public Warrants are issued under a Warrant Agreement (the “Warrant Agreement”). The Warrant Agreement provides that the terms of the Public Warrants may be amended with the approval of the holders of at least 50% of the then-outstanding Public Warrants to make any change that adversely affects the interests of the registered holders of Public Warrants. Accordingly, we may amend the terms of the Public Warrants in a manner adverse to a holder if holders of at least 50% of the then-outstanding Public Warrants approve of such amendment and, solely with respect to any amendment to the terms of the Private Placement Warrants or any provision of the purchase agreement with respect to the Private Placement Warrants, 50% of the number of the then-outstanding Private Placement Warrants. Examples of such amendments could be to increase the exercise price of the Warrants, convert the Warrants into cash, shorten the exercise period or decrease the number of common stock purchasable upon exercise of a Warrant.
The Warrant Agreement designates the courts of the State of New York or the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York as the sole and exclusive forum for certain types of actions and proceedings that may be initiated by holders of our Public Warrants, which could limit the ability of Public Warrant holders to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us.
Subject to applicable law, the Warrant Agreement provides that: (i) any action, proceeding, claim or dispute against us arising out of or relating in any way to the Warrant Agreement, including under the Securities Act, will be brought and enforced in the courts of the State of New York or the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; and (ii) that we irrevocably submit to such jurisdiction, which jurisdiction shall be the exclusive forum for any such action, proceeding or claim. We will waive any objection to such exclusive jurisdiction and that such courts represent an inconvenient forum. However, with respect to any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act or the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder, there is uncertainty as to whether a court would enforce this provision, because Section 22 of the Securities Act creates concurrent jurisdiction for state and federal courts over all suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Securities Act or the rules and regulations thereunder.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, these provisions of the Warrant Agreement will not apply to suits brought to enforce any liability or duty created by the Exchange Act or any other claim for which the federal district courts of the U.S. are the sole and exclusive forum. Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in any of the Public Warrants shall be deemed to have notice of and to have consented to the forum provisions in the Warrant Agreement. If any action, the subject matter of which is within the scope the forum provisions of the Warrant Agreement, is filed in a court other than a court of the State of New York or the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (a “foreign action”) in the name of any holder of the Public Warrants, such holder shall be deemed to have consented to: (i) the personal jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in the State of New York in connection with any action brought in any such court to enforce the forum provisions (an “enforcement action”), and (ii) having service of process made upon such warrant holder in any such enforcement action by service upon such warrant holder’s counsel in the foreign action as agent for such warrant holder.
This choice-of-forum provision may limit a warrant holder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us, which may discourage such lawsuits. Alternatively, if a court were to find this provision of the Warrant Agreement inapplicable or unenforceable with respect to one or more of the specified types of actions or proceedings, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such matters in other jurisdictions, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and result in a diversion of the time and resources of our management and members of our Board.
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There is no guarantee that our Public Warrants will ever be in the money, and they may expire worthless.
The exercise price for our Public Warrants is $9.28 per share of our common stock, subject to adjustment. There is no guarantee that the Public Warrants will be in the money prior to their expiration, and as such, our Public Warrants may expire worthless.
Your Public Warrants may be redeemed prior to their exercise at a time that is disadvantageous to you.
We may redeem outstanding Public Warrants at any time after they become exercisable and prior to their expiration, at a price of $0.01 per warrant, if the closing price of our common stock equals or exceeds $14.53 per share (as adjusted for adjustments to the number of shares issuable upon exercise or the exercise price of a warrant) for any 20 trading days within a 30-trading day period ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which we send the notice of redemption to the warrant holders, and if certain other conditions are met. If and when the Public Warrants become redeemable by us, we may exercise our redemption right even if we are unable to register or qualify the underlying securities for sale under all applicable state securities laws. As a result, we may redeem Public Warrants even if the holders are otherwise unable to exercise the warrants. Redemption of the outstanding Public Warrants could force you to: (i) exercise your Public Warrants and pay the exercise price therefor at a time when it may be disadvantageous for you to do so; (ii) sell your Public Warrants at the then- current market price when you might otherwise wish to hold your Public Warrants; or (iii) accept the nominal redemption price which, at the time the outstanding warrants are called for redemption, is likely to be substantially less than the market value of your Public Warrants.
You may only be able to exercise your Public Warrants on a “cashless basis” under certain circumstances, and if you do so, you will receive fewer shares of our common stock from such exercise than if you were to exercise such Public Warrants for cash.
The Warrant Agreement provides that in the following circumstances holders of Public Warrants who seek to exercise their Public Warrants will not be permitted to do for cash and will, instead, be required to do so on a cashless basis in accordance with Section 3(a)(9) of the Securities Act: (i) if the shares of our common stock issuable upon exercise of the Public Warrants are not registered under the Securities Act in accordance with the terms of the Warrant Agreement; (ii) if we have so elected and the shares of our common stock are at the time of any exercise of a Public Warrant not listed on a Stock Exchange such that they satisfy the definition of “covered securities” under Section 18(b)(1) of the Securities Act; and (iii) if we have so elected and we call the Public Warrants for redemption.
If you exercise your Public Warrants on a cashless basis, you would pay the warrant exercise price by surrendering the Public Warrants for that number of shares of our common stock equal to the quotient obtained by dividing: (i) the product of the number of shares of our common stock underlying the Public Warrants, multiplied by the excess of the “fair market value” of shares of our common stock (as defined in the next sentence) over the exercise price of the Public Warrants by (ii) the fair market value. The “fair market value” is the average reported closing price of the shares of our common stock for the ten trading days ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which the notice of exercise is received by the warrant agent or on which the notice of redemption is sent to the holders of Public Warrants, as applicable. As a result, you would receive fewer shares of our common stock from such exercise than if you were to exercise such Public Warrants for cash.
Our ability to require holders of our Public Warrants to exercise such Public Warrants on a cashless basis after we call the Public Warrants for redemption will cause holders to receive fewer shares of our common stock upon exercise than they would have received had they been able to pay the exercise price of their Public Warrants in cash.
If we call the Public Warrants for redemption, we may require all holders that wish to exercise Public Warrants to do so on a cashless basis. If we elect to require holders to exercise their Public Warrants on a cashless basis or if holders elect to do so when there is no effective registration statement, the number of shares of our common stock received by a holder upon exercise will be less than if such holder exercised his or her Public Warrant for cash. For example, if the holder is exercising 1,000 Public Warrants at $10.00 per share through a cashless exercise when our common stock has a fair market value of $20.00 per share, then upon the cashless exercise the holder will receive 500 shares of our common stock. The holder would have received 1,000 shares of our common stock if the exercise price was paid in cash. This will have the effect of reducing the potential “upside” of the holder’s investment in us because the warrant holder will hold a smaller number of shares of our common stock upon a cashless exercise of the Public Warrants.
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Risks Related to Our Organizational Structure
The future resales of substantial amounts of our common stock in the public markets, or the perception that such sales could occur, may cause the market price of our securities to drop significantly, even if our business is doing well.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public markets may occur at any time. Any future sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, may reduce the market price of our common stock. Despite such a decline in the public trading price, certain stockholders may still experience a positive rate of return on the securities they purchased due to the lower price at which they purchased their shares compared to other public investors and be incentivized to sell its securities when others are not.
Under our Bylaws, all shares held by the SPAC Sponsor immediately prior to the Closing and all shares of our common stock issued or issuable as consideration under the Business Combination Agreement to Legacy Kodiak Securityholders are subject to lockup restrictions, subject to certain customary and other exceptions, until September 24, 2026 (the “Lockup Period”). Notwithstanding the foregoing, if the closing price of our common stock equals or exceeds $12.00 for 20 of 30 consecutive trading days commencing on or after February 21, 2026, then the Lockup Period will terminate. In addition, in connection with the Closing, our Board waived the lockup restrictions with respect to (i) shares of our common stock issued upon the conversion of our second lien loans, other than those shares of our common stock to be issued to AAC II Holdings II LP, an affiliate of the SPAC Sponsor (the "SPAC Sponsor Affiliate Investor") with respect to the initial second lien loans provided by the SPAC Sponsor Affiliate Investor and to an entity affiliated with one of our directors and (ii) 226 shares of our common stock for each Legacy Kodiak securityholder that was not an affiliate of Legacy Kodiak. Following the expiration of the Lockup Period, the applicable stockholders will not be restricted from selling shares of our common stock held by them, other than by applicable securities laws. As such, sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market may occur at such time. As restrictions on resale end and registration statements are available for use, the sale or possibility of sale of these shares may have the effect of increasing the volatility in our share price or the market price of our securities may decline if the holders of currently restricted shares sell them or are perceived by the market as intending to sell them.
Further, a significant number of shares of our common stock are subject to issuance upon exercise of the Warrants, and the number of shares covered by the Warrants may increase. For example, the PIPE Warrants and Non-Redemption Agreement Warrants contain anti-dilution adjustments, including with respect to certain future issuances or sales of common stock at prices less than the exercise price then in effect. Further, future adjustments to the exercise price of the Warrants may result in substantial additional dilution to existing stockholders and may depress the market price of our common stock. For example, pursuant to the Warrant Agreement, the exercise price per share of the Private Placement Warrants and the Public Warrants were adjusted from $11.50 to $9.28 after trading closed on October 20, 2025. Similarly, for the PIPE Warrants and Non-Redemption Agreement Warrants, if the trailing 45-day volume-weighted average price of common stock on the 46th trading day following March 24, 2026 is less than the exercise price then in effect, the exercise price will be adjusted to the greater of (i) such volume-weighted average price and (ii) $8.00.
Further, if the trailing 45-day volume-weighted average price of common stock on the 46th trading day following June 24, 2026 is less than the exercise price then in effect, the exercise price will be adjusted to the greater of (i) such volume-weighted average price and (ii) $6.00. The issuance of the shares of common stock underlying these Warrants or any adjustments to the exercise price of such Warrants will have a dilutive impact on other stockholders and may reduce the market price of our common stock.
In addition, each share of our Series A Preferred Stock is convertible into common stock at any time at the option of the holder at a rate equal to the Accrued Value, divided by the then-applicable conversion price, plus any accrued but unpaid dividends on such share. In the event we elect to pay dividends in kind, the Accrued Value will increase, thereby increasing the number of shares of our common stock into which each share of our Series A Preferred Stock is convertible and the related voting power of the Series A Preferred Stock, which will be dilutive to other stockholders. For example, we elected to pay the December 2025 accrued dividends on the Series A Preferred Stock in kind, which resulted in the Accrued Value of the Series A Preferred Stock increasing from $1,200.00 to $1,222.66.
The conversion price is initially $12.00, but is subject to adjustments for stock dividends, splits, combinations and similar events and customary anti-dilution adjustments, including with respect to certain future issuances or sales of common stock at prices less than the conversion price then in effect, including the potential equity and equity-linked financing we are expecting to complete in the near term.
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In addition, if the trailing 45-day volume-weighted average price of common stock on the 46th trading day following March 24, 2026 is less than the conversion price then in effect, the conversion price will be adjusted to the greater of (i) such volume weighted average price and (ii) $8.00. Further, if the trailing 45-day volume-weighted average price of common stock on the 46th trading day following June 24, 2026 is less than the conversion price then in effect, the conversion price will be adjusted to the greater of (i) such volume weighted average price and (ii) $6.00. The conversion of our Series A Preferred Stock to such shares of common stock or any adjustments to the conversion price will have a dilutive impact on other stockholders and may reduce the market price of our common stock.
Additionally, we have filed a registration statement to register shares reserved for future issuance under our 2025 Plan and the ESPP. Subject to the satisfaction of applicable vesting restrictions and the expiration or waiver of the lock-up restrictions discussed above applicable to certain of the shares, the shares issued thereunder will be available for immediate resale in the public market. These sales, any future sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, may reduce the market price of our common stock.
We have incurred and will continue to incur significant expenses and administrative burdens as a public company, which may adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition, and results of operations.
As a public company, we face increased legal, accounting, administrative and other costs and expenses that we did not incur as a private company. The Exchange Act, Sarbanes-Oxley Act, including the requirements of Section 404, as well as rules and regulations subsequently implemented by the SEC, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and the rules and regulations promulgated and to be promulgated thereunder, as well as the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and the stock exchanges, impose additional reporting and other obligations on public companies. The development and implementation of the standards and controls necessary for us to achieve the level of accounting standards required of a public company in the United States may require costs greater than expected. We expect to expand our employee base and hire additional employees to support our operations as a public company, which will increase our operating costs in future periods.
Compliance with public company requirements has increased costs and made certain activities more time- consuming. A number of these requirements require us to carry out activities we have not done previously. For example, as a public company, we maintain board committees and internal controls and disclosure controls and procedures. In addition, we continue to incur expenses associated with SEC reporting requirements. Furthermore, if any issues in complying with those requirements are identified (for example, if the auditors identify a material weakness or significant deficiency in the internal control over financial reporting), we may incur additional costs rectifying those issues, and the existence of those issues may adversely affect our reputation or investor perceptions of us. In addition, as a public company, it is also more expensive to maintain director and officer liability insurance. Risks associated with our status as a public company may make it more difficult to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our Board or as executive officers. The additional reporting and other obligations imposed by these rules and regulations have and will continue to increase legal and financial compliance costs and the costs of related legal, accounting and administrative activities. These increased costs will require us to reserve a significant amount of money that may otherwise be used to expand the business and achieve strategic objectives. Advocacy efforts by stockholders and third parties may also prompt additional changes in governance and reporting requirements, which may further increase costs.
Our management team has limited experience in operating a public company.
Our executive officers have limited experience in the management of a publicly traded company. Our management team may not successfully or effectively manage our recent transition to operating as a public company, which is subject to significant regulatory oversight and reporting obligations under federal securities laws and continuous scrutiny of securities analysts and investors. Their limited experience in dealing with the increasingly complex laws pertaining to public companies may be a significant disadvantage in that it is likely that an increasing amount of their time may be devoted to these activities which will result in less time being devoted to our management and growth.
Claims for indemnification by our directors and officers may reduce our available funds to satisfy successful third-party claims against us and may reduce the amount of money available to us.
Our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws provide that we will indemnify our directors and officers, in each case to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law.
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In addition, as permitted by Section 145 of the DGCL, our Bylaws and our indemnification agreements that we entered into with our directors and officers provide that:
• we will indemnify our directors and officers for serving in those capacities or for serving other business enterprises at our request, to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law. Delaware law provides that a corporation may indemnify such person if such person acted in good faith and in a manner such person reasonably believed to be in or not opposed to the best interests of the registrant and, with respect to any criminal proceeding, had no reasonable cause to believe such person’s conduct was unlawful;
• we may, in our discretion, indemnify employees and agents in those circumstances where indemnification is permitted by applicable law;
• we are required to advance expenses, as incurred, to our directors and officers in connection with defending a proceeding, except that such directors or officers shall undertake to repay such advances if it is ultimately determined that such person is not entitled to indemnification;
• we are not obligated pursuant to our Bylaws to indemnify a person with respect to proceedings initiated by that person against us or our other indemnitees, except with respect to proceedings authorized by our Board or brought to enforce a right to indemnification;
• the rights conferred in our Bylaws are not exclusive, and we are authorized to enter into indemnification agreements with our directors, officers, employees and agents and to obtain insurance to indemnify such persons; and
• we may not retroactively amend our Bylaws provisions to reduce our indemnification obligations to directors, officers, employees and agents.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future except for our dividend obligations with respect to the Series A Preferred Stock. We expect to retain future earnings, if any, to fund the development and growth of our business. Any future determination to pay dividends on our capital stock will be at the discretion of our Board subject to the limitations under the Certificate of Designation for our Series A Preferred Stock. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of our securities after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.
The market price and trading volume of our common stock may be volatile and may decline significantly.
The stock markets, including Nasdaq, have from time to time experienced significant price and volume fluctuations. Even if an active, liquid and orderly trading market develops and is sustained for our common stock, the market price of our common stock may be volatile and may decline significantly. In addition, the trading volume in our common stock may fluctuate and cause significant price variations to occur. If the market price of our common stock declines significantly, you may be unable to resell your shares at an attractive price, or at all. We cannot assure you that the market price of our common stock will not fluctuate widely or decline significantly in the future in response to a number of factors, including, among others, the following:
• the realization of any of the risk factors presented in this Annual Report on Form 10-K;
• changes in the industries in which we and our customers operate;
• developments involving our competitors;
• changes in laws and regulations affecting our business;
• actual or anticipated differences in our estimates, or in the estimates of analysts, for our revenues, results of operations, level of indebtedness, liquidity or financial condition;
• additions and departures of key personnel;
• failure to comply with the requirements of the listing exchange;
• failure to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or other laws or regulations;
• future issuances, sales, resales or repurchases or anticipated issuances, sales, resales or repurchases, of our securities;
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• publication of research reports by securities analysts about us or our competitors or our industry;
• the public’s reaction to our press releases, other public announcements and filings with the SEC;
• actions by stockholders, including sales of the securities;
• the performance and market valuations of other similar companies;
• commencement of, or involvement in, litigation involving us;
• broad disruptions in the financial markets, including sudden disruptions in the credit markets;
• speculation in the press or investment community;
• actual, potential or perceived control, accounting or reporting problems;
• changes in accounting principles, policies and guidelines; and
• other events or factors, including those resulting from infectious diseases, health epidemics and pandemics, natural disasters, war, acts of terrorism or responses to these events.
In the past, securities class-action litigation has often been instituted against companies following periods of volatility in the market price of their shares. This type of litigation may result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention and resources, which may have a material adverse effect on us.
If securities or industry analysts cease publishing research or reports about us, our business, or the market in which we operate, or if they change their recommendations regarding our securities adversely, the price and trading volume of our securities may decline.
The trading market for our securities will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts may publish about us, our business, market or competitors. If any of the analysts who cover or may in the future cover us change their recommendation regarding our shares of common stock adversely, or provide more favorable relative recommendations about our competitors, the price of our common stock may likely decline. If any analyst who covers or may in the future cover us were to cease our coverage of us or fail to regularly publish reports on it, we may lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn may cause our share price or trading volume to decline.
We qualify as an “emerging growth company” within the meaning of the Securities Act. If we take advantage of certain exemptions from disclosure requirements available to emerging growth companies, this could make our securities less attractive to investors and may make it more difficult to compare our performance with other public companies.
We qualify as an “emerging growth company” as defined in Section 2(a)(19) of the Securities Act, as modified by the JOBS Act. As such, we are eligible for and intend to take advantage of certain exemptions or reduced disclosure obligations from various reporting requirements applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies for as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, including (i) the exemption from the auditor attestation requirements with respect to internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, (ii) the exemptions from say-on-pay, say-on-frequency and say-on-golden parachute voting requirements and (iii) reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements. As a result, our stockholders may not have access to certain information they may deem important. We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of (i) the last day of the fiscal year in which the market value of our common stock that are held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million as of June 30 of that fiscal year, (ii) the last day of the fiscal year in which we have total annual gross revenue of $1.235 billion or more during such fiscal year, (iii) the date on which we have issued more than $1 billion in non-convertible debt in the prior three-year period or (iv) December 31, 2028. In addition, Section 107 of the JOBS Act also provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of the exemption from complying with new or revised accounting standards provided in Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act as long as we are an emerging growth company. An emerging growth company can therefore delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We have elected not to opt out of such extended transition period and, therefore, we may not be subject to the same new or revised accounting standards as other public companies that are not emerging growth companies. This may make comparison of our financial statements with those of public companies that comply with public company effective dates difficult or impossible because of the potential differences in accounting standards used. Investors may find our common stock less attractive because we rely on these exemptions or reduced disclosure obligations, which may result in a less active trading market for our common stock and its price may be more volatile.
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General and Macroeconomic Risks
Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, floods and other natural catastrophic events, global pandemics, and interruptions by man-made problems, such as terrorism. Material disruptions of our business or information systems resulting from these events may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
A significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, fire, flood, hurricane or significant power outage or other similar events, such as infectious disease outbreaks or pandemic events, may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In particular, our corporate headquarters are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region known for seismic activity and increasingly for the threat of fires. Natural disasters and associated events may occur in the future with increasing frequency or severity as a result of climate change, which could cause business interruptions. In addition, natural disasters, acts of terrorism or war may cause disruptions in our remaining operations, our or our partners’ businesses, our suppliers’ or the economy as a whole. We also rely on information technology systems to communicate among our workforce and with third parties. Any disruption to our communications, whether caused by a natural disaster or by man-made problems, such as power disruptions, may adversely affect our business. We do not have a formal disaster recovery plan or policy in place and do not currently require that our partners have such plans or policies in place. All of the aforementioned risks may be further increased if our disaster recovery plans prove to be inadequate. Any of the foregoing may result in business interruptions that may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Further, the insurance we maintain may be insufficient to cover our losses resulting from such business interruptions, and any incidents may result in loss of, or increased costs of, such insurance.
General business and economic conditions, and risks related to the long-haul trucking, industrial trucking, oil and gas and defense ecosystems, may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our performance is subject to macroeconomic conditions that are beyond our control and the effect of such conditions on levels of activity in ground transportation. Such macroeconomic factors include interest rates, the rate of inflation, unemployment levels, the availability of government stimulus and unemployment compensation payments, the impact of a federal government shutdown, supply chain constraints, trade barriers and sanctions, geopolitical conflicts, natural disasters, health epidemics, gasoline prices, adjustments in monthly payments, adjustable-rate mortgages and other debt payments, and consumer perceptions of economic condition. For example, changes in macroeconomic conditions due to actual or proposed tariff changes could increase consumer prices, unemployment rates, and inflation, each of which in turn could affect consumer spending and the amount of products requiring ground transportation by our customers or partners. A deterioration of macroeconomic conditions may therefore cause fluctuations in our ability to scale our commercial operations or adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
