Item 1A. Risk Factors.
A description of the risks and uncertainties associated with our business is set forth below. You should carefully consider the risks described below, as well as the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and the related notes and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” particularly before deciding whether to invest in our securities. The occurrence of any of the events or developments described below could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects. In such an event, the market price of our common stock could decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment. The risks described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations.
Summary Risk Factors
The following is a summary of key risk factors you should consider in connection with an investment in our common stock. You should read this summary together with the more detailed description of each risk factor under the bold and italicized subcaptions further below.
• We have a limited operating history at our current scale, which makes it difficult to predict our future operating results.
• If we fail to manage our growth effectively, we may be unable to execute our business plan, maintain high levels of service, or adequately address competitive challenges.
• We may not achieve the benefits and synergies that we had expected from our acquisitions, and our business may be adversely impacted by integration challenges, assumption of unknown or unforeseen liabilities, or our inability to retain customers.
• If we are unable to attract new customers, our revenue growth will be adversely affected.
• Because we sell our services to large enterprises with complex operating environments, we tend to encounter long and unpredictable sales cycles.
• The markets in which we participate are intensely competitive.
• We face risks related to the current COVID-19 pandemic, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
• Our business depends in part on our existing customers renewing their subscriptions and purchasing additional subscriptions.
• We may not be successful in expanding our marketing and sales capabilities or in developing widespread brand awareness in a cost-effective manner.
• If we lose the services of our chief executive officer or one or more of our other key employees, or if we are unable to attract and retain highly skilled employees more broadly, our business could be adversely affected.
• Our international operations and sales to customers outside the United States or with international operations expose us to risks inherent in international sales.
• Our business may be adversely impacted by foreign currency exchange rates.
• If our security measures are breached, or if we fail to prevent unauthorized access to customer data, we may experience disruption in service and revenues, our reputation may be harmed and we may face contractual liability as well as fines from government agencies.
• If we fail to integrate our platform with a variety of third-party technologies, our platform may become less marketable.
• Any failure to protect our intellectual property rights could impair the value of our technology and harm our brand.
• Our quarterly results may fluctuate significantly and may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business.
• We have a history of cumulative losses, and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future.
• Changes in privacy laws, regulations, and standards may cause our business to suffer.
• Servicing our debt will require a significant amount of cash, and we may not have sufficient cash flow from our business or the ability to raise the funds necessary to settle conversions of, or to repurchase or redeem, our convertible senior notes.
• Our stock price has been subject to fluctuations, and will likely continue to be subject to fluctuations, due to factors beyond our control.
• Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that they might occur, could cause the price of our common stock to decline.
• If securities or industry analysts do not continue to publish research or if they publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
• Delaware law, provisions in our charter documents, and provisions in the indentures for our convertible senior notes could make a merger, tender offer or proxy contest difficult, thereby depressing the trading price of our common stock.
Risks Related to Global Economic Trends
Weakened global economic conditions, including those from the recent COVID-19 pandemic and global events, may harm our industry, business and results of operations.
Our overall performance depends in part on worldwide economic conditions. Global financial developments, downturns and global health crises or pandemics seemingly unrelated to us or the enterprise software industry, may harm us, including due to disruptions or restrictions on our employees’ ability to work and travel. The United States and other key international economies have been affected from time to time by falling demand for a variety of goods and services, restricted credit, poor liquidity, reduced corporate profitability, volatility in credit, equity and foreign exchange markets, bankruptcies, outbreaks of COVID-19 and the resulting impact on business continuity and travel, supply chain disruptions, inflation and overall uncertainty with respect to the economy, including with respect to tariff and trade issues. For example, financial markets around the world experienced volatility following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022. In response to the invasion, the US, UK and EU, along with others, imposed significant new sanctions and export controls against Russia, Russian banks and certain Russian individuals and may implement additional sanctions or take further punitive actions in the future. The full economic and social impact of the sanctions imposed on Russia (as well as possible future punitive measures that may be implemented), as well as the counter measures imposed by Russia, in addition to the escalating military conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which could conceivably expand into the surrounding region, remains uncertain; however, both the conflict and related sanctions have resulted and could continue to result in disruptions to trade, commerce, pricing stability, credit availability, and/or supply chain continuity, in both Europe and globally, and has introduced significant uncertainty into global markets. As the adverse effects of this conflict continue to develop and potentially spread, both in Europe and throughout the rest of the world, our customers may be negatively impacted which in turn may cause them to delay purchasing decisions, affect subscription renewal rates and otherwise depress the level of spend conducted by such customers through our platform. As a result, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected by the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, particularly to the extent it escalates to involve additional countries, further economic sanctions and wider military conflict. We have operations, as well as current and potential new customers, throughout most of Europe. If economic conditions in Europe and other key markets for our platform continue to remain uncertain or deteriorate further, including as a result of COVID-19 or otherwise, many customers may delay or reduce their information technology spending.
The growth of our revenues and potential profitability of our business depends on demand for our platform and solutions generally, and business spend management specifically. In addition, our revenues are dependent on the number of users of our solutions. Historically, during economic downturns there have been reductions in spending on enterprise software as well as pressure for extended billing terms or pricing discounts, which would limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our operating results. These conditions affect the rate of enterprise software spending and could adversely affect our customers’ ability or willingness to subscribe to our platform, delay prospective customers’ purchasing decisions, reduce the value or duration of their subscriptions or affect renewal rates, all of which could harm our operating results.
Risks Related to Our Growth
We have a limited operating history at our current scale, which makes it difficult to predict our future operating results.
We were incorporated in 2006 and introduced our first cloud-based software solution shortly thereafter. Over time we have invested in building a comprehensive, integrated platform of business spend management (“BSM”) services, and in marketing, selling and supporting this platform. Although in recent years our quarterly and annual revenues have consistently increased on a year-over-year basis, in future periods, our revenue growth rate could slow or our revenues could decline for a number of reasons, including any reduction in demand for our platform or existing services, increased competition, contraction of our overall market, international or domestic economic instability, downturns or other events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, our inability to accurately forecast demand for our platform or our failure, for any reason, to capitalize on growth opportunities.
As a result of our limited operating history, our ability to forecast our future operating results is limited and subject to a number of uncertainties, including our ability to plan for and model future growth. This risk is exacerbated to the extent that we enter new product areas or introduce new solutions, particularly in cases where the revenue model differs from our traditional subscription model. We have encountered and will encounter risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing industries, such as the risks and uncertainties described in this report. If our assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties (which we use to plan our business) are incorrect or change, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our operating and financial results could differ materially from our expectations and our business could suffer.
We have experienced rapid growth and expect our growth to continue and if we fail to manage our growth effectively, we may be unable to execute our business plan, maintain high levels of service or adequately address competitive challenges.
We have experienced rapid growth in our business, headcount and operations in recent years. Although we cannot provide any assurance that our business will continue to grow at the same rate or at all, we anticipate that we will continue to expand our operations and headcount, including internationally, in the near future. Our success will depend in part on our ability to manage this growth effectively. The rapid growth in our headcount and operations has placed and will continue to place significant demands on our management and our administrative, operational and financial infrastructure. As we continue to grow, we must effectively integrate, develop and motivate a large number of new employees, while maintaining the effectiveness of our business execution and the beneficial aspects of our corporate culture. In particular, we intend to continue to make directed and substantial investments to expand our research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative organizations, as well as our international operations.
To effectively manage growth, we must continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls, risk management activities, and our reporting systems and procedures by, among other things:
• improving our key business applications, processes and IT infrastructure to support our business needs;
• enhancing information and communication systems to ensure that our employees and offices around the world are well-coordinated and can effectively communicate with each other and our growing base of customers and channel partners;
• enhancing our internal controls to ensure timely and accurate reporting of all of our operations and financial results;
• appropriately documenting our IT systems and our business processes; and
• continuing to expand our risk management activities to keep up with the growth in our relationships with partners, acquired companies, customers, suppliers, employees, and other internal and external constituencies.
The systems enhancements and improvements necessary to support our business as we continue to scale will require significant capital expenditures and allocation of valuable management and employee resources. If we fail to implement these improvements effectively, our ability to manage our expected growth, ensure uninterrupted operation of key business systems and comply with the rules and regulations that are applicable to public reporting companies will be impaired. Additionally, failure to effectively manage growth could result in difficulty or delays in deploying customers, challenges identifying, integrating and maintaining implementation partners, declines in quality or customer satisfaction, increases in costs, difficulties in introducing new features and/or other operational difficulties, any of which could adversely affect our business performance and results of operations.
Acquisitions could be difficult to identify, pose integration challenges, divert the attention of management, disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value, and adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.
We have in the past acquired and may in the future seek to acquire or invest in businesses, products or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our platform, enhance our technical capabilities or otherwise offer growth opportunities. For example, we acquired Pana Industries, Inc. in February 2021, LLamasoft, Inc. in November 2020, Bellin Treasury International GmbH in June 2020, ConnXus, Inc. in May 2020, Yapta, Inc. in December 2019 and Exari Group, Inc. in May 2019. Acquisitions may disrupt our business, divert our resources and require significant management attention that would otherwise be available for development of our existing business.
In addition, we may not be able to integrate the acquired personnel, operations and technologies successfully, or effectively manage the combined business following the acquisition. We also may not achieve the anticipated benefits from the acquired business due to a number of factors, including:
• inability to integrate or benefit from acquired technologies or services in a profitable manner;
• unanticipated costs, accounting charges or other liabilities associated with the acquisition;
• incurrence of acquisition-related costs;
• difficulty integrating the accounting systems, internal controls, operations and personnel of the acquired business;
• difficulties and additional expenses associated with supporting legacy products and hosting infrastructure of the acquired business, including due to language, geographical or cultural differences;
• difficulty fulfilling the contractual obligations or expectations of customers of acquired businesses or transitioning the customers of the acquired business onto our platform and contract terms, including disparities in the revenues, licensing, support or professional services model of the acquired company;
• adverse effects to our existing business relationships with business partners and customers as a result of the acquisition;
• the potential loss of key employees, or large numbers of employees within key functions;
• use of resources that are needed in other parts of our business; and
• use of substantial portions of our available cash to consummate the acquisition.
In addition, acquisitions often have an adverse impact on short-term operating results (such as by diluting gross margin) even if such acquisitions are expected to be beneficial to our operating results over the medium- and long-term.
A significant portion of the purchase price of companies we acquire may be allocated to acquired goodwill and other intangible assets. In connection with our acquisition of LLamasoft, for example, $932.9 million of the purchase price was allocated to goodwill, increasing our total goodwill balance to $1.5 billion as of January 31, 2021, which was roughly three times the amount of goodwill we had as of January 31, 2020. Our acquisition of Pana, in February 2021, further increased our goodwill balance. As of January 31, 2022, our goodwill balance was $1,514.6 million. Goodwill must be assessed for impairment at least annually, and other intangible assets are assessed for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount may not be recoverable. In the future, if our acquisitions do not yield expected returns, we may be required to take charges to our operating results based on this impairment assessment process, which could adversely affect our results of operations. In addition, our exposure to risks associated with various claims, including the use of intellectual property, may be increased as a result of acquisitions of other companies. For example, we may have a lower level of visibility into the development process with respect to intellectual property or the care taken to safeguard against infringement risks with respect to the acquired company or technology. In addition, third parties may make infringement and similar or related claims after we have acquired technology that were not asserted prior to our acquisition. Acquisitions could also result in dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of debt, which could adversely affect our operating results. In connection with the LLamasoft acquisition, for example, we issued approximately 2.4 million shares of our common stock as consideration, which represented over 3% of our outstanding shares of common stock at that time. In addition, if the performance of an acquired business fails to meet our expectations, our operating results, business and financial position may suffer. Some of our acquisitions include earnouts, meaning that a portion of the purchase price is payable only if the acquired business achieves certain revenue or other post-closing milestones. These contingent payment provisions can lead to disputes with the sellers of the business, such as the litigation described in Item 3—“Legal Proceedings.”
If we cannot maintain our company culture as we grow, we could lose the innovation, teamwork, passion and focus on execution that we believe contribute to our success and our business may be harmed.
We believe that a critical component of our success has been our company culture, which is based on our core values of ensuring customer success, focusing on results and striving for excellence. We have invested substantial time and resources in building our team within this company culture. As we grow, including as a result of acquiring other businesses, we may find it difficult to maintain these important aspects of our company culture. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic requires action to preserve culture among an employee base temporarily working predominantly remotely and facing unique personal and professional challenges. If we fail to preserve our culture, our ability to retain and recruit personnel and to effectively focus on and pursue our corporate objectives could be compromised, potentially harming our business.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
If we are unable to attract new customers, the growth of our revenues will be adversely affected.
To increase our revenues, we have historically depended more on the addition of new customers to our platform, particularly large enterprise customers, than on increasing the number of users at existing customers or selling additional solutions to them. The expansion of our customer base is critical to our ability to continue the growth of our revenues. If we do not grow our customer base, our revenues will slow in future periods or will start to decline, as a result of customers not renewing.
If competitors introduce lower cost or differentiated products or services that are perceived to compete with ours or are better able to adapt to changing market conditions (such as by addressing shifts in existing and prospective customer needs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic), or if competitors are willing to provide concessions such as extended billing terms or price discounts in order to win customers amidst the changing business environment , our ability to sell based on factors such as pricing, technology and functionality could be impaired. As a result, we may be unable to attract new customers at rates or on terms that would be favorable or comparable to prior periods, which could have an adverse effect on the growth of our revenues.
Because our platform is sold to large enterprises with complex operating environments and who often demand more configuration and integration services or customized features and functions, we encounter long and unpredictable sales cycles, which could adversely affect our operating results in a given period.
Our ability to increase revenues and achieve profitability depends, in large part, on our ability to continue to attract large enterprises to our platform and grow this segment of our customer base. We expect to continue to focus a substantial portion of our sales efforts on these customers in the near future. Accordingly, we will continue to face greater costs, longer sales cycles and less predictability in completing some of our sales, than would be expected from selling to a predominantly mid-market target customer base. A delay in or failure to close a large sale to one or more prospective new enterprise customers could cause us to fail to meet the expectations of management or analysts, harm our business and financial results, and cause our financial results to vary significantly from period to period.
Our typical sales cycle ranges from three to nine months. The wide range reflects a number of timing factors that can vary significantly between prospective customers, many of which we cannot control, including:
• customers’ budgetary constraints and priorities;
• the timing of customers’ budget cycles;
• customers' demands with respect to configuration and integration services or customized features and functions;
• the need by some customers for lengthy evaluations; and
• the length and timing of customers’ approval processes.
In addition, as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many local governments as well as enterprises have limited travel and in-person meetings and implemented other restrictions that are making the sales process more lengthy and difficult, particularly for new customers.
Large enterprises tend to have more complex operating environments than smaller businesses, making it more difficult and time-consuming for us to demonstrate the value of our platform to these prospective customers. In the large enterprise market, the customer’s decision to use our platform may be an enterprise-wide decision requiring integration of our platform across operations spanning numerous jurisdictions. In addition, large enterprise customers also generally demand more configuration and integration services, as well as customized features and functions, than our mid-market customer base, which generally increases our upfront investment in related sales efforts. Therefore, these types of sales require us to access and address more frequent requests with respect to configuration, integration and customization services and to provide greater levels of education regarding the use and benefits of our platform, which causes us to expend substantial time, effort and money with respect to individual prospective enterprise customers. I n addition, we have no assurance that a prospective customer will ultimately purchase any services from us at all, regardless of the amount of time or resources we have spent on the opportunity. For example, our platform does not currently permit customers to modify our code. If prospective customers require customized features or functions that we do not offer and that would be difficult for them to deploy themselves, they may decide to utilize a competing solution which allows the desired level of customization.
As a result of the variability and length of the sales cycle associated with large enterprise customers, we have only a limited ability to forecast the timing of sales, and our results of operations may differ from expectations.
The markets in which we participate are intensely competitive, and if we do not compete effectively, our operating results could be adversely affected.
The market for business spend management software is highly competitive, with relatively low barriers to entry for some software or service organizations. Our competitors include Oracle Corporation (“Oracle”), SAP AG (“SAP”) and Workday, Inc. (“Workday”), well-established providers of enterprise resource planning solutions, including BSM software, that have long-standing relationships with many customers. Some customers may be hesitant to switch or to adopt cloud-based software such as ours for this part of their business and prefer to maintain their existing relationships with their legacy software vendors. Oracle, SAP and Workday are larger and have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, larger marketing budgets and significantly greater resources than we do. These vendors, as well as other competitors, may offer business spend management software on a standalone basis at a low price or bundled as part of a larger product sale. In order to take advantage of customer demand for cloud-based software, legacy vendors are expanding their cloud-based software through acquisitions and organic development. Legacy vendors may also seek to partner with other leading cloud providers. We also face competition from custom-built software vendors and from vendors of specific applications, some of which offer cloud-based solutions.
We may also face competition from a variety of vendors of cloud-based and on-premise software products and point solutions that may have some of the core functionality of our BSM services (such as procure-to-pay) but that address only a portion of the capabilities and features of our platform. In addition, other companies that provide cloud-based software in different target markets may develop software or acquire companies that operate in our target markets, and some potential customers may elect to develop their own internal software. With the introduction of new technologies and market entrants, we expect this competition to intensify in the future.
Some of our competitors are able to devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their products and services, including with respect to concessions (such as extended billing terms or price discounts) granted in order to win customers in the challenging business environment created by the COVID-19 pandemic and overall global geopolitical events. Furthermore, our current or potential competitors may be acquired by third parties with greater available resources and the ability to initiate or withstand substantial price competition. In addition, many of our competitors have established marketing relationships, access to larger customer bases and major distribution agreements with consultants, system integrators and resellers. Our competitors may also establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with third parties that may further enhance their product offerings or resources. If our platform does not become more accepted relative to our competitors’, or if our competitors are successful in bringing their products or services to market earlier than ours, or if their products or services are more technologically capable than ours, then our revenues could be adversely affected. In addition, some of our competitors may offer their products and services at a lower price. If we are unable to achieve our target pricing levels, our operating results will be negatively affected. Pricing pressures and increased competition could result in reduced sales, reduced margins, losses or a failure to maintain or improve our competitive market position, any of which could adversely affect our business.
Our business depends significantly on our customers renewing their subscriptions. Any decline in our customer renewals would harm our future operating results.
In order for us to maintain or improve our operating results, it is important that our customers renew their subscriptions when the initial contract term expires and, to a lesser extent, that they add additional authorized users and additional business spend management solutions to their subscriptions. Our customers have no obligation to renew their subscriptions, and we cannot assure you that our customers will renew subscriptions with a similar contract period or with the same or a greater number of authorized users and solutions. Some of our customers have elected not to renew their agreements with us, and we may not be able to accurately predict renewal rates.
Our renewal rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including our customers’ satisfaction with our subscription service, our professional services, our introduction of platform enhancements (including new features and new solutions), our customer support, our prices and contract length, the prices of and concessions offered with respect to competing solutions, mergers and acquisitions affecting our customer base, the effects of global economic conditions, reductions in our customers’ spending levels or changing customer needs due to temporary or permanent changes to their operating models and business spend management patterns adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. If our customers do not renew their subscriptions, renew on less favorable terms or fail to add more authorized users or additional business spend management solutions, our revenues may decline or fail to increase in line with expectations, and we may not realize improved operating results from our customer base.
Our customers may fail to pay us in accordance with the terms of their agreements, necessitating action by us to compel payment.
We typically enter into multiple year, non-cancelable arrangements with our customers. If customers fail to pay us under the terms of our agreements, we may be adversely affected both from the inability to collect amounts due and the cost of enforcing the terms of our contracts, including litigation. The risk of such negative effects increases with the term length of our customer arrangements. Furthermore, some of our customers may seek bankruptcy protection or other similar relief and fail to pay amounts due to us, or pay those amounts more slowly, either of which could adversely affect our operating results, financial position and cash flow.
If we fail to develop widespread brand awareness cost-effectively, our business may suffer.
We believe that developing and maintaining widespread awareness of our brand in a cost-effective manner is critical to achieving widespread acceptance of our platform and attracting new customers. For example, widespread awareness of our brand is critical to ensuring that we are invited to participate in requests for proposals from prospective customers. Our success in this area will depend on a wide range of factors, some of which are beyond our control, including the following:
• the efficacy of our marketing efforts;
• our ability to offer high-quality, innovative and error- and bug-free solutions;
• our ability to retain existing customers and obtain new customers;
• the ability of our customers to achieve successful results by using our platform;
• the quality and perceived value of our platform;
• our ability to successfully differentiate our offerings from those of our competitors;
• actions of competitors and other third parties;
• our ability to provide customer support and professional services;
• the satisfactory provision of services and customer support by our implementation partners;
• any misuse or perceived misuse of our platform and solutions;
• positive or negative publicity;
• interruptions, delays or attacks on our platform or solutions; and
• litigation, legislative or regulatory-related developments.
The COVID-19 pandemic and prophylactic measures adopted in response have forced us to suspend or reduce some of our marketing activities, particularly those that require travel and in-person participation. Brand promotion activities may not generate customer awareness or increase revenues, and, even if they do, any increase in revenues may not offset the expenses we incur in building our brand. If we fail to successfully promote and maintain our brand, or incur substantial expenses in doing so, we may fail to attract or retain customers necessary to realize a sufficient return on our brand-building efforts or to achieve the widespread brand awareness that is critical for broad customer adoption of our platform.
Furthermore, negative publicity (whether or not justified) relating to events or activities attributed to us, our employees, our partners or others associated with any of these parties, may tarnish our reputation and reduce the value of our brand. Damage to our reputation and loss of brand equity could reduce demand for our platform and have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. Moreover, any attempts to rebuild our reputation and restore the value of our brands may be costly and time c onsuming, and such efforts may not ultimately be successful.
Failure to effectively develop and expand our marketing and sales capabilities could harm our ability to increase our customer base and achieve broader market acceptance of our platform.
Our ability to increase our customer base and achieve broader market acceptance of our platform will depend to a significant extent on our ability to expand our marketing and sales operations, both domestically and internationally. We plan to continue expanding our direct sales force and engaging additional partners that can provide sales referrals in the near future. This expansion will require us to invest significant financial and other resources. Our business and operating results will be harmed if our efforts do not generate a corresponding increase in revenues. We may not achieve anticipated revenue growth from expanding our direct sales force if we are unable to hire and develop talented direct sales personnel, if our new direct sales personnel are unable to achieve desired productivity levels in a reasonable period of time or if we are unable to retain our existing direct sales personnel. It often takes six months or longer before our sales representatives are fully-trained and productive. We also may not achieve anticipated growth in revenues from our partners if we are unable to attract, train, support and retain additional motivated partners, if any existing or future channel partners fail to successfully market, resell, implement or support our platform for their customers, or if they represent multiple providers and devote greater resources to market, resell, implement and support the products and solutions of these other providers. For example, some of our partners also sell or provide integration and administration services for our competitors’ products, and if such partners devote greater resources to marketing, reselling and supporting competing products, this could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Any failure to achieve forecasted revenue growth from the expansion of our sales activities could similarly result in our non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP net income attributable to Coupa Software Incorporated, adjusted free cash flows and other key metrics and operating results to fall short of management forecasts and/or analysts’ expectations, which could cause our stock price to decline.
If we cannot continue to expand the use of our platform, our ability to grow our business may be harmed and the growth rate of our revenues may decline.
Our ability to grow our business depends in part on our ability to compete in the market for the additional solutions on our platform, including strategic sourcing, inventory, contracts, supplier management, spend analysis, payments, treasury management, supply chain design and planning and travel optimization. Our efforts to market these other solutions is relatively new and we have allocated significant resources to develop, acquire or otherwise bring these solutions to market, and it is uncertain whether these other solutions will ever result in significant revenues for us. In certain cases, new solutions call for the introduction of new revenue models. For example, our Coupa Pay solution involves both subscription revenue and transaction revenue. Predicting client adoption of new solutions and forecasting their contribution to operating results is inherently difficult given the lack of operating history with respect to such solutions , and actual results may differ significantly from the expectations of our management, securities analysts or investors. While we have acquired businesses in order to integrate certain of these solutions, there can be no assurance that these acquisitions will facilitate our efforts to market and sell these other solutions in a cost-effective manner, or that we will be successful in integrating these solutions into our platform in a manner that creates value for our customers and engenders widespread adoption. Further, the introduction of new solutions beyond these markets may not be successful. If we are unable to achieve satisfactory customer adoption of new solutions, our ability to expand spend under management and grow our revenues could be adversely affected.
The profitability of our customer relationships may fluctuate.
Our business model focuses on maximizing the lifetime value of our customer relationships and we need to make significant investments in order to add new customers to grow our customer base. The profitability of a customer relationship in any particular period depends in part on how long the customer has been a subscriber on our platform. In general, the upfront costs associated with new customers are higher in the first year than the aggregate revenues we recognize from those new customers in the first year. Furthermore, we focus many of our sales and marketing efforts on large enterprise customers and this customer segment commonly demands more configuration and integration services which generally increases our upfront investment in sales and deployment efforts - even for deployments that are handled primarily by one of our implementation partners - with no guarantee that these customers will increase the scope of their subscription in order to offset our greater upfront costs.
We review the lifetime value and associated acquisition costs of our customers, as discussed further in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in this Annual Report. The lifetime value of our customers and customer acquisition costs has and will continue to fluctuate from one period to another depending upon the amount of our net new subscription revenues (which depends on the number and segment mix of new customers in a period, upsells of additional solutions to existing customers and changes in subscription fees charged to existing customers), gross margins (which depends on investments in and other changes to our cost of customer support and allocated overhead), sales and marketing expenses and renewal rates (which depend on our ability to maintain or grow subscription fees from customers). These amounts have fluctuated from quarter to quarter and will continue to fluctuate in the future. We may not experience lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratios in future years or periods similar to those we have achieved to date. Furthermore, as a result of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible that customers may reduce the scope of their subscriptions in response to evolving operating models and related needs, may not renew their subscriptions at all or may temporarily halt paying us, which would adversely affect our lifetime value metrics.
The loss of one or more of our key customers could negatively affect our ability to market our platform.
We rely on our reputation and recommendations from key customers in order to promote subscriptions to our platform. The loss of any of our key customers could have a significant impact on our revenues, reputation and our ability to obtain new customers. We may lose customers for a variety of reasons, including the decision of a business customer to commence bankruptcy proceedings, restructure itself, dissolve or otherwise cease operations. We believe the risk of such events has increased with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and will further increase as the pandemic continues. In addition, acquisitions of our customers by unrelated third parties could lead to cancellation of our contracts with those customers or by the acquiring companies, thereby reducing the number of our existing and potential customers.
Contractual disputes with our customers could be costly, time-consuming and harm our reputation.
Our business is contract intensive and we are party to contracts with our customers all over the world. Our contracts can contain a variety of terms, including service levels, security obligations, indemnification and regulatory requirements. Contract terms may not always be standardized across our customers and can be subject to differing interpretations, which could result in disputes with our customers from time to time. If our customers notify us of a contract breach or otherwise dispute our contract, the resolution of such disputes in a manner adverse to our interests could negatively affect our operating results. Furthermore, entry into adversarial legal proceedings with our customers, including in varying geographic jurisdictions, could harm our reputation and adversely impact our ability to attract new customers and retain existing customers.
Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, floods and other natural catastrophic events, and to interruption by man-made problems such as power disruptions, computer viruses, data security breaches or terrorism.
Our corporate headquarters are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region known for seismic activity. A significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, fire or flood, occurring at our headquarters, at one of our other facilities, at any of our cloud hosting provider facilities, or where a business partner is located could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Further, if a natural disaster or man-made problem were to affect Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”), this could adversely affect the ability of our customers to use our products and platform. Although we maintain incident management and disaster response plans, in the event of a major disruption caused by a natural disaster or man-made problem, we may be unable to continue our operations and may endure system interruptions, reputational harm, delays in our development activities, lengthy interruptions in service, breaches of data security and loss of critical data, any of which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our growth depends in part on the success of our strategic relationships with third parties.
We have established strategic relationships with a number of other companies. In order to grow our business, we anticipate that we will continue to establish and maintain relationships with third parties, such as implementation partners, system integrator partners and technology providers. Identifying partners, and negotiating and documenting relationships with them, as well as providing training and support, requires significant time and resources. Partner solutions may not continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms. Furthermore, our competitors may be effective in providing incentives to third parties to favor their products or services or to prevent or reduce subscriptions to our services. In addition, acquisitions of our partners by our competitors could result in a decrease in the number of our current and potential customers, as our partners may no longer facilitate the adoption of our platform by potential customers.
If we are unsuccessful in establishing or maintaining our relationships with third parties, our ability to compete in the marketplace or to grow our revenues could be impaired and our operating results could suffer. Even if we are successful in our strategic relationships, we cannot assure you that these relationships will result in increased customer usage of our platform or increased revenues.
Our estimates of market opportunity and forecasts of market growth that we have publicly disclosed may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the market in which we compete achieves the forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow at similar rates.
Market opportunity estimates and growth forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate and could be adversely affected in the near term by the COVID-19 pandemic, global events (such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the consequential implementation of sanctions and export controls) and related shifts in existing and prospective customer needs as a result of evolving operating models and business spend management patterns that may persist after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted and as global events emerge, develop or resolve. This uncertainty is exacerbated by the fact that Business Spend Management is relatively new (as a distinct industry category), and our platform includes features and functionality that extend into other industry categories, such as Travel Expense Management and Treasury Management, for example. Our estimates and forecasts relating to the size and expected growth of our market that we have publicly disclosed may prove to be inaccurate. Even if the market in which we compete meets our size estimates and forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow at similar rates.
We depend on our senior management team and the loss of our chief executive officer or one or more key employees or an inability to attract and retain highly skilled employees could adversely affect our business.
Our success depends largely upon the continued services of our key executive officers. In particular, our chief executive officer, Robert Bernshteyn, is critical to our vision, strategic direction, culture and overall business success. We also rely on our leadership team in the areas of research and development, marketing, sales, services and general and administrative functions, and on mission-critical individual contributors in research and development. From time to time, there may be changes in our executive management team resulting from the hiring or departure of executives, which could disrupt our business. We do not maintain key-man insurance for Mr. Bernshteyn or any other member of our senior management team. 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 and, therefore, they could terminate their employment with us at any time. The loss of one or more of our executive officers or key employees could have a serious adverse effect on our business.
To execute our growth plan, we must attract and retain highly qualified personnel. Competition for these personnel is intense, especially for engineers with high levels of experience in designing and developing software for Internet-related services. We have from time to time experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining employees with appropriate qualifications. Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel have greater resources than we have. If we hire employees from competitors or other companies, their former employers may attempt to assert that these employees or our company have breached their legal obligations, resulting in a diversion of our time and resources. In addition, job candidates and existing employees in the San Francisco Bay Area often consider the value of the stock awards they receive in connection with their employment. If the perceived value of our stock declines, it may adversely affect our ability to recruit and retain highly skilled employees. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could be adversely affected.
Our international operations and sales to customers outside the United States or with international operations expose us to risks inherent in international sales.
A key element of our growth strategy is to expand our international operations and develop a worldwide customer base. For example, in March 2021 we established a joint venture in Japan intended to enable us to support Japanese companies looking to utilize BSM solutions. The revenues from non-U.S. regions, as determined based on the billing address of our customers, constituted 40%, 38% and 36% of our total revenues for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. Operating in international markets requires significant resources and management attention and subjects us to regulatory, economic and political risks that are different from those in the United States. While we are gaining additional experience with international operations, our international expansion efforts may not be successful in creating additional demand for our platform outside of the United States or in effectively selling subscriptions to our platform in all of the international markets we enter. There can be no assurance that we will be able to grow our combined revenues from non-U.S. regions as a percentage of our total revenues. In addition, we face risks in doing business internationally that could adversely affect our business, including:
• the need to localize and adapt our platform for specific countries, including translation into foreign languages and associated expenses;
• data privacy laws that require customer data to be stored and processed in a designated territory;
• difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations, including identifying, training and supporting foreign partners;
• different pricing environments, longer sales cycles and longer accounts receivable payment cycles and collections issues;
• new and different sources of competition;
• weaker protection for intellectual property and other legal rights than in the United States and practical difficulties in enforcing intellectual property and other rights outside of the United States;
• laws and business practices favoring local competitors;
• compliance challenges related to the complexity of multiple, conflicting and changing governmental laws and regulations, including employment, tax, privacy and data protection laws and regulations;
• increased financial accounting and reporting burdens and complexities;
• restrictions on the transfer of funds;
• fluctuations in currency exchange rates, which could increase the price of our products outside of the United States, increase the expenses of our international operations and expose us to foreign currency exchange rate risk;
• adverse tax consequences;
• unstable regional and economic political conditions;
• uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions imposed by government authorities to combat the virus, which may impact our international operations and growth prospects differently than our operations and growth prospects in the United States due to differences in, for example, virus transmission rates and prevalence of more transmissible variants, availability of vaccines in various countries, the effectiveness of government responses, the quality of the regional health care systems, and the economic resilience of the regions, among other factors; and
• the fragmentation of longstanding regulatory frameworks caused by Brexit.
As we continue to expand our business globally, our success will depend, in large part, on our ability to anticipate and effectively manage these and other risks associated with our international sales and operations. Our failure to manage any of these risks successfully, or to comply with applicable laws and regulations, could harm our operations, reduce our sales and harm our business, operating results and financial condition. For example, in certain foreign countries, particularly those with developing economies, certain business practices that are prohibited by laws and regulations applicable to us, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, may be more commonplace. Although we have policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance with these laws and regulations, our employees, contractors and agents, as well as channel partners involved in our international sales, may take actions in violation of our policies. Any such violation could have an adverse effect on our business and reputation.
Some of our business partners also have international operations and are subject to the risks described above. Even if we are able to successfully manage the risks of international operations, our business may be adversely affected if our business partners are not able to successfully manage these risks.
We may face exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
As our international operations expand, our exposure to the effects of fluctuations in currency exchange rates grows because our international contracts are sometimes denominated in local currencies. Over time, an increasing portion of our international contracts may be denominated in local currencies. Therefore, as exchange rates vary, revenues, cost of revenues, operating expenses and other operating results, when re-measured, may differ materially from expectations. The effects of movements in currency exchange rates will become more pronounced to the extent our transaction volume in local currencies increases. In the future, we may use foreign currency forward and option contracts and/or other derivative instruments to hedge certain exposures to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. The use of such hedging activities may not offset any or more than a portion of the adverse financial effects of unfavorable movements in foreign exchange rates over the limited time the hedges are in place. Additionally, the use of hedging instruments may introduce additional risks if we are unable to structure effective hedges with such instruments. These effects of movements in currency exchange rates could also affect our customers. A strengthening of the U.S. dollar could increase the real cost of our platform to our customers outside of the United States, which could adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition, and cash flows.
Risks Related to Our Services and Our Platform
If our security measures are breached or unauthorized access to customer data is otherwise obtained, we may experience disruption in service, our platform may be perceived as not being secure, customers may reduce the use of or stop using our platform and we may incur significant liabilities.
Our platform involves the storage and transmission of customer data, including, for example, sensitive and proprietary information about our customers’ spending. We may become the target of cyber-attacks by third parties seeking unauthorized access to our data or customers' data or to disrupt our platform. Computer malware, viruses, spear phishing attacks, and general hacking have become more prevalent in our industry, particularly against cloud services. Any unauthorized access or security breaches could result in the loss of sensitive customer information, prolonged disruption in services, litigation, loss of our authorization under FedRAMP, fines and penalties, liability under indemnity obligations and other economic and reputational damage. While we have security measures in place that are designed to protect customer information and prevent data loss and other security breaches, if these measures are breached as a result of third-party action, employee error, malfeasance or otherwise, and someone obtains unauthorized access to our customers’ data, we could face loss of business, regulatory investigations or orders, and our reputation could be severely damaged. In addition, we could be required to expend significant capital and other resources to alleviate the problem, as well as incur significant costs and liabilities, including due to litigation, indemnity obligations, damages for contract breach, penalties for violation of applicable laws or regulations, and costs for remediation and other incentives offered to customers or other business partners in an effort to maintain business relationships after a breach.
We cannot assure you that any limitations of liability provisions in our contracts would be enforceable or adequate or would otherwise protect us from any liabilities or damages with respect to any particular claim relating to a security lapse or breach. We also cannot be sure that our existing insurance coverage will continue to be available on acceptable terms or will be available in sufficient amounts to cover one or more large claims related to a security breach, or that the insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our financial condition, operating results, and reputation.
Cyber-attacks and other malicious Internet-based activities continue to increase generally. Because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not identified until they are launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. In addition, third parties may attempt to fraudulently induce employees or users to disclose information to gain access to our data or our customers’ data. If any of these events occur, our or our customers’ information could be accessed or disclosed improperly. Any or all of these issues could negatively affect our ability to attract new customers, cause existing customers to elect to not renew their subscriptions, result in reputational damage or subject us to third-party lawsuits, regulatory fines or other action or liability, which could adversely affect our operating results.
If we are not able to provide successful and timely enhancements, new features and modifications for our platform and solutions, we may lose existing customers or fail to attract new customers and our revenues and financial performance may suffer.
If we are unable to provide enhancements and new features for our existing solutions or new solutions that achieve market acceptance or to integrate technology, products and services that we acquire into our platform, our business and operating results could be adversely affected. The success of enhancements, new features and solutions depends on several factors, including the timely completion, introduction and market acceptance of the enhancements or new features or solutions. Failure in this regard may significantly impair the growth of our revenues. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, delays in the planned release dates of enhancements to our platform, and we have discovered, and may in the future discover, errors in new releases after their introduction. Either situation could result in adverse publicity, loss of sales, delay in market acceptance of our platform or customer claims, including, among other things, warranty claims against us, any of which could cause us to lose existing customers or affect our ability to attract new customers.
In addition, if any of our existing services or any new solutions that we introduce in the future do not achieve customer adoption at the rates that we or industry analysts have forecasted, our revenue and operating results may be adversely impacted, and our stock price may decline.
We rely on Amazon Web Services to deliver our platform and solutions to our customers, and any disruption in service from Amazon Web Services or material change to our arrangement with Amazon Web Services could adversely affect our business.
We rely upon Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) to operate certain aspects of our platform and any disruption of or interference with our use of AWS could impair our ability to deliver our platform and solutions to our customers, resulting in customer dissatisfaction, damage to our reputation, loss of customers and harm to our business. We have architected our software and computer systems to use data processing, storage capabilities and other services provided by AWS. Currently, most of our cloud service infrastructure is run on AWS. Given this, we cannot easily switch our AWS operations to another cloud provider, so any disruption of or interference with our use of AWS would adversely affect our operations and potentially our business.
AWS provides us with computing and storage capacity pursuant to an agreement that continues until terminated by either party. AWS may terminate the agreement for cause with 30 days’ prior written notice, including any material default or breach of the agreement by us that we do not cure within the 30 day period. Additionally, AWS has the right to terminate the agreement immediately with notice to us in certain scenarios such as if AWS believes providing the services could create a substantial economic or technical burden or material security risk for AWS, or in order to comply with the law or requests of governmental entities. The agreement requires AWS to provide us their standard computing and storage capacity and related support in exchange for timely payment by us. If any of our arrangements with AWS were terminated, we could experience interruptions in our software as well as delays and additional expenses in arranging new facilities and services.
We utilize third-party data center hosting facilities operated by AWS, located in various facilities around the world. Our operations depend, in part, on AWS’s abilities to protect these facilities against damage or interruption due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, human or software errors, natural disasters, power or telecommunications failures, criminal acts, capacity constraints and similar events. For instance, in February 2017, AWS suffered a significant outage in the United States that had a widespread impact on the ability of certain of our customers to fully use our solutions for a small period of time. Despite precautions taken at these data centers, the occurrence of spikes in usage volume, a natural disaster, an act of terrorism, vandalism or sabotage, a decision to close a facility without adequate notice or other unanticipated problems at a facility could result in lengthy interruptions in the availability of our platform. Even with current and planned disaster recovery arrangements, our business could be harmed. Also, in the event of damage or interruption, our insurance policies may not adequately compensate us for any losses that we may incur. These factors in turn could further reduce our revenues, subject us to liability and cause us to issue credits or cause customers to fail to renew their subscriptions, any of which could harm our business.
If we fail to manage our technical operations infrastructure, our existing customers may experience service outages and our new customers may experience delays in the implementation of our platform.
We have experienced significant growth in the number of users, transactions and data that our operations infrastructure supports. We seek to maintain sufficient excess capacity in our operations infrastructure to meet the needs of all of our customers, as well as to facilitate the rapid provision of new customer implementations and the expansion of existing customer implementations. In addition, we need to properly manage our technological operations infrastructure in order to support version control, changes in hardware and software parameters and the evolution of our platform. However, the provision of new hosting infrastructure requires significant lead time. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, website disruptions, outages and other performance problems. These problems may be caused by a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, human or software errors, viruses, security attacks, fraud, spikes in customer usage and denial of service issues. In some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance problems within an acceptable period of time. If we do not accurately predict our infrastructure requirements, our customers may experience service outages that may subject us to financial penalties, financial liabilities and customer losses. If our operations infrastructure fails to keep pace with increased sales, customers may experience delays as we seek to obtain additional capacity, which could adversely affect our revenue as well as our reputation.
Our business could be adversely affected if our customers are not successful with the implementation services provided by us or our partners.
Our business depends on our ability to make our customers successful, both with respect to our platform and solutions and the professional services that are performed to help our customers use features and functions that address their business needs. Professional services may be performed by our own staff, by a third-party partner or by a combination of the two. Our strategy is to work with partners to increase the breadth of capability and depth of capacity for delivery of these services to our customers. If a customer is not satisfied with the quality of work performed by us or a partner or with a virtual implementation or with the type of professional services or solutions delivered, we may incur additional costs in addressing the situation, the profitability of that work might be impaired and the customer’s dissatisfaction with our services or those of our partners could damage our ability to retain that customer or expand the number of solutions subscribed to by that customer. In addition, negative publicity related to our customer relationships, regardless of its accuracy, may further damage our business by affecting our ability to compete for new business with current and prospective customers.
We typically provide service level commitments under our customer contracts. If we fail to meet these contractual commitments, we could be obligated to provide credits or refunds for prepaid amounts related to unused subscription services or face contract terminations, which could adversely affect our revenues.
Our customer agreements typically provide service level commitments on a monthly basis. If we are unable to meet the stated service level commitments or suffer extended periods of unavailability for our platform, we may be contractually obligated to provide these customers with service credits, typically 10% of the customer’s subscription fees for the month in which the service level was not met, and we could face contract terminations, in which case we would be subject to refunds for prepaid amounts related to unused subscription services. Our revenues could be significantly affected if we suffer unexcused downtime under our agreements with our customers. Any extended service outages could adversely affect our reputation, revenues and operating results.
If we fail to integrate our platform with a variety of third-party technologies, our platform may become less marketable and less competitive or obsolete and our operating results may be harmed.
Our platform must integrate with a variety of third-party technologies, and we need to continuously modify and enhance our platform to adapt to changes in cloud-enabled hardware, software, networking, browser and database technologies. Any failure of our platform to operate effectively with future technologies could reduce the demand for our platform, resulting in customer dissatisfaction and harm to our business. If we are unable to respond to these changes in a cost-effective manner or if third-party developers and technology are unable or unwilling to provide necessary or complementary integrations, our platform may become less marketable and less competitive or obsolete and our operating results may be negatively affected. In addition, an increasing number of individuals within the enterprise are utilizing mobile devices to access the Internet and corporate resources and to conduct business. If we cannot continue to effectively make our platform available on these mobile devices and offer the information, services and functionality required by enterprises that widely use mobile devices, we may experience difficulty attracting and retaining customers.
Any failure to offer high-quality technical support services may adversely affect our relationships with our customers and our financial results.
Once our solutions are implemented, our customers depend on our support organization to resolve technical issues relating to our solutions. We may be unable to respond quickly enough to accommodate short-term increases in customer demand for support services. We also may be unable to modify the format of our support services to compete with changes in support services provided by our competitors. Increased customer demand for these services, without corresponding revenues, could increase costs and adversely affect our operating results. In addition, our sales process is highly dependent on our platform and business reputation and on positive recommendations from our existing customers. Any failure to maintain high-quality technical support, or a market perception that we do not maintain high-quality support, could adversely affect our reputation, our ability to sell subscriptions to our solutions to existing and prospective customers and our business, operating results and financial position.
If our platform fails to perform properly, our reputation could be adversely affected, our market share could decline and we could be subject to liability claims.
Our platform is inherently complex and may contain material defects or errors. Any defects in functionality or that cause interruptions in the availability of our platform could result in:
• loss or delayed market acceptance and sales;
• breach of warranty claims;
• sales credits or refunds for prepaid amounts related to unused subscription services;
• loss of customers;
• loss of customer data;
• diversion of development and customer service resources; and
• negative publicity and injury to our reputation.
The costs incurred in correcting any material defects or errors might be substantial and could adversely affect our operating results.
Because of the large amount of data that we collect and manage, it is possible that hardware failures or errors in our systems could result in data loss or corruption or cause the information that we collect to be incomplete or contain inaccuracies that our customers regard as significant. For example, our launch of Community.ai in February 2022, which utilizes proprietary artificial intelligence to aggregate and anonymize data from our customers and empower them with actionable data-driven insights. Any deficiencies or failures in the data collection and management systems underlying Community.ai which disrupt, degrade or otherwise adversely impact this process and the related data could result in customers receiving, and potentially acting on the basis of, incomplete or inaccurate information, which could in turn adversely impact our customer relationships and retention rates and harm our reputation. Additionally, data loss, breach, or unlawful or unintended disclosure, could occur as part of our Community.ai offering, which could result in the release of sensitive customer information and create liability exposure.
Furthermore, the availability or performance of our platform could be adversely affected by a number of factors, including customers’ inability to access the Internet, failure of our network or software systems, security breaches or variability in user traffic for our platform. We may be required to issue credits or refunds for prepaid amounts related to unused services or otherwise be liable to our customers for damages they incur resulting from certain of these events. For example, our customers access our solutions through their ISPs. If an ISP fails to provide sufficient capacity to support our solutions or otherwise experiences service outages, such failure could interrupt our customers’ access to our solutions and adversely affect their perception of our solutions’ reliability. In addition to potential liability, if we experience interruptions in the availability of our platform, our reputation could be adversely affected and we could lose customers.
Our errors and omissions insurance may be inadequate or may not be available in the future on acceptable terms, or at all. In addition, our policy may not cover all claims made against us and defending a suit, regardless of its merit, could be costly and divert management’s attention and result in adverse publicity which harms our reputation.
Risks Related to our Technology and Intellectual Property
We may be sued by third parties for various claims including alleged infringement of their proprietary rights.
We are involved in various legal matters arising from the normal course of business activities. These may include claims, suits, and other proceedings involving alleged infringement of third-party patents and other intellectual property rights, as well as commercial, corporate and securities, labor and employment, wage and hour, and other matters. In particular, there has been considerable activity in our industry to develop and enforce intellectual property rights. Our success depends upon our not infringing upon the intellectual property rights of others. Our competitors, as well as a number of other entities and individuals, may own or claim to own intellectual property relating to our industry. In the past third parties have claimed and in the future third parties may claim that our platform and underlying technology are infringing upon or otherwise violating their intellectual property rights, and we may be found to be infringing upon such rights.
We may be unaware of the intellectual property rights that others may claim cover some or all of our technology or services. As a result of our acquisition of businesses and technologies, we may be subject to infringement claims arising subsequent to the consummation of such acquisitions with respect to the acquired technology. Any claims or litigation could cause us to incur significant expenses and, if successfully asserted against us, could require that we pay substantial damages or ongoing royalty payments, prevent us from offering our services or require that we comply with other unfavorable terms. In the event a claim is brought against us with respect to an acquired technology, there can be no assurance that an applicable indemnification we obtained (if any) will be sufficient to cover all or any portion of liability arising under such claim. We may also be obligated to indemnify our customers and business partners or to pay substantial settlement costs, including royalty payments, in connection with any such claim or litigation and to obtain licenses, modify our platform or refund fees, which could be costly. Even if we were to prevail in such a dispute, any litigation regarding our intellectual property could be costly, distracting and time-consuming and could harm our brand, business, results of operations and financial condition.
Any failure to protect our intellectual property rights could impair the value of our proprietary technology and damage our brand.
Our success and ability to compete depend in part upon our intellectual property. We primarily rely on copyright, patent, trade secret and trademark laws, trade secret protection and confidentiality or contractual agreements with our employees, customers, partners and others to protect our intellectual property rights. However, the steps we take to protect our intellectual property rights as well as the policies and procedures implemented to detect threats (including from malfeasance by employees or contractors or other insiders with access to our technology and intellectual property, or unauthorized intrusions into our networks and systems by third parties) may be inadequate. and may fail to identify in a timely manner, if at all, every instance of infringement or attempted theft of our intellectual property. Any failure to identify, assess and expediently resolve attempted or actual theft, infringement or other unauthorized use of our technology or intellectual property could adversely impact our business and reputation.
In addition, our international operations expose us to a variety of customers and other foreign actors that may operate in jurisdictions where it is difficult or impossible for us to assert our intellectual property rights in case of infringement or theft, either as a statutory or practical matter. We have engaged in, and may in the future engage in additional, joint ventures with strategic partners outside of the United States, which may expose our technology and intellectual property to a heightened risk of unauthorized use or theft.
In order to protect our intellectual property rights, we may be required to expend significant resources to monitor and protect such rights. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time-consuming and distracting to management and could result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property. Furthermore, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property rights. Our failure to secure, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could seriously adversely affect our brand and our business. For example, s uch failures could delay further sales or the implementation of our platform, impair the functionality of our platform, delay introductions of new solutions , result in our substituting inferior or more costly technologies into our platform, or injure our reputation.
Our platform utilizes open source software, and any failure to comply with the terms of one or more of these open source licenses could negatively affect our business.
Our platform utilizes software governed by open source licenses, including for example the MIT License and the Apache License. The terms of various open source licenses have not been interpreted by United States courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a manner that imposes unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to market our platform. By the terms of certain open source licenses, if we combine our proprietary software with open source software in a certain manner, we could be required to release the source code of our proprietary software and make it available under open source licenses. In the event that portions of our proprietary software are determined to be subject to an open source license, we could be required to publicly release the affected portions of our source code, or to re-engineer all or a portion of our technologies or otherwise be limited in the licensing of our technologies, each of which could reduce or eliminate the value of our technologies and services. We have established processes to help alleviate these risks, but we cannot assure you that our processes for controlling our use of open source software in our platform will be effective. In addition to risks related to license requirements, the use of open source software can lead to greater risks than use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or controls on the origin of the software. Many of the risks associated with the use of open source software cannot be eliminated and could negatively affect our business.
We employ third-party licensed software for use in or with our platform, and the inability to maintain these licenses or errors in the software we license could result in increased costs, or reduced service levels, which could adversely affect our business.
Our platform incorporates certain third-party software obtained under licenses from other companies. We anticipate that we will continue to rely on such third-party software and development tools from third parties in the future. Although we believe that there are commercially reasonable alternatives to the third-party software we currently license, this may not always be the case, or it may be difficult or costly to replace. In addition, integration of the software used in our platform with new third-party software may require significant work and require substantial investment of our time and resources. Also, to the extent that our platform depends upon the successful operation of third-party software in conjunction with our software, any undetected errors or defects in this third-party software could prevent the deployment or impair the functionality of our platform, delay new solution introductions, result in a failure of our solutions and injure our reputation. Our use of additional or alternative third-party software would require us to enter into license agreements with third parties, which may be time consuming to negotiate or result in increased licensing costs and/or less favorable terms.
Risks Related to COVID-19
We continue to face financial and operational risks related to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on businesses and people around the world since it was publicly reported on or around December 2019. The duration of the pandemic, the potential for new variants, the potential need for new vaccines and the full extent of the impact of the foregoing are unknown.
Our business has been and could continue to be adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has adversely affected the macroeconomic environment and increased economic and stock market volatility and uncertainty. Restrictions on business activities, such as stay-at-home orders, whether imposed by governments or otherwise, may continue to adversely affect our sales activities, employee morale, operations and growth prospects. These restrictions, together with changes in consumer and business spending behavior prompted by the pandemic, have caused businesses in the United States and other jurisdictions to reduce or suspend their operations, lay-off employees, and in some cases shutdown operations—a pattern of global economic phenomena for which there is little precedent in modern times.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had and may continue to have an adverse impact on us in a number of ways, any of which individually or together could have a material adverse impact on our results of operations, financial condition and growth prospects. For example, although we derive a significant portion of our revenue from sales to enterprise customers (a segment that may be more resilient to economic volatility), a prolonged economic downturn is likely to impact many of our enterprise customers adversely. The extent of the damage to this segment of our customer base may not be apparent as quickly as for other segments, and is likely to differ by industry. Certain solutions of our platform, such as those that focus on business travel spend, may not be purchased by existing or prospective customers due to operational changes they made in response to the pandemic, such as restrictions placed on business travel, which could adversely impact our sales and revenue. These trends may persist to the extent that remote working arrangements become more commonplace. In addition, the pandemic may limit the ability of our suppliers and business partners to perform under their contracts with us, and we may not be able to find and engage additional or substitute suppliers and partners in a timely manner and on terms acceptable to us.
We believe that many businesses have been and may continue to be more reluctant to invest in the purchase and implementation of a new software solution like ours in the near term because of the economic uncertainty associated with the pandemic. It may become more difficult for us to acquire new customers and could lead to longer sales cycles, higher acquisition costs and greater uncertainty around the timing and likelihood of closing sales opportunities to which we have already devoted meaningful time and resources. Our existing customers may reduce their subscriptions or choose not to add new users or adopt new solutions at the rate we expect based on past experience. In addition, if our results of operations or our assessment of our growth prospects or potential for future revenue and profitability fail to meet investor and analyst expectations for any particular financial period, our stock price may experience a substantial decline, even if our revenues have increased or our margins have improved relative to past periods.
The spread of COVID-19 has also caused us to modify our business practices. Working remotely has made our workforce more reliant on certain cloud-based communication and collaboration services, and any disruption to these services would likely have an adverse impact on employee productivity. In addition to the limitations imposed by an all or partially-remote environment, many of our employees must contend with additional personal and family challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic that affect employee productivity and morale.
With the re-emergence of in-office working, any incidents of actual or perceived transmission may require us to temporarily close an impacted office, disrupt our operations, expose us to liability from employee claims, adversely impact employee productivity and morale, and result in negative publicity and reputational harm.
In addition, the stock market has experienced periods of high volatility during the COVID-19 pandemic and such volatility may continue. As a result, our stock price may be adversely impacted for reasons unrelated to our performance. A decline in stock price may make it more difficult for us to raise capital on terms acceptable to us or at all.
The extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our business, results of operations and financial condition will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and difficult to predict, including, but not limited to, the duration and severity of the pandemic, the availability and efficacy of new and existing vaccines in limiting infection and transmission, the emergence of potential new and more virulent or contagious variants, the actions taken in the United States and globally to contain the virus or address its impact, and how quickly and to what extent normal economic and operating activities can resume. To the extent the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affects our business, results of operations and financial condition, it may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section. Even after the pandemic has subsided, we may continue to experience an adverse impact to our business as a result of its global economic impact, including any recession that has occurred or may occur in the future. For the reasons discussed above and others that we may not have foreseen, we expect that the pandemic will continue to have adverse impacts on aspects of our business in the near term, any of which individually or together may have a material adverse impact on our results of operations, financial condition, growth prospects and stock price.
Risks Related to our Financial Results and Reporting
Our quarterly results may fluctuate significantly and may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business.
Our results of operations and key metrics discussed elsewhere in this report, such as trailing twelve months calculated billings, remaining performance obligations, deferred revenue, customers with annualized subscription revenue above $100,000 and cumulative spend under management, may vary significantly in the future and period-to-period comparisons of our operating results and key metrics may not provide a full picture of our performance. Accordingly, the results of any one quarter or year should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. Our quarterly financial results and metrics may fluctuate as a result of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control, as a result they may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business. These quarterly fluctuations may negatively affect the value of our common stock. Factors that may cause these fluctuations include, without limitation:
• our ability to attract new customers and complete the sale of our platform to them within the range of our typical sales cycle;
• the addition or loss of one or more of our larger customers, including as the result of acquisitions or consolidations;
• the timing of recognition of revenues;
• the amount and timing of operating expenses;
• general economic, industry and market conditions, both domestically and internationally, including the impact of the market volatility and economic downturn caused by COVID-19 on our business, including but not limited to a decreased demand for our platform and services, negative impacts on our revenue results, an increasing unpredictability in expenses and cash flow, and a decreased ability by our customers to pay for our platform and services;
• the timing of our billing and collections;
• customer renewal and expansion rates;
• security breaches of, technical difficulties with, or interruptions to the delivery and use of our products on our platform;
• the amount and timing of completion of professional services engagements;
• increases or decreases in the number of users for our platform, increases or decreases in the solutions purchased for our platform or pricing changes upon any renewals of customer agreements;
• changes in our pricing policies or those of our competitors;
• seasonal variations in sales of our software subscriptions, which have historically been highest in the fourth quarter of a calendar year but may vary in future quarters;
• the timing and success of new product or solution introductions by us or our competitors or any other change in the competitive dynamics of our industry, including consolidation among competitors, customers or strategic partners;
• changes in foreign currency exchange rates;
• extraordinary expenses such as litigation or other dispute-related expenses or settlement payments;
• sales tax and other tax determinations by authorities in the jurisdictions in which we conduct business;
• the impact of new accounting pronouncements and the adoption thereof;
• fluctuations in stock-based compensation expense;
• expenses in connection with mergers, acquisitions or other strategic transactions; and
• the timing of expenses related to the development or acquisition of technologies or businesses and potential future charges for impairment of goodwill or intangibles from acquired companies.
Further, in future periods, our revenue growth could slow or our revenues could decline for a number of reasons, including slowing demand for our offerings, increasing competition, a decrease in the growth of our overall market, global economic conditions, or our failure, for any reason, to continue to capitalize on growth opportunities. In addition, our growth rate may slow in the future as our market penetration rates increase. As a result, our revenues, operating results and cash flows may fluctuate significantly on a quarterly basis and revenue growth rates may not be sustainable and may decline in the future, and we may not be able to achieve or sustain profitability in future periods, which could harm our business and cause the market price of our common stock to decline.
Because we recognize subscription revenues over the term of the contract, fluctuations in new sales and renewals may not be immediately reflected in our operating results and may be difficult to discern.
We generally recognize subscription revenues from customers ratably over the terms of their contracts. Most of the subscription revenues we report on each quarter are derived from the recognition of deferred revenue relating to subscriptions and the PCS (as defined below) component of term-based license contracts entered into during previous quarters. Consequently, a decline in new or renewed subscriptions and/or term-based licenses in any single quarter would likely have only a small impact on our revenues for that quarter. However, such a decline would negatively affect our revenues in future quarters. Accordingly, the effect of significant downturns in sales and market acceptance of our platform, delays in our sales cycles as a result of COVID-19 and potential changes in our pricing policies, customer mix or rate of renewals, may not be fully apparent from our reported results of operations until future periods.
We may be unable to adjust our cost structure to reflect the changes in revenues. In addition, a significant majority of our costs are expensed as incurred, while subscription revenues are recognized over the life of the customer agreement. As a result, increased growth in the number of our customers, particularly large enterprise customers which tend to require larger upfront investment during the sales and implementation processes, could result in our recognition of more costs than revenues in the earlier periods of the terms of our agreements. Our subscription model also makes it difficult for us to rapidly increase our revenues through additional sales in any period, as revenues from new customers must be recognized over the applicable subscription term.
We have a history of cumulative losses, and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future.
We incurred net losses attributable to Coupa Software Incorporated of $379.0 million, $180.1 million, and $90.8 million in the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. We had an accumulated deficit of $894.9 million at January 31, 2022. Our losses and accumulated deficit reflect the substantial investments we made to acquire new customers, maintain existing customers and develop our platform. We expect our operating expenses to increase in the future due to anticipated increases in sales and marketing expenses, research and development expenses, operations costs and general and administrative costs, and, therefore, we expect our losses to continue for the foreseeable future. A significant contributor to each of these categories of expense is stock compensation expense associated with equity awards that we grant to many of our employees at the time of hire and thereafter on an annual basis. If we continue to grow at or near the pace at which our headcount increased during our 2022 fiscal year, we would expect our stock compensation expenses likewise to increase at a similar pace in future periods. Furthermore, to the extent we are successful in gaining new customers, we will also incur increased losses because many costs associated with acquiring new customers are generally incurred up front, while subscription revenues are generally recognized ratably over the terms of the agreements (typically three years, although some customers commit for longer or shorter periods). If we are unable to maintain consistent or increasing revenue or revenue growth or if our growth or growth forecasts fail to meet the expectations of investors or securities analysts, the market price of our common stock could be volatile, and it may be difficult for us to achieve and maintain profitability or maintain or increase cash flow on a consistent basis. Accordingly, we cannot assure you that we will achieve profitability in the future, or that, if we do become profitable, we will sustain profitability or achieve our target margins on a mid-term or long-term basis.
If we are unable to maintain effective internal controls over financial reporting in the future, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and the market price of our common stock may be negatively affected.
As a public company, we are required to maintain internal controls over financial reporting and to report any material weaknesses in such internal controls. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“Sarbanes-Oxley Act”) requires that we evaluate and determine the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting and provide a management report on the internal controls over financial reporting, which must be attested to by our independent registered public accounting firm. If we have a material weakness in our internal controls over financial reporting (including in the control environment of our acquired companies), we may not detect errors on a timely basis and our financial statements may be materially misstated. In the future, we may not be able to complete our evaluation, testing, and any required remediation in a timely fashion, or otherwise assert that our internal controls are effective, and additionally, our independent registered public accounting firm may not be able to formally attest to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting.
If in the future we identify material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting (including in the control environment of our acquired companies), if we are unable to comply with the requirements of Section 404 in a timely manner, if we are unable to assert that our internal controls over financial reporting are effective or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion as to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and the market price of our common stock could be negatively affected, and we could become subject to investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), Nasdaq or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional financial and management resources to address.
Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in accounting principles generally accepted in the United States.
Generally accepted accounting principles in the United States are subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”), the SEC and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. Accounting for revenue from sales of subscriptions to software is particularly complex, is often the subject of intense scrutiny by the SEC and will evolve as FASB continues to consider applicable accounting standards in this area. A change in accounting principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported financial results for periods prior and subsequent to such change. We may adopt new accounting standards retrospectively to prior periods and the adoption may result in an adverse change to previously reported results. Additionally, the adoption of these standards may potentially require enhancements or changes in our systems and will require significant time and cost on behalf of our financial management.
Government, Regulatory and Tax-Related Risks
Changes in privacy laws, regulations, and standards may cause our business to suffer.
Our customers can use our platform to collect, use and store certain types of personal or identifying information regarding their employees and suppliers. Federal, state and foreign government bodies and agencies have adopted, are considering adopting or may adopt laws and regulations regarding the collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information obtained from consumers and individuals, such as compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in the US and General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) in the European Union (“EU”). The costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, such laws and regulations that are applicable to the businesses of our customers may limit the use and adoption of our platform and reduce overall demand or lead to significant fines, penalties or liabilities for any noncompliance with such privacy laws. Furthermore, privacy concerns may cause our customers’ employees to resist providing the personal data necessary to allow our customers to use our platform effectively. Even the perception of privacy concerns, whether or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our platform in certain industries.
All of these domestic and international legislative and regulatory initiatives may adversely affect our customers’ ability to process, handle, store, use and transmit demographic and personal information from their employees, customers and suppliers, which could reduce demand for our platform. For example, the EU and many countries in Europe have stringent privacy laws and regulations, which may affect our ability to operate cost effectively in certain European countries. In particular, the EU's GDPR contains numerous requirements , including robust obligations on data processors and heavier documentation requirements for data protection compliance programs by companies. The GDPR also includes numerous privacy-related obligations for companies operating in the EU, including greater control for data subjects (e.g., the “right to be forgotten”), data portability for EU consumers, data breach notification requirements, and substantial fines. In particular, under the GDPR, fines of up to 20 million Euros or up to 4% of the annual global revenue of the noncompliant company, whichever is greater, could be imposed for violations of certain of the GDPR’s requirements. Complying with the GDPR may cause us to incur substantial operational costs or require us to change our business practices. Despite our efforts to bring practices into compliance with the GDPR, we may not be successful either due to internal or external factors such as resource allocation limitations or a lack of vendor cooperation. Non-compliance could result in proceedings against us by governmental entities, customers, data subjects or others. We may also experience difficulty retaining or obtaining new European or multi-national customers due to the compliance cost, potential risk exposure, and uncertainty for these entities, and we may experience significantly increased liability with respect to these customers pursuant to the terms set forth in our engagements with them. We may find it necessary to establish systems in the EU to maintain personal data originating from the EU, which may involve substantial expense and distraction from other aspects of our business. In the meantime, there could be uncertainty as to how to comply with EU privacy law, including with respect to transfers of personal data from the EU. Many other countries around the world also continue expanding and strengthening their data protection laws.
In addition, California enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), which took effect on January 1, 2020, and the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”), which expands upon the CCPA, was passed in the recent California election in November 2020 and comes into effect on January 1, 2023, with a “lookback” period to January 1, 2022. This legislation broadly defines personal information, gives California residents expanded privacy rights and protections, and provides for civil penalties for violations. Further, other U.S. states and federal lawmakers have adopted or are considering adopting similar privacy laws that may have broad applicability. The effects of the CCPA and CPRA are, and any similar laws enacted may be, potentially far-reaching and may require us to modify our data management practices and to incur substantial expense in an effort to comply.
Because the interpretation and application of many privacy and data protection laws along with contractually imposed industry standards are uncertain, it is possible that these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our existing data management practices or the features of our products and platform capabilities. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, lawsuits, and other claims and penalties, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our products and platform capabilities, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Any inability to adequately address privacy and security concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable privacy and data security laws, regulations, and policies, could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales, and adversely affect our business. Furthermore, the costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, the laws, regulations, and policies that are applicable to the businesses of our customers may limit the use and adoption of, and reduce the overall demand for, our products. Privacy and data security concerns, whether valid or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our products, particularly in certain industries and foreign countries. If we are not able to adjust to changing laws, regulations, and standards related to the Internet, our business may be harmed.
We are subject to the tax laws of various jurisdictions, which are subject to unanticipated changes and to interpretation, which could harm our future results.
We are subject to income taxes in the United States and foreign jurisdictions, and our domestic and international tax liabilities are subject to the allocation of expenses in differing jurisdictions. Our effective tax rate could be adversely affected by changes in the mix of earnings and losses in countries with differing statutory tax rates, certain non-deductible expenses as a result of acquisitions, the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, and changes in federal, state, or international tax laws and accounting principles.
Further, each jurisdiction has different rules and regulations governing sales and use, value added, and similar taxes, and these rules and regulations are subject to varying interpretations that change over time. Certain jurisdictions in which we did not collect such taxes may assert that such taxes are applicable, which could result in tax assessments, penalties, and interest, and we may be required to collect such taxes in the future. In addition, we may be subject to income tax audits by many tax jurisdictions throughout the world, many of which have not established clear guidance on the tax treatment of cloud-based companies. Any tax assessments, penalties, and interest, or future requirements may adversely affect our results of operations. Moreover, imposition of such taxes on us going forward would effectively increase the cost of our products to our customers and might adversely affect our ability to retain existing customers or to gain new customers in the areas in which such taxes are imposed.
In addition, the application of the tax laws of various jurisdictions, including the United States, to our international business activities is subject to interpretation and depends on our ability to operate our business in a manner consistent with our corporate structure. As we operate in numerous taxing jurisdictions, the application of tax laws can also be subject to diverging and sometimes conflicting interpretations by tax authorities of these jurisdictions. Our determination of our tax liability is subject to review by applicable United States and foreign tax authorities. Any adverse outcome of such a review could harm our operating results and financial condition.
We may not be able to utilize a significant portion of our net operating loss or research tax credit carryforwards, which could adversely affect our potential profitability.
We have federal and state net operating loss carryforwards due to prior period losses, which if not utilized will begin to expire in 2026 and 2029 for federal and state purposes, respectively. These net operating loss carryforwards could expire unused and be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities, which could adversely affect our potential profitability.
In addition, under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”), our ability to utilize net operating loss carryforwards or other tax attributes, such as research tax credits, in any taxable year may be limited if we experience an “ownership change.” Such an “ownership change” generally occurs if one or more stockholders or groups of stockholders who own at least 5% of our stock increase their ownership by more than 50 percentage points over their lowest ownership percentage within a rolling three-year period. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws. As of our initial public offering and our subsequent follow-on offering we have not had an ownership change that has triggered any material limitation on the use of our tax attributes for purposes of Section 382 of the Code. Subsequent changes in our stock ownership, however, could cause an “ownership change.” It is possible that an ownership change, or any future ownership change, could have a material effect on the use of our net operating loss carryforwards or other tax attributes, which could adversely affect our potential profitability.
Our customers include governmental agencies and entities (at both the federal, state and local level), and as a result we are subject to risks related to government contracts and procurement regulations, as well as other challenges unique to governmental customers.
We derive a portion of our revenue from contracts with government organizations, and we believe the success and growth of our business will in part depend on adding additional public sector customers. On March 10, 2022, we obtained authorization under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (“FedRAMP”), which promotes the adoption of secure cloud services across the federal government by providing a standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies and federal agencies. We believe this FedRAMP authorization will help us increase the number of U.S. public sector customers we work with. Therefore, the loss of FedRAMP authorization could inhibit or preclude our ability to contract with certain U.S. public sector customers. In addition, some customers may rely on our authorization under FedRAMP to help satisfy their own legal and regulatory compliance requirements and our failure to maintain FedRAMP authorization would result in a breach under public sector contracts obtained on the basis of such authorization, which could subject us to liability and result in reputational harm and/or adversely impact our results of operations and financial condition.
Demand from government organizations is often unpredictable, and we cannot assure you that we will be able to maintain or grow our revenue from the public sector. Sales to government entities are subject to substantial additional risks that may not be present in sales to other customers, including, but not limited to, the following:
• it can be more competitive, expensive and time consuming to sell to public sector customers as compared to other customer segments, often requiring substantial upfront investment of time and resources without any assurance that such activities will result in a sale;
• sales to the U.S. and other national governments, as well as state and local governments, may entail compliance with applicable certification and audit requirements, including FedRAMP in the U.S., which are often difficult and costly to obtain and maintain, and failure to comply with such requirements will limit or restrict the public sector customers we can engage with;
• demand and payment for our services by public sector customers may be adversely impacted by public sector budgetary cycles, funding authorizations and/or government shutdowns;
• public sector contracts may be subject to challenge by other interested parties and such challenges, even if unsuccessful, can increase costs, cause delays and defer implementation and revenue recognition;
• public sector customers frequently engage in routine investigations and audits of government contractors’ administrative and operational processes, and any adverse findings resulting from such could result in fines, civil or criminal liability, additional investigations or administrative proceedings, damage to our reputation or restrictions on our ability to transact with public sector customers in the future; and
• contracts with public sector customers can be difficult to negotiate and frequently require extension of terms that differ from our typical customer arrangements, in some cases such terms may be more favorable than customarily provided under our standard commercial contracts (e.g., permitting early termination, pricing concessions or extended payment terms, public disclosure of sensitive information (such as pricing terms) or inclusion of high liability in case of breaches).
In addition, we must comply with laws and regulations relating to the formation, administration, and performance of contracts with public sector customers, including U.S. federal, state, and local governmental organizations, as well as foreign governmental organizations, which affect how we do business with governmental agencies. Contracts with the U.S. government also subject us to certain regulatory and contractual requirements, including expanded compliance obligations under the Federal Acquisition Regulations (“FARs”). Failure to comply with these requirements could subject us to investigations, fines, and other penalties, which could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. For example, the U.S. Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) and the General Services Administration (the “GSA”) have in the past pursued claims against and financial settlements with vendors under the False Claims Act and other statutes related to pricing and discount practices and compliance with certain provisions of GSA contracts for sales to the federal government. The DOJ and GSA continue to actively pursue such claims. Violations of certain regulatory and contractual requirements could also result in us being suspended or debarred from future government contracting. Any of these outcomes could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, revenue, results of operations, and financial condition. Any inability to address these risks and challenges could reduce the commercial benefit to us or otherwise preclude us from conducting business with public sector customers.
Risks Related to our Indebtedness
We have incurred substantial indebtedness that may decrease our business flexibility, access to capital, and/or increase our borrowing costs, and we may still incur substantially more debt, which may adversely affect our operations and financial results.
In January 2018, we issued $230 million aggregate principal amount of 0.375% Convertible Senior Notes due 2023, which we refer to as the 2023 Notes, in June 2019, we issued $805 million aggregate principal amount of our 0.125% Convertible Senior Notes due 2025, which we refer to as the 2025 Notes, and in June 2020, we issued $1,380 million aggregate principal amount of our 0.375% Convertible Senior Notes due 2026, which we refer to as the 2026 Notes, which we collectively refer to as the Convertible Notes. As of January 31, 2022, we had $1,720.6 million in total long-term liabilities, comprised primarily of $1,614.3 million related to the carrying amount of the 2025 Notes and 2026 Notes. Our indebtedness may:
• limit our ability to borrow additional funds for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions or other general business purposes;
• limit our ability to use our cash flow or obtain additional financing for future working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions or other general business purposes;
• require us to use a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to make debt service payments;
• limit our flexibility to plan for, or react to, changes in our business and industry;
• place us at a competitive disadvantage compared to our less leveraged competitors; and
• increase our vulnerability to the impact of adverse economic and industry conditions.
Further, the indentures governing the Convertible Notes do not restrict our ability to incur additional indebtedness and we and our subsidiaries may incur substantial additional indebtedness in the future, subject to the restrictions contained in any future debt instruments existing at the time, some of which may be secured indebtedness.
Servicing our debt will require a significant amount of cash. We may not have sufficient cash flow from our business to pay our substantial debt, and we may not have the ability to raise the funds necessary to settle conversions of the Convertible Notes in cash or to repurchase the Convertible Notes upon a fundamental change, which could adversely affect our business and results of operations.
Our ability to make scheduled payments of the principal of, to pay interest on, or to refinance our indebtedness, including the amounts payable under the Convertible Notes, depends on our future performance, which is subject to economic, financial, competitive, and other factors beyond our control. Our business may not continue to generate cash flow from operations in the future sufficient to service our indebtedness and make necessary capital expenditures. If we are unable to generate such cash flow, we may be required to adopt one or more alternatives, such as selling assets, restructuring debt, or obtaining additional equity capital on terms that may be onerous or highly dilutive. Our ability to refinance our indebtedness will depend on the capital markets and our financial condition at such time. For example, the Federal Reserve’s discount rate may increase, and/or other monetary policy may change, which could ultimately result in higher short-term and/or long-term interest rates and could otherwise impact the general availability of credit. Higher prevailing interest rates and/or a tightening supply of credit would adversely affect the terms upon which we would be able to refinance our indebtedness, if at all. As a result, we may not be able to engage in any of these activities or engage in these activities on desirable terms, which could result in a default on our debt obligations.
Further, holders of the Convertible Notes have the right to require us to repurchase all or a portion of their Convertible Notes upon the occurrence of a “fundamental change” (as defined in the indentures governing the Convertible Notes (the “indentures”)) before the maturity date at a repurchase price equal to 100% of the principal amount of the Convertible Notes to be repurchased, plus accrued and unpaid interest, if any. In addition, upon conversion of the Convertible Notes, unless we elect to deliver solely shares of our common stock to settle such conversion (other than paying cash in lieu of delivering any fractional share), we will be required to make cash payments in respect of the Convertible Notes being converted. However, we may not have enough available cash or be able to obtain financing at the time we are required to make repurchases of Convertible Notes surrendered therefor or pay cash with respect to Convertible Notes being converted.
The conditional conversion feature of the Convertible Notes, when triggered, may adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.
In the event the conditional conversion feature of the Convertible Notes is triggered, holders of the Convertible Notes will be entitled to convert their Convertible Notes at any time during specified periods at their option. If one or more holders elect to convert their Convertible Notes, unless we elect to satisfy our conversion obligation by delivering solely shares of our common stock (other than paying cash in lieu of delivering any fractional share), we would be required to settle a portion or all of our conversion obligation in cash, which could adversely affect our liquidity. As disclosed in Note 10, “Convertible Senior Notes” in the notes to our consolidated financial statements, the conditional conversion feature of the 2023 Notes and the 2025 Notes was triggered as of January 31, 2022.
In addition, even if certain holders of Convertible Notes do not elect to convert their Convertible Notes, we could be required under applicable accounting rules to reclassify all or a portion of the outstanding principal of the Convertible Notes as a current rather than long-term liability, which would result in a material reduction of our net working capital.
The accounting method for convertible debt securities that may be settled in cash, such as the Convertible Notes, could have a material effect on our reported financial results.
Under Accounting Standards Codification 470-20, Debt with Conversion and Other Options (“ASC 470-20”), an entity must separately account for the liability and equity components of the convertible debt instruments (such as the Convertible Notes) that may be settled entirely or partially in cash upon conversion in a manner that reflects the issuer’s economic interest cost. The effect of ASC 470-20 on the accounting for the Convertible Notes is that the equity component is required to be included in the additional paid-in capital section of stockholders’ equity on our consolidated balance sheet at the issuance date and the value of the equity component would be treated as debt discount for purposes of accounting for the debt component of the Convertible Notes. As a result, we will be required to record a greater amount of non-cash interest expense as a result of the amortization of the discounted carrying value of the Convertible Notes to their face amount over the term of the Convertible Notes. We will report larger net losses (or lower net income) in our financial results because ASC 470-20 will require interest to include the amortization of the debt discount, which could adversely affect our reported or future financial results, the trading price of our common stock and the trading price of the Convertible Notes.
In addition, under certain circumstances, convertible debt instruments (such as the Convertible Notes) that may be settled entirely or partly in cash may be accounted for utilizing the treasury stock method, the effect of which is that the shares issuable upon conversion of such Convertible Notes are not included in the calculation of diluted earnings per share except to the extent that the conversion value of such Convertible Notes exceeds their principal amount. Under the treasury stock method, for diluted earnings per share purposes, the transaction is accounted for as if the number of shares of common stock that would be necessary to settle such excess, if we elected to settle such excess in shares, are issued. In August 2020, the Financial Accounting Standards Board issued ASU No. 2020-06, Debt—Debt with Conversion and Other Options (Subtopic 470-20) and Derivatives and Hedging - Contracts in Entity’s Own Equity (Subtopic 815-40) to amend current accounting standards to eliminate the treasury stock method for convertible instruments and instead require application of the “if-converted” method. Under that method, diluted earnings per share will generally be calculated assuming that all the Convertible Notes are converted solely into shares of common stock at the beginning of the reporting period, unless the result would be anti-dilutive. The application of the if-converted method may change previously reported per share results. See Note 2 “Significant Accounting Policies — Recent Accounting Guidance” in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
The capped call transactions may affect the value of the Convertible Notes and our common stock.
In connection with the pricing of the Convertible Notes, we entered into capped call transactions with certain financial institutions. The capped call transactions are expected generally to reduce or offset the potential dilution upon conversion of the Convertible Notes and/or offset any cash payments we are required to make in excess of the principal amount of converted Convertible Notes, as the case may be, with such reduction and/or offset subject to a cap.
In connection with establishing their initial hedges of the capped call transactions, these financial institutions or their respective affiliates likely purchased shares of our common stock and/or entered into various derivative transactions with respect to our common stock concurrently with or shortly after the pricing of the Convertible Notes. These financial institutions or their respective affiliates may modify their hedge positions by entering into or unwinding various derivatives with respect to our common stock and/or purchasing or selling our common stock or other securities of ours in secondary market transactions following the pricing of the Convertible Notes and prior to the maturity of the Convertible Notes (and are likely to do so during any observation period related to a conversion of Convertible Notes). This activity could also cause or avoid an increase or a decrease in the market price of our common stock or the Convertible Notes.
The potential effect, if any, of these transactions and activities on the price of our common stock or the Convertible Notes will depend in part on market conditions and cannot be ascertained at this time. Any of these activities could adversely affect the value of our common stock.
Conversion of the Convertible Notes will dilute the ownership interest of existing stockholders, including holders who had previously converted their Convertible Notes, or may otherwise depress the price of our common stock.
The conversion of some or all of the Convertible Notes will dilute the ownership interests of existing stockholders to the extent we deliver shares of our common stock upon conversion of any of the Convertible Notes. The Convertible Notes are currently convertible and may from time to time in the future be convertible at the option of their holders prior to their scheduled terms under certain circumstances. Any sales in the public market of the common stock issuable upon such conversion could adversely affect prevailing market prices of our common stock. In addition, the existence of the Convertible Notes may encourage short selling by market participants because the conversion of the Convertible Notes could be used to satisfy short positions, or anticipated conversion of the Convertible Notes into shares of our common stock could depress the price of our common stock.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
Our stock price has been subject to fluctuations, and will likely continue to be subject to fluctuations and decline, due to factors beyond our control and you may lose all or part of your investment.
The market price of our common stock is subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These factors, as well as the volatility of our common stock, could affect the price at which our convertible noteholders could sell the common stock received upon conversion of the Convertible Notes and could also impact the trading price of the Convertible Notes. Since shares of our common stock were sold in our initial public offering in October 2016 at a price of $18.00 per share, the reported high and low sales prices of our common stock have ranged from $22.50 to $377.04 through January 31, 2022 . The market price of our common stock may fluctuate significantly in response to numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control, including:
• price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market from time to time, including fluctuations due to general economic uncertainty and negative market sentiment;
• our operating performance and the performance of other similar companies;
• announcements of new and changes in our existing projected or target operating results and key metrics that we provide to the public, as well as those published by research analysts that follow our stock, our failure to meet or exceed these projections or targets or changes in recommendations by securities analysts;
• changes in our financial, operating or other metrics, regardless of whether we consider those metrics as reflective of the current state or long-term prospects of our business, and how those results compare to securities analyst and investor expectations, including whether those results fail to meet, exceed, or significantly exceed such expectations;
• failure of security analysts to initiate or maintain coverage of our company;
• announcements of technological innovations, pricing changes, new software or enhancements to services, acquisitions, strategic alliances or significant agreements by us or by our competitors;
• announcements of our intent to conduct debt or equity financings or repurchases, redemptions, conversions or the like;
• the sale or availability for sale of a large number of shares of our common stock in the public market;
• disruptions in our services due to computer hardware, software or network problems, including significant security breaches;
• announcements of customer additions and customer cancellations or delays in customer purchases;
• the level of success achieved with respect to international expansion and expected timeframes for realization of the related beneficial impact on operating results;
• the impact of integrated acquired businesses and technologies on our operating results in the short-term and the expected impact in the medium- and long-term;
• recruitment or departure of key personnel;
• the economy as a whole, including changes to fiscal and monetary policy of the Federal Reserve, market conditions in our industry and the industries of our customers;
• extraordinary expenses such as litigation or other dispute-related expenses or settlement payments;
• developments with respect to patent and proprietary rights;
• conversion of the Convertible Notes;
• the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, including on the global economy, our results of operations, enterprise software spending and business continuity;
• the size of our market float;
• environmental, social, governance, ethical, and other issues impacting our brand; and
• any other factors discussed in this Annual Report.
The stock markets have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many technology companies. Stock prices of many technology companies have fluctuated in a manner unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In the past, stockholders have filed securities class action litigation following periods of market volatility. If we were to become involved in securities litigation, it could subject us to substantial costs, divert resources and the attention of management from our business and adversely affect our business. In addition, because we award restricted stock units (RSUs) to many of our employees as part of their total compensation package, and the value of those RSUs depends directly on our stock price, a sharp or prolonged decline in our stock price may make it more difficult for us to retain our employees or result in us granting more awards in the aggregate to retain our employees.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that they might occur, could cause the price of our common stock to decline.
The price of our common stock could decline if there are substantial sales of our common stock, particularly sales by our directors, executive officers, and significant stockholders. The shares held by these persons may be sold in the public market in the United States, subject to prior registration in the United States, if required, or reliance upon an exemption from United States registration, including, in the case of shares held by affiliates or control persons, compliance with the volume restrictions of Rule 144. In addition, some of our executive officers have entered into Rule 10b5-1 trading plans under which they have contracted with a broker to sell shares of our common stock on a periodic basis.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that these sales might occur, for whatever reason, including as a result of the conversion of the outstanding Convertible Notes, could cause the market price of our common stock to decline or make it more difficult for our stockholders to sell their common stock at a time and price that they deem appropriate and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity or equity linked securities. In addition, we have filed a registration statement to register shares reserved for future issuance under our equity compensation plans. Subject to the satisfaction of applicable exercise periods and, in the case of shares held by affiliates or control persons, compliance with the volume restrictions of Rule 144, the shares issued upon exercise of outstanding stock options, settlement of outstanding restricted stock units, or conversion of the Convertible Notes into common stock will be available for immediate resale in the United States in the open market.
We have also reserved a substantial amount of shares of our common stock in connection with awards issued under our equity incentive plans and upon conversion of the Convertible Notes, the issuance of which will dilute the ownership interests of existing stockholders. Any sales in the public market of the common stock issuable upon such issuance or conversion could adversely affect prevailing market prices of our common stock.
We are unable to predict the effect that sales, or the perception that our shares may be available for sale, will have on the prevailing market price of our common stock and the trading price of the Convertible Notes.
If securities or industry analysts do not continue to publish research or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock depends in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. If industry analysts cease coverage of us, the trading price for our common stock and the trading price of the Convertible Notes will be negatively affected. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our common stock or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business or if our results fall short of the projected results published by one or more research analyst, our common stock price and the trading price of the Convertible Notes will likely decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of us or fail to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our common stock could decrease, which might cause our common stock price and trading volume, and the trading price of the Convertible Notes, to decline.
In addition, independent industry analysts, such as Gartner and Forrester, often provide reviews of our products and platform capabilities, as well as those of our competitors, and perception of our offerings in the marketplace may be significantly influenced by these reviews. We have no control over what these industry analysts report, and because industry analysts may influence current and potential customers, our brand could be harmed if they do not provide a positive review of our products and platform capabilities or view us as a market leader.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We have never declared nor paid cash dividends on our capital stock. We currently intend to retain any future earnings to finance the operation and expansion of our business, and we do not expect to declare or pay any dividends in the foreseeable future. Consequently, stockholders, including holders of our Convertible Notes who receive shares of our common stock upon conversion of the Convertible Notes, must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investment.
Delaware law, provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation (“Restated Certificate”) and amended and restated bylaws (“Restated Bylaws”), and provisions in the indentures for our Convertible Notes could make a merger, tender offer or proxy contest difficult, thereby depressing the trading price of our common stock and Convertible Notes.
Our status as a Delaware corporation and the anti-takeover provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control by prohibiting us from engaging in a business combination with an interested stockholder for a period of three years after the person becomes an interested stockholder, even if a change of control would be beneficial to our existing stockholders. In addition, our Restated Certificate and Restated Bylaws contain provisions that may make the acquisition of our company more difficult, including the following:
• the requirement of a classified board of directors with three-year staggered terms, which could delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of a majority of our board of directors;
• the ability of our board of directors to issue shares of preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquiror;
• the exclusive right of our board of directors to elect a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of our board of directors or the resignation, death or removal of a director, which prevents stockholders from being able to fill vacancies on our board of directors;
• a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent, which forces stockholder action to be taken at an annual or special meeting of our stockholders;
• the requirement that a special meeting of stockholders be called only by a majority vote of our entire board of directors, the chairman of our board of directors or our chief executive officer, which could delay the ability of our stockholders to force consideration of a proposal or to take action, including to remove directors;
• the requirement for the affirmative vote of holders of at least 66 2/3% of the voting power of all of the then-outstanding shares of the voting stock, voting together as a single class, to amend the provisions of our Restated Certificate relating to the management of our business or our Restated Bylaws, which may inhibit the ability of an acquiror to effect such amendments to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt; and
• advance notice procedures with which stockholders must comply to nominate candidates to our board of directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which may discourage or deter a potential acquiror from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquiror’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.
In addition, as a Delaware corporation, we are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. These provisions may prohibit large stockholders, in particular those owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock, from merging or combining with us for a certain period of time. A Delaware corporation may opt out of this provision by express provision in its original certificate of incorporation or by amendment to its certificate of incorporation or bylaws approved by its stockholders. However, we have not opted out of this provision.
In addition, if a fundamental change occurs prior to the maturity date of the Convertible Notes, holders of the Convertible Notes will have the right, at their option, to require us to repurchase all or a portion of their Convertible Notes. If a “make-whole fundamental change” (as defined in the applicable indenture) occurs prior the maturity date, we will in some cases be required to increase the conversion rate of the Convertible Notes for a holder that elects to convert its Convertible Notes in connection with such make-whole fundamental change. These features of the Convertible Notes may make a potential acquisition more expensive for a potential acquiror, which may in turn make it less likely for a potential acquiror to offer to purchase our company, or reduce the amount of consideration offered for each share of our common stock in a potential acquisition. Furthermore, the indentures prohibit us from engaging in certain mergers or acquisitions unless, among other things, the surviving entity assumes our obligations under the Convertible Notes.
These and other provisions in our Restated Certificate, Restated Bylaws, Convertible Notes, indentures and in Delaware law could deter or prevent a third party from acquiring us or could make it more difficult for stockholders or potential acquirors to obtain control of our board of directors or initiate actions that are opposed by our then-current board of directors, including to delay or impede a merger, tender offer, or proxy contest involving our company. The existence of these provisions could negatively affect the price of our common stock and the trading price of the Convertible Notes and limit opportunities for you to realize value in a corporate transaction.
Our Restated Certificate provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.
Our Restated Certificate provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, any action asserting a breach of fiduciary duty, any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to the Delaware General Corporation Law, our Restated Certificate or our Restated Bylaws or any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine. This choice of forum provision may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers or other employees and may discourage these types of lawsuits. Alternatively, if a court were to find the choice of forum provision contained in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we might incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions. For the avoidance of doubt, these choice of forum provisions may not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Securities Act, the Exchange Act or any other claim for which the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction.
We are subject to state laws in California that impose gender and diversity requirements for boards of directors of public companies headquartered in California.
In September 2018, California enacted Senate Bill No. 826 (“SB 826”), requiring public companies with principal executive offices in California to maintain certain female representation on their boards of directors. Additionally, on September 30, 2020, California enacted Assembly Bill No. 979 (“AB 979”), requiring public companies with principal executive offices in California to maintain board membership with members from an underrepresented community based on ethnicity and sexual orientation.
As of January 31, 2022, we were not in full compliance with SB 826 or AB 979. While we are working diligently to remediate this non-compliance, we cannot assure that we will be successful in recruiting and/or retaining members of the board and meet the requirements of SB 826 or AB 979. Non-compliance with either SB 826 or AB 979 may cause certain investors to divert their holdings in our securities and expose us to financial penalties and/or reputational harm, and could result in fines imposed by the California Secretary of State.
General Risks
We have incurred and will continue to incur significantly increased costs and devote substantial management time as a result of operating as a public company.
As a public company, we have incurred and will continue to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses. For example, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and are required to comply with the applicable requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, as well as rules and regulations subsequently implemented by the SEC and the Nasdaq Global Select Market, including the establishment and maintenance of effective disclosure and financial controls and changes in corporate governance practices. Compliance with these requirements has increased our legal and financial compliance costs and made some activities more time consuming and costly. In addition, our management and other personnel need to divert attention from operational and other business matters to devote substantial time to these public company requirements. In particular, we are incurring significant expenses and devoting substantial management effort toward ensuring ongoing compliance with the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We have hired and may need to continue to hire additional accounting and financial staff with appropriate public company experience and technical accounting knowledge and maintain an internal audit function. We cannot predict or estimate the amount of additional costs we may incur as a result of being a public company.
The rules and regulations applicable to public companies make it more expensive for us to obtain and maintain director and officer liability insurance and we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified members of our board of directors, particularly to serve on our audit committee and compensation committee, and qualified executive officers.
Climate change may have a long-term negative impact on our business.
Risks related to rapid climate change and increased regulation regarding environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) matters may have an increasingly adverse impact on our business. While we seek to mitigate our business risks associated with climate change (such as drought, wildfires, hurricanes, increased storm severity and sea level rise), we recognize that there are inherent climate-related risks wherever business is conducted. The frequency and impact of climate-related events have the potential to disrupt our business, the business of our customers and third-party suppliers, and may increase our costs or cause us to experience losses in order to operate the business. Additionally, we may be subject to increased regulations, reporting requirements, standards or expectations regarding the environmental impacts of our business, including, for example with respect to greenhouse gas emissions and/or water and waste management.
Coupa is committed to sustainable business practices and strives for positive impacts in not just environmental matters, but also social and governance practices. For a discussion of Coupa’s ESG impact, please see the Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) Impact section.
