Item 1A. Risk Factors
Our business involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the risks described below, as well as the other information contained or incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes, as well as our other filings with the SEC. 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 Class A common stock could decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe are not material may also impair our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects.
Risks Related to Our Business
Our quarterly and annual results of operations have fluctuated in the past and may fluctuate significantly in the future and may not meet our expectations or those of investors or securities analysts.
Our quarterly and annual results of operations, including the levels of our revenue, working capital and cash flows, have varied significantly in the past and may vary significantly in the future, such that period-to-period comparisons of our results of operations may not be meaningful. Our quarterly and annual financial results may fluctuate due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control and may be difficult to predict, including, but not limited to:
• the level of demand across our platform and for individual features within our platform;
• our ability to grow or maintain our gross logo retention rate and net seat retention rate (each as described in Part II, Item 7 “Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”), expand usage within organizations, retain and increase sales to existing customers and attract new members and customers;
• our ability to convert individuals and organizations using our free features or trial subscriptions into paying customers;
• our ability to predictably generate revenue through marketing and sales efforts;
• the timing and success of new features, integrations, capabilities and enhancements by us to our platform, or by our competitors to their products, or any other changes in the competitive landscape of our market;
• our ability to grow and maintain our relationships and/or integrations with our network of third-party partners, including integration partners, channel partners and professional service partners;
• our ability to regulate members and member interactions on an increasingly collaborative platform;
• our ability to grow revenue share and customer referrals from our partner ecosystem;
• our ability to attract new customers and retain existing customers;
• the success of our customers’ businesses;
• our ability to achieve widespread acceptance and use of our platform and features, including the Expensify Card and any new features we may introduce;
• our ability to retain customers on annual subscriptions;
• our ability to maintain and improve employee efficiency, and our ability to manage third party, outsourced or open source workers to provide value-added services like receipt processing, customer support and engineering;
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• errors in our forecasting of the demand for our platform and features, which would lead to lower revenue, increased costs, or both;
• the amount and timing of operating expenses and capital expenditures, as well as entry into operating leases, that we may incur to maintain and expand our business and operations and to remain competitive;
• the timing of expenses and recognition of revenue;
• actual or perceived security breaches, technical difficulties, or interruptions to our platform and features;
• pricing pressure as a result of competition or otherwise;
• ineffective pricing strategies that could limit customer base expansion, revenue growth and subscription renewals;
• adverse litigation judgments, other dispute-related settlement payments, or other litigation-related costs;
• the number of new employees hired;
• the timing of the grant or vesting of equity awards to employees, directors, or consultants;
• declines in the values of foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar;
• changes in, and continuing uncertainty in relation to, the legislative or regulatory environment;
• legal and regulatory compliance costs in new and existing markets;
• costs and timing of expenses related to the potential acquisition of talent, technologies, businesses or intellectual property, and their integration, including potentially significant amortization costs and possible write-downs;
• health crises or other conditions that impact travel and business spending; and
• general economic and market conditions in either domestic or international markets, including geopolitical uncertainty and instability and their effects on software spending.
Any one or more of the factors above may result in significant fluctuations in our quarterly and annual results of operations, which may negatively impact the trading price of our Class A common stock. You should not rely on our past results as an indicator of our future performance.
The variability and unpredictability of our quarterly and annual results of operations or other operating metrics could result in our failure to meet our expectations or those of investors or analysts with respect to revenue or other metrics for a particular period. If we fail to meet or exceed such expectations for these or any other reasons, the trading price of our Class A common stock could fall, and we would face litigation, including securities class action lawsuits, which could subject us to substantial costs, divert resources and the attention of management from our business and adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
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We may not be able to successfully implement our growth strategies on a timely basis or at all. Even if we are successful, if we fail to effectively manage our growth, our business and results of operations could be harmed.
We operate in a relatively new and rapidly changing category of preaccounting software, and widespread acceptance and use of our platform and features, particularly our expense management feature, is critical to our future growth and success. We believe our growth depends on a number of factors, including, but not limited to, our ability to:
• attract new individuals and organizations to use our features, particularly our expense management feature;
• convert individuals and organizations using our free features or trial subscriptions into paying customers;
• grow or maintain our gross logo retention rate and net seat retention rate, and expand usage within organizations;
• price our subscription plans effectively and competitively;
• retain our existing individual and organizational customers;
• achieve widespread acceptance and use of our platform and features, including in markets outside of the United States;
• continue to successfully advance our bottom-up sales strategy as well as strategic relationships with our channel partners;
• continue to maintain and build a platform and brand that drives word-of-mouth exposure to new potential members;
• grow or maintain our brand through marketing, advertising campaigns, partnerships and other methods;
• gain member traction for and generate revenue from our new features and services;
• grow or maintain current levels of interchange revenue and/or fees generated through transaction-based features;
• expand the features and capabilities of our platform and features;
• provide excellent customer experience and customer support;
• maintain the security and reliability of our platform and features;
• maintain the trust of our customers;
• successfully compete against established companies and new market entrants, as well as existing software tools;
• successfully respond to other competitive challenges in the United States and globally;
• attract, hire and retain highly skilled personnel;
• the impact of any future pandemic, epidemic or other public health crisis on our business;
• obtain, expand, maintain, enforce and protect our intellectual property portfolio;
• operate as a public company;
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• grow our member and customer base in new countries and/or markets, and increase awareness of our brand on a global basis; and
• obtain and maintain compliance and licenses material to our current and future businesses, and comply with existing and new applicable laws and regulations including in markets outside of the United States.
If we are unable to accomplish these tasks, our growth, including our revenue growth, would be harmed.
Our ability to accurately plan for and model future growth is limited and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, due in part to our global operations, customer preferences and mix of products and features. If our assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties, which we use to plan our business strategies and operations, are incorrect or change due to industry or market developments, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our operating results could differ materially from our expectations and our business could suffer. Additionally, the growth and expansion of our business and platform may place a significant strain on our management and our administrative, operational and financial reporting resources. For example, we are required to manage multiple relationships with various strategic, integration and channel partners, customers and other third parties. In the event of further growth of our operations or in the number of our third-party relationships, our computer systems, procedures, or internal controls may not be adequate to support our operations, and our management may not be able to manage such growth effectively. To effectively manage growth, we must continue to implement and improve our operational, financial and management information and reporting systems and manage our employee base. If future revenue growth does not offset any increases in our operating expenses, our business, results of operations, and financial condition will be , and we may not be to maintain . In addition, as we seek to continue to expand internationally, we will likely encounter and expenses due to unfamiliarity with local regulations, requirements, practices and markets.
Our expense management feature drives the majority of our subscriptions, and any failure of this feature to satisfy customer demands or to achieve increased market acceptance could adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition and growth prospects.
A majority of our subscriptions are driven by bottom-up adoption related to our expense management feature. Although we have added, and expect to continue to add, new features to expand our offerings, and all of our features are accessible under a single subscription, at least in the near term, we expect our expense management feature to continue to drive the majority of our subscriptions. As a result, market acceptance of our expense management feature is critical to our success. Demand for our expense management feature, as well as our other features, is affected by a number of factors, many of which are beyond our control, such as the adoption of our features by new and existing customers; the timing of development and release of upgraded or new features on our platform; products and services introduced or upgraded by our competitors or partners; our ability to determine optimal pricing for our platform, including in international markets; pricing offered by our competitors; technological change; and growth or contraction in our addressable market. We cannot guarantee any price increases we may choose to implement in the future will not adversely affect our business. If we are unable to meet customer demand for our expense management feature; do not price our subscriptions optimally or make changes to our subscription or pricing models that are not accepted by the market; or to convert members of our free expense management feature or trial subscriptions to paying subscribers, our business, results of operations, financial condition and growth prospects will .
If we fail to adapt and respond effectively to rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards and changing customer needs or preferences, our platform may become less competitive.
The software industry is subject to rapid technological change, evolving industry standards and practices and changing customer needs and preferences. The success of our business will depend, in part, on our ability to adapt and respond effectively to these changes by continually modifying and enhancing our features to keep pace with changes in hardware systems and software applications, database technology
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and evolving technical standards and interfaces on a timely basis. If we are unable to develop and market new technology, features and functionality for our platform that keep pace with rapid technological and industry change and satisfy our customers, our revenue and operating results could be adversely affected. If new technologies emerge that deliver competitive products at lower prices, more efficiently, more conveniently, or more securely, it could adversely impact our ability to compete.
Our platform must also integrate with a variety of network, hardware, mobile and software platforms and technologies. We need to continuously modify and enhance our platform to adapt to changes and innovation in these technologies. This development effort may require significant engineering, marketing and sales resources, all of which would affect our business and operating results. Any failure of our platform to operate effectively with future technologies could reduce the demand for our platform. If we are unable to respond to these changes in a cost effective manner, our platform may become less marketable and less competitive or obsolete, and our operating results may be negatively affected.
If we are unable to attract new customers on a cost-effective basis, convert individuals using our free basic expense management feature and organizations using our trial subscriptions into paying customers, retain existing customers and expand usage within organizations, our revenue growth will be harmed.
To increase our revenue, we must increase our customer base through various methods, including but not limited to, retaining existing customers, adding new customers, converting individuals using our free basic expense management feature and organizations using our trial subscriptions into paying customers, and expanding usage within organizations. Our business is subscription-based, with monthly and annual subscriptions, and customers are not obligated to and may not renew their subscriptions after their existing subscriptions expire.
One of our primary marketing strategies is to offer a free basic version of our expense management feature to individuals within organizations. We rely on these individuals to expose others within their organizations to our platform and features and to convince those individuals to become new members, which could eventually lead to the engagement of the organization or individuals or departments within the organization as paying customers. To encourage viral adoption, we offer viral features that are free and accessible without a paid subscription, and we also offer time-limited trial subscriptions. We believe these free basic features and trial subscriptions promote brand awareness and organic adoption of our platform. While our viral model means that employees or contractors often introduce Expensify into SMBs, companies subscribe and pay for the majority of our paid members. To the extent that increasing numbers of these individuals and organizations who utilize the free aspects of our platform do not become, or lead others to become, paying customers, we will not realize the intended benefits of these marketing strategies, we will continue to pay the costs associated with hosting such free basic features and trial subscriptions, our ability to grow our business will be harmed, and our business, results of operations and financial condition will suffer.
Numerous factors may impede our ability to attract new customers, convert individuals and organizations using our free basic features and trial subscriptions into paying customers, expand usage within organizations, increase use of our other features such as the Expensify Card and gain new subscriptions, including but not limited to, failure to retain and motivate our personnel; failure to establish, maintain or expand relationships with channel and integration partners; failure to compete effectively against alternative products or services; our ability to determine optimal pricing for our subscriptions, including in international markets; failure to successfully deploy new features and integrations; failure to provide a quality customer experience and customer support; or failure to ensure the effectiveness of our bottom-up sales approach and other marketing programs. Channel partnerships are also an important aspect of our growth strategy, and we will need to maintain our partnerships with existing channel partners and identify and attract new channel partners in order to maintain the effectiveness of this strategy. Moreover, we believe that many of our new customers originate from word-of-mouth and other non-paid referrals from existing customers, so we must ensure that our existing customers remain to our platform in order to continue receiving those referrals.
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Our business is subscription-based, and customers are not obligated to and may not renew their subscriptions after their existing subscriptions expire. We cannot ensure that customers will renew subscriptions with the same or greater number of members or for the same level of subscription plan or that they will upgrade to use features such as bi-directional accounting sync and invoicing features or the Expensify Card. Customers may or may not renew their subscriptions as a result of a number of factors, including their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our platform; changes we may implement in our pricing or structure; the pricing or capabilities of the products and services offered by our competitors; the effects of general economic conditions; or customers’ budgetary constraints. If customers do not renew their subscriptions, renew on less favorable terms, or fail to add members, or if we fail to convert individuals and organizations into paying members, or expand the adoption of our platform within their organizations, our revenue may decline or grow less quickly than anticipated, which would harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Our future also depends in part on our ability to provide additional features to attract new members at existing customers, as well as increase transaction monetization from the Expensify Card. If our efforts to do so are not , our revenue may or grow less quickly than anticipated, which would our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We may fail to accurately predict the optimal pricing strategies necessary to attract new customers, retain existing customers and respond to changing market conditions.
We have in the past, and may in the future, need to change our pricing model from time to time. As the market for our platform matures, or as competitors introduce new solutions that compete with ours, we may be unable to attract new customers at the same prices or based on the same pricing models that we have used historically. While we do and will attempt to set prices based on our prior experiences and customer feedback, our assessments may not be accurate and we could be underpricing or overpricing our platform. In addition, if the offerings on our platform change, then we may need to revise our pricing strategies. Any such changes to our pricing strategies or our ability to efficiently price our offerings could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition. Pricing pressures and decisions could result in reduced sales, reduced margins, losses or the failure of our platform to achieve or maintain more widespread market acceptance, any of which could negatively impact our overall business, operating results and financial condition. Moreover, the organizations which we target may demand substantial price concessions. As a result, we may be required to price below our targets in the future, which could affect our revenue, , cash flows and financial condition.
We may not successfully develop or introduce new features, enhancements, integrations, capabilities and versions of our existing features that achieve market acceptance, and our business could be harmed and our revenue could suffer as a result.
Our ability to attract new customers and increase revenue from existing customers depends in large part upon the successful development, introduction and customer acceptance of new features, enhancements, integrations, capabilities and versions of our existing features. If we are unable to expand our platform offerings in a manner that increases retention of existing customers and attracts new customers, our customers could migrate to competitors who may offer a broader or more attractive range of products and services. Unexpected delays in releasing new or enhanced features or versions of our features, or errors following their release, could result in loss of sales, delay in market acceptance of our features, or customer claims against us, any of which could harm our business. The of any new feature, , integration, capability or version depends on several factors, including timely completion and delivery, competitive pricing, adequate quality testing, integration with existing technologies, proper marketing of the feature and market acceptance. We may not be to develop new features or to introduce and market acceptance of new features in a timely manner, or at all.
The successful development, introduction and customer acceptance of new features, enhancements, integrations, capabilities and versions of our existing features is costly and time-consuming, and our business could be harmed if we fail to deliver new features, enhancements, integrations, capabilities and versions of our existing features that meet customer needs on a timely and cost effective basis.
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For example, we have been migrating users onto New Expensify, our open-source financial group chat, which we have been developing since 2021, but there can be no guarantee that it will meet customer needs, gain member traction or generate revenue sufficient to offset the costs of development, which could harm our business.
We face significant competition, the market in which we operate is rapidly evolving, and if we do not compete effectively, our results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.
We face significant competitive challenges from do-it-yourself approaches as well as companies that provide traditional horizontal platform solutions with expense management features, corporate card providers and niche expense management solutions. Traditional do-it-yourself approaches (for example, using spreadsheets, email, messaging and legacy project management tools) are people-intensive and involve internal personnel manually performing expense management processes. Many businesses using do-it-yourself approaches believe that these manual processes are adequate and may be unaware that Expensify can replace several expensive, disconnected services with one fully connected preaccounting platform for a fraction of the cost, resulting in an inertia that can be difficult to overcome. It is difficult to predict adoption rates and demand for our platform, the future growth rate and size of the market for expense management and other preaccounting products, or the entry of competitive offerings. The expansion of the expense management and other preaccounting products market depends on a number of factors, including the cost, performance and perceived value associated with these solutions. If expense management and other preaccounting solutions do not achieve widespread adoption, or there is a reduction in demand for expense management and other preaccounting products caused by a of customer acceptance, technological , economic conditions, security or privacy , competing technologies and products, decreases in corporate spending, or otherwise, it could result in decreased revenue, and our business, results of operations and financial condition would be affected.
In addition, there are a number of competing companies that provide traditional horizontal platform solutions with expense management features, some of which have substantially greater revenue, personnel and other resources than we do. These firms have historically targeted primarily large enterprise customers, but many of them also market to SMBs in search of growth in revenue or market share. We also face competition from a growing number of other businesses offering expense management solutions and corporate cards. Our smaller competitors who currently focus their product offerings on SMBs may be better positioned than larger competitors to increase their market share with SMBs, whether by competing based on price, service, or otherwise. Increased competition may impact our ability to add new customers at the rates we have historically achieved. Additionally, competition may increase in the future from new market entrants. With the introduction of new technologies and the entry of new companies into the market, we expect competition to persist and intensify. This could harm our ability to increase our customer base, maintain subscription renewals and maintain our prices.
Additionally, it is possible that large enterprises with substantial resources that operate in adjacent accounting, finance or compliance verticals may decide to pursue expense management automation and become immediate, significant competitors. Merger and acquisition activity in the technology industry could increase the likelihood that we compete with other large technology companies. Many of our existing competitors have, and our potential competitors could have, substantial competitive advantages such as greater name recognition, longer operating histories, larger sales and marketing budgets and resources, greater customer support resources, lower labor and development costs, larger and more mature intellectual property portfolios and substantially greater financial, technical and other resources. Some of our larger competitors also have substantially broader product lines and market focus and will therefore not be as susceptible to downturns in a particular market. Conditions in our market could change rapidly and significantly as a result of technological advancements, partnering by our competitors, or continuing market consolidation. New startup companies that innovate, and large companies that are making significant investments in research and development, may similar or products and technologies that compete with our platform, including the addition of bottom-up adoption features. Some of our larger competitors use broader product offerings to compete, including by selling at zero or
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negative margins, by bundling their product, or by closing access to their technology platforms. Potential customers may prefer to purchase from their existing suppliers rather than a new supplier regardless of product performance or features. Furthermore, potential customers may be more willing to incrementally add solutions to their existing infrastructure from competitors than to replace their existing infrastructure with our platform. These competitive pressures in our market, or our failure to compete effectively, may result in price reductions, fewer new customers, lower revenue and loss of market share. Any failure to successfully and effectively compete with current or future competitors could cause us to lose business and harm our revenue growth, business, results of operations and financial condition.
An economic downturn or economic uncertainty could negatively impact our customers and materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our business depends on the economic health of our current and prospective customers and the overall state of the economy. Declining levels of economic activity may lead to declines or delays in business spending, declines in the number of paid monthly members of our platform and fewer transactions for which our platform may be used, which may result in decreased revenue for us. Uncertain and adverse economic conditions may cause customers to change their company policies to limit expense reimbursement and have led to increased requests for, and may lead to, increased refunds and chargebacks. Additionally, economic uncertainty and negative economic pressures may cause prospective or existing customers to defer investment or expansion in their business, and they may become more price-sensitive and perceive our platform as too costly. As of December 31, 2025, businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees accounted for approximately 95% of our customers by revenue, and we focus our product, marketing and sales efforts on these businesses, including SMBs. These customers may be more susceptible to general economic conditions than larger businesses, which may have liquidity and access to capital. Our competitors, many of whom are larger and more established than we are, may respond to market conditions by lowering their prices and attempting to lure away our customers. Many of our larger competitors currently focus their product offerings on larger customers who may be less to general economic conditions. As a result, our larger competitors may be positioned than we are to increase their market share with businesses of all sizes. In addition, the increased pace of consolidation in certain industries may result in reduced overall spending on our platform offerings. We cannot predict the timing, or duration of any economic , or recovery, generally or within any particular industry. If the economic conditions of the general economy or markets in which we operate from present levels, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially and affected.
Payments and other financial services-related laws and regulations and government oversight are material to our business. The actions of various policymakers across government levels may create a complexity of multiple, conflicting and changing governmental laws and regulations. Our failure to comply with such laws and regulations could materially harm our business and can subject us to criminal and civil liability.
The regulatory environment in which we conduct our business is extensive and complex. The local, state, and federal laws, rules, regulations, licensing and other authorization schemes, and industry standards that govern our business, including our payment services, include, or may in the future include, those relating to banking, invoicing, cross-border and domestic money transmission, foreign exchange, payments services (such as payment processing and settlement services), anti-money laundering, combating terrorist financing, escheatment, U.S. and international sanctions regimes, and compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (“PCI-DSS”), a set of requirements designed to ensure that all companies that process, store, or transmit payment card information maintain a secure environment to protect cardholder data.
These laws, rules, regulations, licensing and other authorization schemes, and industry standards are administered and enforced by multiple authorities and governing bodies in the United States, including but not limited to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Office of Foreign Assets Control, self-regulatory
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organizations, and numerous state and local governmental and regulatory authorities. These various authorities and governing bodies may enact conflicting laws or regulations that are complex and may change frequently. Responding to such conflicting, complex or changing rules and regulations entails inherent costs, and any actual or perceived failure to comply with existing or new laws and regulations, or orders of any governmental authority, including changes to or expansion of their interpretations, may subject us to significant fines, penalties, criminal and civil lawsuits, forfeiture of significant assets, restrictions and expulsion from card acceptance programs, enforcement actions in one or more jurisdictions, result in additional compliance and licensure requirements, and increased regulatory scrutiny of our business. In addition, we may be forced to restrict or change our operations or business practices, make product changes, or delay planned product launches or . Any of the foregoing could materially affect our brand, reputation, business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Expensify Payments LLC (“Expensify Payments”) is a licensed money transmitter (or its equivalent) in most U.S. states and territories. As a licensed money transmitter, Expensify Payments, its ultimate beneficial owners, and its control persons are subject to a range of restrictions and ongoing compliance obligations under the money transmitter statutes (or their equivalent) administered by the banking departments (or their equivalent) of the various U.S. states and territories where it is licensed, including requirements with respect to the investment of customer funds, financial recordkeeping and reporting, reconciliation of customer funds, bonding, minimum capital, minimum net worth, disclosure, and inspection by regulatory authorities concerning various aspects of its business. In a number of cases, evaluation of our compliance efforts, as well as questions of whether and to what extent our activities in connection with the provision of certain products and services (both current and historical) are considered money transmission, are matters of regulatory interpretation and could change over time. In the past, regulators have identified violations or alleged violations by us of certain statutory and regulatory requirements, and we have been subject to fines and other penalties by state regulatory authorities due to their interpretation and application of their respective state money transmitter regime to our activities. As a result of the laws and regulations applicable to us and our business, we are and could in the future be subject to , inspections, examinations, and supervision, and resulting liability, including governmental , restrictions on our business, or other similar enforcement actions, and we could be to conducting certain aspects of our business with residents of certain jurisdictions, be to change our business practices in certain jurisdictions, or be required to obtain additional licenses, regulatory approvals, or other similar authorizations. We cannot make any assurances that we will be to obtain or maintain any such licenses, regulatory approvals, and other similar authorizations, and there could be substantial costs and potential product changes involved in obtaining and maintaining any such licenses, approvals, or other similar authorizations, which could have a material effect on our business. In addition, there are substantial costs and potential product changes involved in maintaining and renewing any licenses, regulatory approvals, and other similar authorizations, and we could be subject to or other enforcement action if we are found to disclosure, reporting, anti-money , capitalization, net worth, corporate governance, or other requirements applicable to us, including those required in connection with maintaining such licenses, approvals, or authorizations. These factors could impose substantial additional costs on us, involve considerable to the development or provision of our products or services to our customers, require significant and operational changes, or prevent us from providing our products or services in any given market.
Governmental and regulatory bodies and authorities may also impose new or additional requirements on our business or issue or promulgate new laws, regulations, or rules applicable to persons engaged in money transmission that adversely affect our business, including those that:
• prohibit, restrict, and/or impose taxes or fees on money transmission transactions in, to or from certain countries or with certain governments, individuals, or entities;
• impose additional customer identification and customer due diligence requirements;
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• impose additional reporting or recordkeeping requirements, or require enhanced transaction monitoring;
• limit the types of entities capable of providing money transmission services, or impose additional licensing or registration requirements;
• impose minimum capital or other financial requirements;
• limit or restrict the revenue that may be generated from money transmission, including revenue from interest earned on customer funds, transaction fees, and revenue derived from foreign exchange;
• require enhanced disclosures to our money transmission customers;
• require the principal amount of money transmission originated in a country to be invested in that country or held in trust until paid;
• limit the number or principal amount of money transmission transactions that may be sent to or from a jurisdiction, whether by an individual or in the aggregate;
• restrict or limit our ability to process transactions using centralized databases, for example, by requiring that transactions be processed using a database maintained in a particular country or region; or
• impose other requirements in furtherance of their missions.
For example, as a result of the bankruptcy and collapse of Synapse Financial Technologies, Inc., Expensify Payments has become subject to further recordkeeping requirements and received increased inquiries from regulators regarding our record keeping systems and process. These increased requirements and inquiries could lead to increased costs for maintaining our compliance with required regulations.
The success of our business largely depends on our senior management team, and we depend on professional services firms for a portion of our finance function. The loss of any key employees or our outsourced finance team could adversely affect our business.
Our success depends largely upon the continued services of our key executive officers and employees, including our founder and CEO, David Barrett. 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 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 both of our executive officers or other key employees could have a serious adverse effect on our business.
In addition, we depend on certain professional services firms for a portion of our finance function. If we lose the services of these outsourced finance teams for any reason, our ability to complete key accounting processes and reviews and provide timely and accurate financial reporting could be seriously harmed, and we could experience material weaknesses in our disclosure controls and procedures and our internal control over financial reporting. In addition, we may be unable to retain a new outside professional services firm or expand the size and expertise of our internal accounting team sufficiently and quickly enough to implement the processes and reviews necessary to ensure that material misstatements do not occur, which could seriously harm our business. Any failure to provide timely and accurate financial reporting or to maintain effective disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition, and could cause investors to confidence in our financial reports and our financial reporting generally, which could cause a in the trading price of our Class A common stock.
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We cannot guarantee that our share repurchase program will be fully consummated or that it will enhance long-term stockholder value. Share repurchases could also increase the volatility of the trading price of our common stock and could diminish our cash reserves.
On February 25, 2025, the Executive Committee of our Board of Directors (the “Executive Committee”) authorized a share repurchase program to repurchase up to $50 million of our outstanding Class A common stock, which replaced the Company's share repurchase program that was approved in 2022. Although the Executive Committee has authorized this repurchase program, the program does not obligate us to repurchase any specific dollar amount or to acquire any specific number of shares. The actual timing, manner, price and total amount of future repurchases will depend on a variety of factors, including business, economic and market conditions, corporate and regulatory requirements, prevailing stock prices, restrictions under the terms of loan agreements and other considerations. The share repurchase program may be modified, suspended, or terminated at any time, and we cannot guarantee that the program will be fully consummated or that it will enhance long-term stockholder value. The program could affect the trading price of our stock and increase volatility, and any announcement of a termination of this program may result in a decrease in the trading price of our stock. In addition, this program could diminish our cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities.
We rely on a single third-party vendor, issuing bank and card network for our Expensify Card, and if we lose any of these services, our business, results of operations, financial condition and growth prospects could be harmed.
The Expensify Card is an important element of our growth strategy, and we believe that, over time, the Expensify Card will be a prominent corporate card solution for SMBs in our core markets. For our previous card program (the “Legacy Card Program”), launched in 2020, we rely on a single third-party vendor, Marqeta, for the Expensify Card, who also manages the relationship with the card's issuing bank, Sutton Bank, and the card network, Visa. In the annual period ended December 31, 2025, consideration from this vendor representing monetized Expensify Card activities reduced our cost of revenue by an immaterial amount. In the annual period ended December 31, 2024, consideration from this vendor representing monetized Expensify Card activities reduced our cost of revenue by $7.2 million. Our agreement with Marqeta initially had a three year term that was renewed in June 2022 and now automatically renews annually thereafter unless either party provides 90 days’ notice prior to renewal.
Under our updated card program (the “Updated Card Program”), which launched in February 2024 and covers substantially all cardholders, we rely on Marqeta as the payment processor, Bancorp as the card’s issuing bank, and Visa as the card network. In the annual periods ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, interchange revenue earned under the Updated Card Program was $21.3 million and $9.2 million, respectively. Under the Updated Card Program, our agreement with Marqeta has an initial term of approximately four years, and will automatically renew annually thereafter. Our agreement with Bancorp has an initial five year term, and will automatically renew annually thereafter.
In addition to standard termination for cause provisions, either party can terminate without cause upon 180 days' notice, and under certain circumstances Marqeta may terminate with reduced or no notice, including if required to do so by the issuing bank or any regulator with jurisdiction over the issuing bank or Marqeta, or in the event of that we issue cards outside of approved use cases. In the event of termination or expiration of the agreement with Marqeta, we have the right to request Marqeta's assistance in transitioning to a new vendor, and during the transition period the agreement will continue on the same terms. If such transition is not successful, or if we otherwise lose our Expensify Card vendor, issuing bank or card network for any reason, we could experience service interruptions as well as delays and additional expenses, and we may be unable to replace these services on competitive terms, or at all, which could harm our business, results of operations, financial condition and growth prospects.
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We rely on a single third-party vendor and travel management company (“TMC”) for Expensify Travel, and if we lose any of these services, our business, results of operations, financial condition and growth prospects could be harmed.
Expensify Travel is an important element of our growth strategy, and we believe that, over time, Expensify Travel will be a prominent travel booking solution for SMBs in our core markets. We rely on a single third-party vendor, Spotnana, for Expensify Travel who manages the booking platform and interfaces with the TMC, Solutions Travel, LLC, to complete bookings. Our agreement with the TMC has a three year term that automatically renews annually thereafter unless either party provides 30 days' notice prior to renewal.
In addition to standard termination for cause provisions, either party can terminate without cause upon 90 days' notice after the first year term is completed. In the event of termination, we have the right to request transition services for up to three months after termination, and during the transition period the agreement will continue on the same terms. If such transition is not successful, or if we otherwise lose the TMC for any reason, we could experience service interruptions as well as delays and additional expenses, and we may be unable to replace these services on competitive terms, or at all, which could harm our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects. Such termination or loss could lead to our customers having to go directly to airlines, hotels, or other providers for support instead of through Expensify or the TMC.
We and our third-party providers are exposed to cybersecurity risks and incidents that may damage our reputation and brand, cause material financial penalties, and result in legal liability, any of which could substantially harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We rely on computer systems, hardware, software, technology infrastructure and online sites and networks for both internal and external operations that are critical to our business (collectively, “IT Systems”). We own and manage some of these IT Systems, but also rely on third parties for a range of IT Systems and related products and services. We and certain of our third-party providers also collect, maintain, and process data about our customers, including personal information and information about their financial transactions. We also process personal information about our employees, vendors, and business partners, and those who purchase products or services from our customers – as well as proprietary information such as trade secrets (collectively, “Confidential Information”).
We face numerous and evolving cybersecurity risks that threaten the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our IT Systems and Confidential Information, through diverse attack vectors, such as social engineering/phishing, malware (including ransomware), malfeasance by insiders, human or technological error, and as a result of malicious code embedded in open-source software, or misconfigurations, “bugs” or other vulnerabilities in commercial software that is integrated into our (or our suppliers’ or service providers’) IT Systems, products, or services. Attacks upon information technology systems are increasing, and expected to continue increasing, in their frequency, levels of persistence, sophistication and intensity – including through the use of artificial intelligence – and are being conducted by diverse threat actors including sophisticated and organized groups and individuals with a wide range of motives and expertise. Furthermore, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to, or to sabotage, systems, including tools that security controls, detection, and remove forensic evidence, change frequently and often are not recognized until launched a target, we may be to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures. We may also be subject to or experience security that may remain for an extended period as attacks may security controls, detection, and remove forensic evidence. As a result, we may be to detect, , remediate or recover from future attacks or , or to avoid a material impact to our IT Systems, Confidential Information, or business.
There can be no assurance that our cybersecurity risk management program and processes, including our policies, controls, or procedures, will be fully implemented, complied with or effective in protecting our IT Systems and Confidential Information. Because we make extensive use of third party suppliers and service providers, successful cyberattacks that disrupt or result in unauthorized access to third party IT Systems can materially impact our operations and financial results. Additionally, many of our employees
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and service providers work remotely. As a result, we may be more vulnerable to cybersecurity-related events such as phishing attacks and other security challenges associated with managing remote computing assets and security vulnerabilities that are present in many non-corporate and home networks. Many companies that provide cloud based services have reported a significant increase in cyberattack activity since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and related increase in remote work. Additionally, any integration of artificial intelligence in our or any service providers' operations, products or services is expected to pose new or unknown cybersecurity risks and challenges.
We and certain of our third-party providers regularly experience cyberattacks and other incidents, and we expect such attacks and incidents to continue in varying degrees. While to date no incidents have had a material impact on our operations or financial results, we cannot guarantee that material incidents will not occur in the future. Any adverse impact to the availability, integrity, or confidentiality of our IT Systems or Confidential Information can result in intentional or accidental unauthorized access to our IT Systems or our customers’ or partners’ sites, networks, systems and accounts; unauthorized access to, and misappropriation or disclosure of Confidential Information; viruses, worms, spyware, ransomware, or other malware being served from our platform, mobile application, networks, or systems, including as a result of supply chain attacks; deletion or modification of content or the display of content on our platform; , , or of operations; costs relating to response, system restoration or remediation, future compliance, deployment of additional personnel and protection technologies, and response to governmental and media inquiries and coverage; engagement of third-party experts and consultants; or risk of , or proceedings (such as class actions), regulatory action, and , and other potential liabilities. If any of these impacts should occur, we cannot guarantee data can be prevented. Additionally, if any impacts occur, our reputation and brand could be , our business may , and we could be required to expend significant capital and other resources to alleviate caused by such . Actual or anticipated cyber security attacks may cause us to incur increasing costs, including costs to deploy additional personnel and protection technologies, train employees and engage third-party experts and consultants. Any computer malware, viruses, computer hacking, use attempts, phishing attacks, or other data security among other things, could our reputation and our ability to retain existing customers and attract new customers. Any or all of the foregoing could materially affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Any actual or perceived compromise of our IT Systems or Confidential Information, or those of our customers, partners, or third-party service providers, could also violate applicable privacy, data protection, data security, network and information systems security and other laws, and cause significant legal and financial exposure, adverse publicity, and a loss of confidence in our security measures, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. In addition, any insurance we maintain may be insufficient to cover our losses resulting from disasters, cyber-attacks, or other business interruptions, and any incidents may result in loss of, or increased costs of, such insurance. We may need to devote significant resources in the future to address problems caused by cyber attacks, including notifying affected individuals and responding to any resulting litigation, which in turn, resources from the growth and expansion of our business.
Moreover, we are subject to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (“PCI-DSS”), issued by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. PCI-DSS contains compliance guidelines with regard to our security surrounding the physical and electronic storage, processing and transmission of cardholder data. If we or our service providers are unable to comply with the security standards established by banks and the payment card industry, we may be subject to fines, restrictions and expulsion from card acceptance programs, which could materially and adversely affect our business.
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Our business depends on a strong brand, and if we are not able to maintain and enhance our brand, our ability to expand our base of customers may be impaired, and our business and results of operations will be harmed.
We believe that the brand identity that we have developed has significantly contributed to the success of our business. We also believe that maintaining and enhancing the “Expensify” brand is critical to expanding our customer base and establishing and maintaining relationships with partners. Successful promotion of our brand will depend largely on the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, our ability to ensure that our platform remains high-quality, reliable, useful and competitively priced, the quality and perceived value of our platform, our ability to successfully differentiate our platform and features from those of our competitors and the ability of our customers to achieve successful results by using our platform and features. Maintaining and enhancing our brand may require us to make substantial investments not just in our core expense management service but also in newer features, such as our financial chat services, and to make substantial investments in foreign markets, and these investments may not be successful. We also plan to enhance our brand and drive interest in our overall platform by introducing certain consumer-focused features, which may not be . Substantial advertising expenditures may be required to maintain and our brand, which may not prove . Advertising and other brand promotion activities may not generate customer awareness or increase revenue, and even if they do, any increase in revenue may not offset the expenses we incur in building our brand. Additionally, there could be a reaction to certain advertising campaigns and values-based activity and communications. If we to promote and maintain the “Expensify” brand, or if we incur expenses in this effort, we may to attract or retain customers necessary to realize a sufficient return on our brand-building efforts or to the widespread brand awareness that is for broad customer adoption of our platform and features. We anticipate that, as our market becomes increasingly competitive, maintaining and our brand may become more and expensive.
We expect to continue to make substantial investments and expenditures related to the growth of our business.
To improve the scalability, security, efficiency and failover aspects of our features, and to support our ongoing efforts to expand and enhance our platform and our business, we are continually updating our software and content and investing in the development, introduction and customer acceptance of new features, enhancements, integrations, capabilities and versions of our existing features. Additionally, we have and will need to continue to make substantial investments and expenditures to, among other things:
• hire new and retain existing employees;
• maintain, expand, update and improve our infrastructure;
• expand our sales and marketing activities, including to obtain channel partners and to expand our SMB and consumer advertising;
• expand our operations across multiple geographies; and
• pay for increasing costs associated with our general and administrative organization.
We may also review or revise our software architecture as we grow, which may require significant resources and investments. For example, we have been migrating users onto New Expensify, an open-source financial group chat optimized for financial conversations that we have been developing since 2021, but there can be no assurance that this initiative will achieve customer acceptance or that we will realize the anticipated return on our investment.
If we experience increasing demand for our features, we may not be able to augment our infrastructure quickly enough to accommodate this demand, which may limit our growth or cause disruptions, outages and other performance problems that could lead to financial liabilities or affect our brand and reputation.
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If our subscription sales decrease, certain of our fixed costs, such as for capital equipment, may make it difficult for us to adjust our expenses downward quickly.
Our business is substantially dependent upon the continued development of the market for, and acceptance of, cloud based software features.
We have derived, and expect to continue to derive, substantially all of our revenue from the sale of subscriptions for our cloud based platform. The market for cloud based software is not as mature as the market for on premises software applications. We do not know whether the trend of adoption of cloud based software that we have experienced in the past will continue in the future, and the adoption rate of cloud based software may be slower at companies in industries with heightened data security interests or sensitivity to communication network slowdowns or outages. Additionally, international acceptance of cloud-based software varies by country, and is limited in certain countries where we may seek to expand. Our success will depend to a substantial extent on the widespread adoption of cloud based software products in general, and of cloud based preaccounting products in particular. Many businesses have invested substantial personnel and financial resources to integrate on premises software products into their businesses and have been reluctant or unwilling to migrate to cloud based software products. Furthermore, some businesses may be reluctant or unwilling to use cloud based products because they have regarding the risks associated with the security of their data and the reliability of the technology and service delivery model associated with solutions like ours. Additionally, integration for our cloud-based platform may be limited without widespread adoption of other cloud-based software products, which may prevent a member from maximizing their experience with our platform. In addition, if we or other cloud based providers experience security , of customer data, in delivery, or other , the market for cloud based software solutions as a whole, including for our solutions, may be impacted. If the adoption of cloud based software solutions does not continue at the rate we anticipate, the market for these solutions may stop developing or may develop more than we expect, either of which would our business.
We use third-party artificial intelligence technologies in our business, and the deployment, use, and maintenance of these technologies involve technological and legal risks.
We use third-party artificial intelligence (“AI”), machine learning, and automated decision-making technologies (collectively, “AI Technologies”) throughout our business, and are making significant investments in this area.
For example we use AI Technologies to optimize our internal processes, including, but not limited to, analyzing and processing receipts, bills, and invoices, responding to customer support requests, and drafting personalized marketing communications.
We expect that increased investment will be required in the future to continuously improve our use of AI Technologies. As with many technological innovations, there are significant risks involved in developing, maintaining and deploying these technologies and there can be no assurance that the usage of or our investments in such technologies will always enhance our products or services or be beneficial to our business, including our efficiency or profitability.
In particular, if the models underlying our AI Technologies are: incorrectly implemented; reliant on incomplete, inadequate, inaccurate, biased or otherwise poor quality data; used without sufficient oversight and governance to ensure their responsible use; and/or adversely impacted by unforeseen defects, technical challenges, cybersecurity threats, data privacy concerns, or material performance issues, the performance of our products, services and business, as well as our reputation, could suffer or we could incur liability resulting from the violation of laws or contracts to which we are a party or civil claims.
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We use third-party AI Technologies and infrastructure which may pose operational and data security risks.
We use AI Technologies licensed from third parties, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, in our technologies and our ability to continue to use such technologies at the scale we need may be dependent on access to such specific third parties' software and infrastructure. While we believe that there are alternative third-party AI Technologies which would be suitable, we cannot control the availability or pricing of such third-party AI Technologies, especially in a highly competitive environment, and we may be unable to negotiate favorable economic terms with the applicable providers. If any such third-party AI Technologies become incompatible with our solutions or unavailable for use, or if the providers of such models unfavorably change the terms on which their AI Technologies are offered or terminate their relationship with us, our solutions may become less appealing to our customers and our business will be harmed. In addition, to the extent any third-party AI Technologies are used as a hosted service, any disruption, outage, or of information through such hosted services could our operations or solutions, our reputation, cause a of confidence in our solutions, or result in legal or proceedings, for which we may be to recover from the affected provider.
Additionally, our reliance on third-party AI Technologies, such as those licensed from OpenAI and Anthropic, involves certain data privacy and security risks. While we generally seek to obtain contractual commitments from the applicable providers that prohibit the use of our data to train or refine their AI models, we may not be able to implement technical measures to prevent such providers from doing so in contravention to their contractual obligations. For more information on data privacy and security risks, see the risk factor “ We receive, process, store and use business and personal data, which subjects us to governmental regulation and other legal obligations related to data privacy, protection and security, and our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could harm our business and expose us to liability.”
The use of generative AI Technologies may produce inaccurate or infringing content, leading to reputational damage and legal challenges.
There is a risk that generative AI Technologies could produce inaccurate or misleading content or other discriminatory or unexpected results or behaviors, such as hallucinatory behavior that can generate irrelevant, nonsensical, or factually incorrect results, all of which could harm our reputation, business, or customer relationships. While we take measures designed to ensure the accuracy of such AI generated content and to monitor for potential inaccuracies, those measures may not always be successful, and in some cases, we may need to rely on end users to report such inaccuracies.
The regulatory framework governing the use of AI Technologies is rapidly evolving, and we cannot predict how future legislation and regulation will impact our ability to offer products or services that we develop which leverage AI Technologies.
The regulatory framework for AI Technologies is rapidly evolving as many federal, state and foreign government bodies and agencies have enacted or are currently considering laws and regulations governing AI. Additionally, existing laws and regulations may be interpreted or enforced in ways that would affect the operation of our AI Technologies, or could be rescinded or amended as new administrations take differing approaches to evolving AI Technologies. As a result, implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future, and we cannot predict the impact future laws, regulations, or standards, or the market perception of their requirements, may have on our business or how we will respond to these laws or regulations.
Already, certain existing legal regimes (e.g., relating to data privacy) regulate certain aspects of AI Technologies, and new laws regulating AI Technologies have been enacted in China and either entered into force in the United States and the EU in 2024 and 2025 or are expected to enter into force in 2026.
In the United States, legislation related to the use of automated decision making has been introduced at the federal level and enacted or proposed at the state level as well. Some enacted or proposed frameworks include requirements focused on transparency, risk-management and accountability for AI
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Technologies, while others focus on high-risk uses of AI, the use of automated decision-making technology or companies that are developers or deployers of AI Technologies. For example, the California Privacy Protection Agency finalized regulations under the California Consumer Privacy Act regarding the use of automated decision making. Numerous other states have enacted, passed, or are considering AI-focused legislation, creating a patchwork of regulations and a complex compliance challenge. Furthermore, the Trump administration’s approach to investment in and regulation of AI Technologies has and is expected to continue to deviate from that of the previous administration and we will need to adapt to any changes that may result from such approach, including as the result of new or changing executive orders. These new regulations and any subsequent laws or regulations may present additional complexity and risk to our business, particularly but not limited to where these laws overlap with privacy laws designed to protect individuals.
Any or all of the foregoing regulatory developments could affect our use of AI and our ability to provide, improve or commercialize our services, require changes to our operations and processes, and materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Further, any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with existing or newly enacted laws, regulations and other requirements relating to AI Technologies could result in legal claims or proceedings (including class actions), regulatory investigations or enforcement actions.
In Europe, on August 1, 2024, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (the “EU AI Act”) entered into force, and establishes a comprehensive, risk-based governance framework for AI in the EU market. The majority of the substantive requirements will apply from August 2, 2026. The EU AI Act applies to companies that develop, use and/or provide AI in the EU and—depending on the AI use case—includes requirements around transparency, conformity assessments and monitoring, risk assessments, human oversight, security, accuracy, general purpose AI and foundation models, and fines for breach of up to 7% of worldwide annual turnover. In addition, the revised EU Product Liability Directive came into force in December 2024, to be implemented into EU member state national law by December 2026. This Directive extends the EU’s existing strict product liability regime to AI Technologies and AI-enabled products, and facilitates civil claims in respect of harm caused by AI. Once fully applicable, the EU AI Act and the EU Product Liability Directive will have a material impact on the way AI is regulated in the EU. The EU AI Act, together with developing guidance and/or decisions in this area, may affect our use of AI Technologies and our ability to provide, or commercialize our services, require additional compliance measures and changes to our operations and processes, result in increased compliance costs and potential increases in civil us, and could affect our business, operations and financial condition.
It is possible that further new laws and regulations will be adopted in the United States and in other non-U.S. jurisdictions, or that existing laws and regulations, including competition, antitrust, data privacy and consumer protection laws, may be interpreted or enforced in ways that would limit our ability to use AI Technologies for our business, or require us to change the way we use AI Technologies in a manner that negatively affects the performance of our products, services, and business and the way in which we use AI Technologies. We may need to expend resources to adjust our products or services in certain jurisdictions if the laws, regulations, or decisions are not consistent across jurisdictions. Further, the cost to comply with such laws, regulations, or decisions and/or guidance interpreting existing laws, could be significant and would increase our operating expenses (such as by imposing additional reporting obligations regarding our use of AI Technologies). Such an increase in operating expenses could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, if we fail or are perceived to fail to comply with these laws and regulations, we may face lawsuits (including class actions), investigations, enforcement actions, reputational impacts, and other that materially impact our business.
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If we fail to offer a high-quality customer experience, our business and reputation will suffer.
While we have designed our platform and features to be easy to adopt and use, once individuals and organizations begin using Expensify, they rely on our support services to resolve any related issues. High-quality member and customer education and customer experience have been key to the adoption of our platform and features and for the conversion of individuals and organizations using our free features and trial subscriptions into paying customers. The importance of high-quality customer experience will increase as we expand our business and pursue new customers. For instance, if we do not help organizations on our platform quickly resolve issues and provide effective ongoing member experience at the individual and organizational levels, our ability to convert organizations on our trial subscription into paying customers will suffer, and our reputation with existing or potential customers will be harmed. Further, the success of our bottom-up business model is highly dependent on our business reputation and on word-of-mouth positive recommendations from existing individuals and organizations using our platform and features. Any to maintain high-quality customer experience, or a market perception that we do not maintain high-quality customer experience, could our reputation, our ability to sell our platform to existing and prospective customers and our business, results of operations and financial condition.
In addition, as we continue to grow our operations and reach a larger and increasingly global customer and member base, we need to be able to provide efficient customer support that meets the needs of organizations using our platform and features globally at scale. Our platform is designed to leverage our proprietary AI-powered customer support engine, Concierge. Our Concierge service is powered by AI and trained by customer support agents. As we continue to grow and add features, we will need to hire additional support personnel to be able to continue to provide efficient customer support globally at scale, and if we are unable to provide such support, our business, results of operations and financial condition would be harmed.
We must continue to attract and retain highly qualified personnel, including an on-demand workforce in certain jurisdictions and for certain aspects of our business, to continue to execute on our business strategy and growth plans.
In order to continue to execute on our business strategy and growth plans, including the development of new features, and to maintain and upgrade our existing features, we will need to attract a sufficient number of highly qualified personnel, especially software engineers. Competition for software engineers and other key personnel in our industry is intense, especially for engineers with high levels of experience in designing and developing software for Internet-related services.
In addition, one of our business strategies is to supplement our small core team of generalists with a large number of specialist contractors, managed by third-party vendors, from around the world. For example, we rely on certain third-party vendors to provide a specialized on-demand workforce to provide 24/7 real-time chat support and free phone onboarding for every Expensify member. We have used and will continue to use this strategy to pair our core group of engineering generalists with a global network of open source engineering specialists, such as for the development and maintenance of our open-source financial group chat. If we are unable attract a sufficient number of specialized on-demand workers, or if changes to applicable foreign, state and local laws governing the definition or classification of independent contractors make it difficult or impossible for us to hire a sufficient number of specialized on-demand workers in a cost-effective manner, our costs could increase and our business, results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.
Job candidates and existing employees often consider the value of the equity awards they receive in connection with their employment. The incentives to attract, retain and motivate employees provided by our equity awards or other compensation arrangements may not be as effective as in the past. If the perceived value of our stock declines, it may adversely affect our ability to recruit and retain highly skilled employees.
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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.
Our recruiting efforts may also be limited by laws and regulations, such as restrictive immigration laws, and restrictions on travel or availability of visas. If we do not succeed in attracting excellent personnel or retaining or motivating existing personnel, we may be unable to innovate quickly enough to support our business model or grow effectively.
Our culture has contributed to our success, and if we cannot maintain this culture as we grow, we could lose the high employee engagement fostered by our culture, which could harm our business.
We believe that a critical component of our success has been our culture, which is deeply embedded in everything we do. Our culture is centered on a belief that a life well lived is one that enables you to achieve the following three goals: Live Rich, Have Fun and Save the World. We have invested substantial time and resources in building our team with an emphasis on collaboration and innovation and promoting success for both our customers and our employees. We invest in our culture to create fun, inclusive and memorable experiences for our employees, including certain employee travel to company-wide meetings in the U.S. and abroad from time to time. As we continue to grow and develop the infrastructure associated with being a public company, we will need to maintain our culture among a larger number of employees dispersed in various geographic regions. Any failure to preserve our culture could negatively affect our future success, including our ability to retain and recruit personnel.
Our payments services and our Expensify Card are targets for illegal or improper uses, and our risk management efforts may not be effective, which could expose us to losses and liability and otherwise harm our business.
We offer payments services and the Expensify Card to our customers, and we are responsible for vetting and monitoring these customers and determining whether the transactions we process for them are legitimate. When our features and services are used to process illegitimate transactions, and we settle those funds to sellers and are unable to recover them, we suffer losses and liability. These types of illegitimate transactions can also expose us to governmental and regulatory sanctions. The highly automated nature of, and liquidity offered by, our payments services make us a target for illegal or improper uses, including fraudulent or illegal sales of goods or services, money laundering and terrorist financing. Identity thieves and those committing fraud using stolen or fabricated credit card or bank account numbers, or other deceptive or practices, can potentially steal significant amounts of money from our business. In configuring our payments services, we face an inherent trade-off between security and customer convenience. Our risk management policies, procedures, techniques and processes may not be sufficient to identify all of the risks to which we are , to us to mitigate the risks we have identified, or to identify additional risks to which we may become subject in the future. In addition, when we introduce new services, focus on new business types, or begin to operate in markets where we have a limited history of , we may be less equipped to forecast and reserve accurately for those . Furthermore, if our risk management policies and processes contain or are otherwise , we may large financial , we may be subject to civil and liability, and our business may be materially and affected.
We are currently, and will continue to be, exposed to risks associated with chargebacks and refunds in connection with payment card fraud or relating to the goods or services provided by our sellers. In the event that a billing dispute between a cardholder and a seller is not resolved in favor of the seller, including in situations where the seller engaged in fraud, the transaction is typically “charged back” to the seller and the purchase price is credited or otherwise refunded to the cardholder. If we are unable to collect chargeback or refunds from the seller’s account, or if the seller refuses to or is unable to reimburse us for a chargeback or refunds due to closure, bankruptcy, or other reasons, we may bear the loss for the amounts paid to the cardholder. We do not collect and maintain reserves from our sellers to cover these potential losses. The risk of chargebacks is typically with those of our sellers that promise future
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delivery of goods and services, which we allow on our service. If we are unable to maintain our losses from chargebacks at acceptable levels, the payment card networks could fine us, increase our transaction fees, or terminate our ability to process payment cards. Any increase in our transaction fees could damage our business, and if we were unable to accept payment cards, our business would be materially and adversely affected.
We are subject to travel payments-related fraud risks.
Our results of operations and financial condition could be negatively affected by our unintentional acceptance of fraudulent travel bookings made using stolen credit and debit cards. We are sometimes held liable for accepting fraudulent bookings through our website or for accepting other bookings for which payment is subsequently disputed by our customers, both of which have lead, and in the future may lead to the reversal of payments received by our partners for such bookings (referred to as a “charge-back”). Our ability to detect and combat fraudulent schemes, which have become increasingly common and sophisticated, may be negatively impacted by the emergence and innovation of new technology platforms and our global expansion, including into markets with a history of elevated fraudulent activity. In addition, we have not broadly adopted certain protective capabilities across our platform, such as requiring mobile application-based multi-factor authentication or third-party identify verification, which could result in significantly increased activity on our platform.
We depend on our travel partners to detect and prevent certain kinds of fraudulent bookings. If we or our partners are unable to effectively combat fraudulent bookings on our website or if we otherwise experience increased levels of charge-backs, our partners, and by extension we, may also be subject to significant fines and higher transaction fees, or payment card networks may revoke our partners' access to their networks, meaning they would be unable to continue to accept card payments for travel on our behalf, either of which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.
The rapid evolution and increased adoption of AI technologies also increases the risk of fraudulent bookings. In addition to adversely affecting our business, results of operations and financial condition, any of the foregoing events could have a significant negative effect on the value of our brand, which could also in turn have a material adverse impact on our financial performance.
If we experience excessive fraudulent activity, we could incur substantial costs and lose the right to accept credit cards for payment, which could cause our customer base to decline significantly.
A large portion of our paying customers authorize us to bill their credit card accounts through our third-party payment processing partners for our paid subscription plans. If customers pay for their subscription plans with stolen credit cards, we could incur substantial third-party vendor costs for which we may not be reimbursed. Further, our customers provide us with credit card billing information online, and we do not review the physical credit cards used in these transactions, which increases our risk of exposure to fraudulent activity. We also incur chargebacks from the credit card companies for claims that the customer did not authorize the credit card transaction for subscription plans, something that we have experienced in the past. If the number of claims of unauthorized credit card transactions becomes excessive, we could be assessed substantial fines for excess chargebacks, and we could lose the right to accept credit cards for payment. In addition, credit card issuers may change merchant standards, including data protection and documentation standards, required to utilize their services from time to time. Our third-party payment processing partners must also maintain compliance with current and future merchant standards to accept credit cards as payment for our paid subscription plans. Substantial due to or our to accept credit card payments would cause our customer base to significantly decrease and would our business.
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Sales to customers outside the United States and our international operations expose us to risks inherent in international sales and operations.
Our revenue generated from customers outside the United States was $12.5 million (9% of our revenue) and $12.4 million (9% of our revenue) for the annual periods ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, respectively. Our core geographies are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. In the future, we may pursue expansion of our international operations. 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. In addition, we face risks in doing business internationally that could adversely affect our business and results of operations, including:
• the need to localize and adapt our platform and features for specific countries, including translation into foreign languages, tax and regulatory updates and associated expenses;
• data privacy laws that impose different and potentially conflicting obligations with respect to how personal data is processed or require that customer data be stored in a designated territory;
• more fragmented partner market which proves to be harder for our platform to integrate with;
• difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations;
• regulatory and other delays and difficulties in setting up foreign operations;
• different pricing environments, 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;
• exposure to liabilities under anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, U.S. bribery laws, the UK Bribery Act and similar laws and regulations in other jurisdictions;
• increased financial accounting and reporting burdens and complexities;
• declines in the values of foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar;
• restrictions on the transfer of funds;
• potentially adverse tax consequences;
• the cost of and potential outcomes of any claims or litigation;
• future accounting pronouncements and changes in accounting policies;
• changes in tax laws or tax regulations;
• health or similar issues, such as a pandemic or epidemic; and
• regional and local economic and political conditions.
As we continue to expand our business globally, our success will depend, in large part, on our ability to anticipate and effectively manage these risks. These factors and others could harm our ability to increase international revenue and, consequently, would materially impact our business and results of operations. The expansion of our existing international operations and entry into additional international markets will
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require significant management attention and financial resources. Our failure to successfully manage our international operations and the associated risks effectively could limit the future growth of our business.
We may be adversely affected by global economic and political instability.
As we seek to expand our business globally, our overall performance will depend in part on worldwide economic and geopolitical conditions. Economies domestically and internationally have been affected from time to time by falling demand for a variety of goods and services, restricted credit, poor liquidity, reduced corporate profitability, employment pressures in services sectors, volatility in credit, equity and foreign exchange markets, bankruptcies and health crises, as well as war, terrorist activity, political unrest, civil strife and other geopolitical uncertainty, and the resulting impact on business continuity and travel, supply chain disruptions, inflation, security issues, and overall uncertainty with respect to the economy, including with respect to tariff and trade issues. See the risk factor titled, “—Changes in government trade policies, including the imposition of tariffs, could materially adversely affect our results of operations” for more information.
For example, the invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces in February 2022 and Hamas's attack on Israel in October 2023 has resulted in sustained conflict and disruption in those regions and the surrounding areas. The length, impact and outcome of these conflicts are highly unpredictable; however, they caused and could continue to cause significant market and other disruptions, some of which have already been experienced, including significant volatility in commodity prices and supply of energy resources, instability in financial markets, supply chain interruptions, political and social instability and changes in consumer or purchaser preferences, as well as an increase in cyberattacks and espionage. Additionally, sanctions or other measures implemented by other countries, as well as potential responses from other countries, could adversely affect the global economy and financial markets, which could in turn have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, political or political developments and new or continued economic in any of the countries in which we operate could our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We face exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations.
While we have historically transacted in U.S. dollars with the majority of our customers and vendors, we have transacted in some foreign currencies with such parties and for our payroll in those foreign jurisdictions where we have operations, and expect to continue to transact in more foreign currencies in the future. Accordingly, declines in the value of foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar can adversely affect our revenue and results of operations due to remeasurement that is reflected in our earnings. Also, fluctuations in the values of foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar could make it more difficult to detect underlying trends in our business and results of operations.
We are subject to anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering and similar laws. Non-compliance with such laws can subject us to criminal and/or civil liability and harm our business.
We must comply with anti-corruption laws and regulations imposed by governments around the world with jurisdiction over our operations, which may include the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (“FCPA”) and the U.K. Bribery Act 2010 (“Bribery Act”), as well as the laws of the countries where we do business. These laws and regulations apply to companies, individual directors, officers, employees and agents, and may restrict our operations, trade practices, investment decisions and partnering activities. Where they apply, the FCPA and the Bribery Act prohibit us and our officers, directors, employees and business partners acting on our behalf, including joint venture partners and agents, from corruptly offering, promising, authorizing or providing anything of value to public officials for the purposes of influencing official decisions or obtaining or retaining business or otherwise obtaining favorable treatment. The Bribery Act also prohibits non-governmental “commercial” bribery and accepting bribes. As part of our business, we may deal with governments and state-owned business enterprises, the employees and representatives of which may be considered public officials for purposes of the FCPA and the Act. We also are subject to the jurisdiction of various governments and regulatory agencies around the world,
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which may bring our personnel and agents into contact with public officials responsible for issuing or renewing permits, licenses or approvals or for enforcing other governmental regulations. In addition, some of the international locations in which we operate lack a developed legal system and have elevated levels of corruption.
Our wholly owned subsidiary, Expensify Payments LLC, is registered as a “Money Services Business” with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), and subject to regulatory oversight and enforcement by FinCEN under the Bank Secrecy Act, as amended by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 (“BSA”). Among other things, the BSA requires money services businesses to develop and implement risk-based anti-money laundering programs, report large cash transactions and suspicious activity and maintain transaction records. The BSA prohibits, among other things, our involvement in transferring the proceeds of criminal activities. Regulators in the United States and globally may require us to further revise or expand our compliance program, including the procedures we use to verify the identity of our customers and to monitor international and domestic transactions. In addition, we are contemplating offering certain products in the future that may require us to obtain licenses to operate as a money transmitter (or its equivalent) in various states and territories where such licenses are required. We have already obtained such licenses in most states. If we are unable to obtain a license to operate as a money transmitter, our ability to grow certain of our services may be limited. As a licensed money transmitter, we would be subject to obligations and restrictions with respect to the handling and investment of customer funds, record keeping and reporting requirements, bonding requirements and inspection by state regulatory agencies.
There are substantial costs and potential changes to our offerings involved in obtaining, maintaining and renewing these licenses and registrations. We could be subject to significant fines or other enforcement actions if we are found to violate disclosure, reporting, anti-money laundering, economic and trade sanctions, corporate governance and internal controls, banking secrecy, or other laws and requirements. These factors could involve considerable delay to the development or provision of our offerings or services, require significant and costly operational changes, impose restrictions, limitations, or additional requirements on our business, or prevent us from providing our offerings or services in a given geography.
Our business also must be conducted in compliance with applicable economic and trade sanctions and export control laws and regulations, such as those administered and enforced by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the United Nations Security Council and other relevant sanctions authorities, which impose restrictions or prohibitions on the sale or supply of certain products or services to embargoed or sanctioned countries, governments, persons, and entities. Although we take precautions to prevent our platform from being provided in violation of such laws, our platform may have been in the past, and could in the future be, provided inadvertently in violation of such laws, despite the precautions we take. Our global operations expose us to the risk of violating, or being accused of violating, anti-corruption, anti-money laundering, export control and economic and trade sanctions laws and regulations. Our to comply with these laws and regulations may us to reputational as well as significant , including , , civil , of profits, and from government contracts, as well as other remedial measures. of can be expensive and . our compliance efforts and activities we cannot compliance by our employees or representatives for which we may be held responsible, and any such could materially affect our reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations.
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We receive, process, store and use business and personal data, which subjects us to governmental regulation and other legal obligations related to data privacy, protection and security, and our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could harm our business and expose us to liability.
We receive, process, store and use business and personal data relating to our employees, business contacts, members and customers around the world (collectively, “Personal Data”), including the United States and the European Economic Area (“EEA”). As a result, our business is subject to a number of federal, state, local and foreign laws, regulations, regulatory codes and guidelines governing data privacy, data protection and security, including with respect to the collection, storage, use, processing, transmission, disclosure and protection of Personal Data, and those that are specific to certain industries, sectors, contexts, or locations.
For example, in the United States, the data protection landscape is rapidly growing and evolving on both the state and federal level. As our operations and business grow, we may become subject to or affected by new or additional data protection laws and regulations and face increased scrutiny or attention from regulatory authorities. For example, over a third of U.S. states have passed their own comprehensive consumer privacy laws that have or will soon go into effect that introduce new data privacy rights for consumers and new operational requirements for companies. For instance, the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) provides data privacy rights for California residents and operational requirements for covered businesses. Among other things, companies covered by the CCPA must provide new disclosures to California residents and afford such residents certain privacy rights relating to their Personal Data. The CCPA also considers certain financial information to be “sensitive personal information” imposing additional requirements on businesses. The CCPA is enforceable by the California Attorney General and the California Privacy Protection Agency, a new, additional enforcement bureau. The California Privacy Protection Agency is continuously amending the CCPA regulations, building upon the requirements in the CCPA, including with respect to automated decision making, risk assessment, and cybersecurity audits. In the event of an actual or perceived violation of the CCPA, these regulators could seek severe statutory , injunctive relief or agreed settlements providing for ongoing audit and reporting requirements. There is also a private right of action relating to certain data security . Additionally, laws in all fifty U.S. states require notification of certain to a number of third parties, such as impacted customers, regulators, credit reporting agencies or others when certain information has been compromised as a result of a security . We cannot fully predict the impact of these laws, or subsequent guidance, regulations or rules on our business or operations, but they may increase our compliance costs and potential liability, particularly in the event of a data , and could have a material effect on our business, including how we use Personal Data, our financial condition, and the results of our operations or prospects. Further, if we become subject to new state-level privacy laws, guidelines or regulations in the future, we may be required again to modify our data collection or processing practices and policies and to incur substantial costs and expenses in an effort to comply and increase our potential exposure to regulatory enforcement and/or .
Furthermore, at the federal level, we are also subject to laws, regulations and standards covering financial institutions, marketing, advertising, cookies, tracking technologies, e-marketing, and other activities conducted by telephone, email, mobile devices and the internet, such as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”), the Federal Wiretap Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, and similar state consumer protection and communication privacy laws. The GLBA regulates, among other things, the use of certain information about individuals (“non-public personal information”) in the context of the provision of financial services. The GLBA includes both a “Privacy Rule,” which imposes obligations on financial institutions relating to the use or disclosure of non-public personal information, and a “Safeguards Rule,” which imposes obligations on financial institutions and, indirectly, their service providers to implement and maintain physical, administrative and technological measures to protect the security of non-public personal financial information. Any failure to comply with the GLBA could result in substantial financial penalties.
Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and many state Attorneys General continue to enforce federal and state consumer protection laws against companies for online collection, use,
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dissemination and security practices that appear to be unfair or deceptive. For example, according to the FTC, failing to take appropriate steps to keep consumers’ Personal Data secure can constitute unfair acts or practices in or affecting commerce in violation of Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The FTC expects a company’s data security measures to be reasonable and appropriate in light of the sensitivity and volume of consumer information it holds, the size and complexity of its business, and the cost of available tools to improve security and reduce vulnerabilities. There are a number of legislative proposals in the United States, at both the federal and state level, and in the EU and more globally, that could impose new obligations in areas such as e-commerce and other related legislation or liability for copyright infringement by third parties. We cannot yet determine the impact that these future laws, regulations and standards may have on our business.
In addition, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (the “EU GDPR”) and to the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 (collectively, the “UK GDPR”) (the EU GDPR and UK GDPR together referred to as the “GDPR”) which impose stringent data protection requirements for processing the Personal Data of individuals. The GDPR places data protection obligations on processors and controllers of Personal Data, including, for example, disclosure and transparency requirements, limitations on retention and processing of personal data, and mandatory data breach notification requirements. In addition, the GDPR regulates transfers of Personal Data subject to the GDPR to third countries that have not been found to provide adequate protection to such Personal Data, and we expect the existing legal complexity and uncertainty regarding international personal data transfers to continue. In particular, we expect the European Commission approval of the current EU-US Data Privacy Framework for data transfers to certified entities in the United States to be challenged and international transfers to the United States and to other jurisdictions more generally to continue to be subject to enhanced scrutiny by regulators. As the regulatory guidance and enforcement landscape in relation to data transfers continue to develop, we could additional costs, and/or regulatory or ; we may have to stop using certain tools and vendors and make other operational changes; we may have to implement alternative data transfer mechanisms under the GDPR and/or take additional compliance and operational measures; and/or it could otherwise affect the manner in which we provide our services, and could affect our business, operations and financial condition.
Since we are under the supervision of relevant data protection authorities in both the EEA and the UK, we may be fined under both the EU GDPR and UK GDPR for the same breach. Penalties for certain breaches are up to the greater of EUR 20 million/ GBP 17.5 million or 4% of our global annual turnover. In addition to fines, a breach of the GDPR may result in regulatory investigations, reputational damage, orders to cease/ change our data processing activities, enforcement notices, assessment notices for a compulsory audit and/or civil claims (including class actions).
We are also subject to evolving EU and UK privacy laws on cookies, tracking technologies and e-marketing. In the EU and UK, informed consent is required for the placement of certain cookies or similar tracking technologies on an individual’s device and for direct electronic marketing. Consent is tightly defined and includes a prohibition on pre-checked consents and a requirement to obtain separate consents for each type of cookie or similar technology. Recent European court and regulator decisions are driving increased attention to cookies and similar tracking technologies.
In addition to the EU, a growing number of other global jurisdictions are considering or have passed legislation implementing data protection requirements or requiring local storage and processing of Personal Data or similar requirements that could increase the cost and complexity of delivering our platform, particularly as we expand our operations internationally. Some of these laws, such as the General Data Protection Law in Brazil, or the Act on the Protection of Personal Information in Japan, impose similar obligations as those under the GDPR. Others, such as those in Russia, India and China, could potentially impose more stringent obligations, including data localization requirements.
We seek to comply with applicable laws, regulations, policies, legal obligations and industry standards and have developed privacy policies, data processing addenda and internal privacy procedures to reflect
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our practices designed to achieve such compliance. However, such laws, regulations, regulatory codes and guidelines regulations are complex, may be inconsistent across jurisdictions or conflict with other rules and their interpretation is rapidly evolving, making implementation and enforcement, and thus compliance requirements, ambiguous, uncertain, and potentially inconsistent and therefore, there can be no assurance that our policies and process will be fully implemented, complied with, or effective. For instance, laws in all fifty U.S. states and outside the United States (and sometimes contractual and/or other obligations) and certain international laws and regulations require notification of certain incidents to a number of third parties, such as impacted customers, regulators, credit reporting agencies or others when certain information has been compromised as a result of a security breach. Compliance with such laws may require changes to our data collection, use, transfer, disclosure, other processing, and certain other related business practices and may thereby increase compliance costs or have other material adverse effects on our business. Further, any significant change in applicable laws, regulations, or industry practices regarding the use or disclosure of our Personal Data, could require us to modify our platform, possibly in a material manner, and may limit our ability to develop new services and features that make use of Personal Data regarding our members and customers.
If we are unable to develop and offer features that meet legal requirements or help our members and customers meet their obligations under the laws or regulations relating to privacy, data protection, or information security, or if we violate or are perceived to violate any laws, regulations, or other obligations relating to privacy, data protection, or information security, we may experience reduced demand for our platform, harm to our reputation and become subject to investigations, claims, proceedings and other actions by individuals, consumer rights groups, government agencies, or others, which would expose us to significant costs in investigating and defending such claims and, if found liable, pay significant fines, penalties and other damages or be required to make changes to our business, all of which would our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Further, given the breadth and depth of changes in global data protection obligations, compliance has caused us to expend significant resources, and such expenditures are likely to continue into the future as we continue our compliance efforts and respond to new interpretations and enforcement actions.
In addition to laws relating to data privacy and security, we are subject to self-regulatory standards and industry certifications that may legally or contractually apply to us. These include the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (“PCI-DSS”) with which we are currently compliant. In the event that we fail to comply with the PCI-DSS, we could be in breach of our obligations under customer and other contracts, fines and other penalties could result, and we may suffer reputational harm and damage to our operations, financial performance, reputation and business. Further, our clients may expect us to comply with more stringent privacy and data security requirements than those imposed by laws, regulations, or self-regulatory requirements, and we may be obligated contractually to comply with additional or different standards relating to our handling or protection of data on or by our offerings.
If we fail to manage our technical operations infrastructure, or experience service outages, interruptions, or delays in the deployment of our platform, our results of operations may be harmed.
Because our operations involve delivering a suite of preaccounting features to our customers through a cloud-based software platform, our continued growth depends in part on the ability of our platform and related computer equipment, infrastructure and systems to continue to support our features. In the past, we have experienced temporary platform disruptions, outages in our features and degraded levels of performance due to human and software errors, file corruption and capacity constraints associated with the number of customers accessing our platform simultaneously. While our past experiences have not materially impacted us, in the future we may face more disruptions, outages, or performance problems. Factors that may cause such disruptions or problems include:
• human error;
• security breaches;
• telecommunications failures or outages from third-party providers;
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• computer viruses, malware (including ransomware), vulnerability exploits, social engineering/phishing, or cyber-attacks;
• software errors, failures, vulnerabilities or bugs in our features;
• acts of terrorism, sabotage or other intentional acts of vandalism;
• unforeseen interruption or damages;
• pandemics and epidemics;
• tornados, fires, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters; and
• power loss.
In addition, continued growth in our customer base could place additional demands on our platform and features and could cause or exacerbate slowdowns or interrupt the availability of our platform. As we expand our platform capabilities to other features, like the Expensify Card, those new features may come with different technological demands, like real time transactions. If we are unable to plan or develop our platform accordingly, it could have a negative impact on our business. If there is a substantial increase in the volume of usage across our platform, we will be required to further expand and upgrade our technology and infrastructure. There can be no assurance that we will be able to accurately project the rate or timing of increases, if any, in the use of our platform or expand and upgrade our systems and infrastructure to accommodate such increases on a timely basis. In such cases, if our members are not able to access our platform and features or encounter slowdowns when doing so, we may lose customers or partners, which would impact our reputation and revenue. Further, any changes in the service levels at our data centers or any , , or other performance with our network infrastructure may result in lengthy in the availability of our platform and features. In such cases, we may our customers’ trust and confidence in our platform, and customer and employee data from recent transactions may be permanently and we could be to significant by clients, particularly if the access is associated with in the timely delivery of funds due to employees. In order to remain competitive, we must continue to and the responsiveness, functionality and features of our platform and products. Our recovery plan may not be sufficient to address all aspects or any consequence or , and our insurance may not be sufficient to compensate us for the that could occur.
We lease the cloud computing infrastructure that we use to host our platform, mobile application and many of the internal tools we use to operate our business. Any significant disruption of, limitation of our access to, or other interference with our use of the cloud services would negatively impact our operations and could seriously harm our business. Our business relies on the availability of our platform for our members and customers, and we may lose members or customers if they are not able to access our platform or encounter difficulties in doing so.
In addition, we rely on third-party hosting services, hardware and infrastructure purchased or leased from third parties and software licensed from third parties to operate critical business functions. Our business would be disrupted if any of this third-party hardware, software and infrastructure becomes unavailable on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Furthermore, delays or complications with respect to the transition of critical business functions from one third-party product to another, or any errors or defects in third-party hardware, software, or infrastructure could result in errors or a failure of our platform, which could harm our business and results of operations.
Moreover, our platform and features depend on our customers’ high speed broadband or wireless access to the Internet. Increasing numbers of customers and bandwidth requirements may degrade the performance of our features due to capacity constraints and other Internet infrastructure limitations, and additional network capacity to maintain adequate data transmission speeds may be unavailable or unacceptably expensive. If adequate capacity is not available to us, our features may be unable to achieve or maintain sufficient data transmission, reliability, or performance. In addition, if Internet service
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providers and other third parties providing Internet services, including incumbent phone companies, cable companies and wireless companies, have outages or suffer deterioration in their quality of service, our customers may not have access to or may experience a decrease in the quality of our platform and features. These providers may take measures that block, degrade, discriminate, disrupt, or increase the cost of customer access to our features. Any of these disruptions to data transmission could lead customers to switch to our competitors or avoid using our features, which could negatively impact our revenue or harm our opportunities for growth.
We rely upon data centers and other systems and technologies provided by third parties to operate our business, and interruptions or performance problems with these centers, systems and technologies may adversely affect our business and operating results.
We rely on data centers and other technologies and services provided by third parties in order to operate our business. If any of these services becomes unavailable or otherwise is unable to serve our requirements, there could be a delay in activating a mirrored data center or our disaster recovery system.
Our business depends on our ability to protect the growing amount of information stored in our data centers and related systems, offices and hosting facilities, against damage from earthquake, floods, fires, other extreme weather conditions, power loss, telecommunications failures, hardware failures, unauthorized intrusion, overload conditions and other events. If our data centers or related systems fail to operate properly or become disabled even for a brief period of time, we could suffer financial loss, a disruption of our business, liability to customers, or damage to our reputation. Our response to any type of disaster may not be successful in the of customer data, service and to our operations, or to our important facilities.
Our data center providers have no obligations to renew their agreements with us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, and it is possible that we will not be able to switch our operations to another provider in a timely and cost effective manner should the need arise. If we are unable to renew our agreements with these providers on commercially reasonable terms, or if in the future we add additional data center facility providers, we may face additional costs or expenses or downtime, which could harm our business.
Any unavailability of, or failure to meet our requirements by, third party data centers, technologies, or services, could impede our ability to provide services to our customers, harm our reputation, subject us to potential liabilities, result in contract terminations and adversely affect our customer relationships. Any of these circumstances could adversely affect our business and operating results.
If we are unable to ensure that our platform interoperates with a variety of software applications that are developed by others, including our integration partners, we may become less competitive and our business, results of operations and financial condition may be harmed.
Our platform must integrate with a variety of hardware and software platforms, and we need to continuously modify and enhance our platform to adapt to changes in hardware, software and browser technologies. In particular, we have developed our platform to be able to easily integrate with third-party applications, including the applications of software providers that compete with us as well as our partners, through the interaction of APIs and/or platforms. In general, we rely on the providers of such software systems to allow us access to their APIs to enable these integrations. We are typically subject to standard terms and conditions of such providers, which govern the distribution, operation and fees of such software systems, and which are subject to change by such providers from time to time. Our business will be harmed if any provider of such software systems:
• discontinues or limits our access to its software or APIs;
• modifies its terms of service or other policies, including fees charged to, or other restrictions on us, or other application developers;
• changes how information is accessed by us or our customers;
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• establishes more favorable relationships with one or more of our competitors; or
• develops or otherwise favors its own competitive offerings over our platform.
Third-party services and products are constantly evolving, and we may not be able to modify our platform to assure its compatibility with that of other third parties. In addition, some of our competitors may be able to disrupt the operations or compatibility of our platform with their products or services, or exert strong business influence on our ability to, and terms on which we operate our platform. Should any of our competitors modify their products or standards in a manner that degrades the functionality of our platform or gives preferential treatment to competitive products or services, whether to enhance their competitive position or for any other reason, the interoperability of our platform with these products could decrease and our business, results of operations and financial condition would be harmed. If we are not permitted or able to integrate with these and other third-party applications in the future, our business, results of operations and financial condition would be harmed.
Further, our platform includes a mobile application to enable individuals and organizations to access our platform through their mobile devices. If our mobile application does not perform well, our business will suffer. In addition, our platform interoperates with servers, mobile devices and software applications predominantly through the use of protocols, many of which are created and maintained by third parties. We therefore depend on the interoperability of our platform with such third-party services, mobile devices and mobile operating systems, as well as cloud-enabled hardware, software, networking, browsers, database technologies and protocols that we do not control. The loss of interoperability, whether due to actions of third parties or otherwise, and any changes in technologies that degrade the functionality of our platform or give preferential treatment to competitive services could adversely affect adoption and usage of our platform. Also, we may not be successful in developing or maintaining relationships with key participants in the mobile industry or in ensuring that Expensify operates effectively with a range of operating systems, networks, devices, browsers, protocols and standards. If we are to effectively anticipate and manage these risks, or if it is for customers to access and use our platform, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be .
We rely on third parties maintaining open marketplaces to distribute our mobile application. If such third parties interfere with the distribution of our platform, our business would be adversely affected.
We rely on third parties maintaining open marketplaces, including the Apple App Store and Google Play, which make our mobile application available for download. We cannot assure you that the marketplaces through which we distribute our mobile application will maintain their current structures or that such marketplaces or any new marketplaces will not charge us additional fees to list our application for download. We are also dependent on these third-party marketplaces to enable us and our members to timely update our mobile application, and to incorporate new features, integrations and capabilities.
In addition, Apple Inc. and Google, among others, for competitive or other reasons, could stop allowing or supporting access to our mobile application through their products, could allow access for us only at an unsustainable cost, or could make changes to the terms of access in order to make our mobile application less desirable or harder to access.
We rely on traditional web search engines and prominence in mobile application marketplaces to drive interest in our platform. If our website fails to rank prominently in organic search results, or our mobile application is not featured prominently in marketplaces, the discoverability of our platform could decline and our business would be adversely affected.
Our success depends in part on our discoverability – our ability to attract new members through unpaid Internet search results on traditional web search engines such as Google and through the prominence of our mobile application in open marketplaces. The number of members we are able to attract through these platforms is due in large part to how our website ranks in organic search results and how our mobile application ranks against similar applications. These rankings can be affected by a number of factors, many of which are not in our direct control, and they may change frequently. For example, a search engine
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may change its ranking algorithms, methodologies, or design layouts. As a result, links to our website may not be prominent enough to drive traffic to our website, and we may not know how or otherwise be in a position to influence the results. Any reduction in our discoverability could reduce our revenue or require us to increase our sales and marketing expenditures.
Changes in laws and regulations related to the Internet or changes in the internet infrastructure itself may diminish the demand for our applications, and could have a negative impact on our business.
The future success of our business depends upon the continued use of the Internet as a primary medium for commerce, communication and business. Federal, state and foreign government bodies or agencies have in the past adopted, and may in the future adopt, laws or regulations affecting the use of the Internet as a commercial medium. Changes in these laws or regulations could require us to modify our applications in order to comply with these changes. In addition, government agencies or private organizations may impose taxes, fees or other charges for accessing the Internet or commerce conducted via the Internet. These laws or charges could limit the growth of Internet-related commerce or communications generally, or result in reductions in the demand for Internet-based applications such as ours.
In addition, the use of the Internet as a means of conducting business could be adversely affected due to delays in the development or adoption of new standards and protocols to handle increased demands of Internet activity, security, reliability, cost, ease of use, accessibility and quality of service. The performance of the Internet has been adversely affected by “viruses,” “worms” and similar malicious programs and the Internet has experienced a variety of outages and other delays as a result of damage to portions of its infrastructure. If the use of the Internet is adversely affected by these issues, demand for our applications could suffer.
Third parties may claim that our platform infringes their intellectual property rights and this may create liability for us or otherwise adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.
There is considerable patent and other intellectual property litigation in our industry. Our competitors, as well as a number of other entities, including non-practicing entities and individuals, may own or claim to own intellectual property relating to our industry. There may be third-party intellectual property rights, including issued or pending patents, that cover significant aspects of our technologies or business methods. As we face increasing competition and our public profile increases, the possibility of intellectual property rights claims against us may also increase. From time to time, our competitors or other third parties have claimed, and may in the future claim, that we are infringing upon, misappropriating, or violating their intellectual property rights, even if we are unaware of the intellectual property rights that such parties may claim cover our platform or some or all of the other technologies we use in our business.
Our success depends, in part, on our ability to develop and commercialize our solutions and services without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating the intellectual property rights of third parties. In a patent infringement claim against us, we may assert, as a defense, that we do not infringe the relevant patent claims, that the patent is invalid or both. The strength of our defenses will depend on the patents asserted, the interpretation of these patents, and our ability to invalidate the asserted patents. However, we could be unsuccessful in advancing non-infringement or invalidity arguments in our defense. In the United States, issued patents a presumption of validity, and the party the validity of a patent claim must present clear and convincing evidence of , which is a high of proof. Conversely, the patent owner need only prove by a preponderance of the evidence, which is a lower of proof. We may also be of the intellectual property rights of others that may cover some or all of our technology. Because patent applications can take years to issue and are often afforded confidentiality for some period of time, there may currently be pending applications, unknown to us, that later result in issued patents that could cover one or more of our products and there is also a risk that we could adopt a technology without knowledge of a pending patent application, which technology would a third-party patent once that patent is issued. Any may also involve non-practicing entities or other patent owners that have no relevant solution revenue, and therefore,
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our patent portfolio may provide little or no deterrence as we would not be able to assert our patents against such entities or individuals.
We may also face exposure to third party intellectual property infringement, misappropriation, or violation actions if we engage software engineers or other personnel who were previously engaged by competitors or other third parties and those personnel inadvertently or deliberately incorporate proprietary technology of third parties into our features. Any intellectual property claims, with or without merit, could be very time-consuming and expensive to settle or litigate, could cause us to incur significant expenses, pay substantial amounts in damages, ongoing royalty or license fees, or other payments, or could prevent us from offering all or aspects of our platform or using certain technologies, require us to re-engineer all or a portion of our platform or require that we comply with other unfavorable terms. The costs of litigation are considerable, and such litigation may divert management and key personnel’s attention and resources, which might our business, results of operations and financial condition. We may be required to settle such on terms that are to us. For example, a settlement may require us to obtain a license to continue practices found to be in of a third party’s rights, which may not be available on reasonable terms and may significantly increase our operating expenses. A license to continue such practices may not be available to us at all. As a result, we may also be required to develop alternative non- technology or practices or the practices. The development of alternative non- technology or practices would require significant effort and expense. Similarly, if any to which we may be a party to settle and we go to trial, we may be subject to an judgment that may not be reversible upon appeal. For example, the terms of a judgment may require us to some or all of our operations or require the payment of substantial amounts to the other party. Any of these events would cause our business and results of operations to be materially and affected as a result.
We are also frequently required to indemnify our reseller partners and customers in the event of any third-party infringement claims against our customers and third parties who offer our platform, and such indemnification obligations may be excluded from contractual limitation of liability provisions that limit our exposure. These claims may require us to initiate or defend protracted and costly litigation on behalf of our customers and reseller partners, regardless of the merits of these claims. If any of these claims succeed, we may be forced to pay damages on behalf of our customers and reseller partners, may be required to modify our allegedly platform to make it non-, or may be required to obtain licenses for the products used. If we cannot obtain all necessary licenses on commercially reasonable terms, our customers may be to stop using our platform, and our reseller partners may be to stop selling our platform.
If we are unable to protect our intellectual property rights, the value of our brand and other intangible assets may be diminished, and our business may be adversely affected.
Our success is dependent, in part, upon protecting our intellectual property rights and proprietary information. We rely and expect to continue to rely on a combination of trademark, copyright, patent and trade secret protection laws to protect our intellectual property rights and proprietary information. Our trademarks and service marks include EXPENSIFY, SMARTSCAN and various marketing slogans. Additionally, we maintain a policy requiring our employees, consultants, independent contractors and third parties who are engaged to develop any material intellectual property for us to enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements to control access to and use of our proprietary information and to ensure that any intellectual property developed by such employees, contractors, consultants and other third parties are assigned to us. However, we cannot guarantee that the confidentiality and proprietary agreements or other employee, consultant, or independent contractor agreements we enter into adequately protect our intellectual property rights and other proprietary information. In addition, we cannot guarantee that these agreements will not be breached, that we will have adequate remedies for any breach, or that the applicable counter-parties to such agreements will not assert rights to our intellectual property rights or other proprietary information arising out of these relationships. If we personnel, our ability to develop, market and support potential features or could also be , which could our business. Furthermore, the
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steps we have taken and may take in the future may not prevent misappropriation of our proprietary features or technologies, particularly with respect to officers and employees who are no longer employed by us.
Moreover, third parties may knowingly or unknowingly infringe or circumvent our intellectual property rights, and we may not be able to prevent infringement without incurring substantial expense. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights may be costly, time-consuming and distracting to management and key personnel, 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. If the protection of our intellectual property rights is inadequate to prevent use or misappropriation by third parties, the value of our brand and other intangible assets may be and competitors may be to more effectively mimic our platform and methods of operations. Any of these events would have a material effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our proprietary rights may be difficult to enforce, which could enable others to copy or use aspects of our platform without compensating us and negatively affect our business.
Our future success and competitive position depends in part upon our ability to obtain or maintain certain intellectual property used in our platform. We rely primarily on patent, trademark, copyright and trade secrets laws and confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions to protect our technology. While we have been issued patents for certain aspects of our intellectual property in the United States and have additional patent applications pending in the United States, we have not applied for patent protection in foreign jurisdictions, and may be unable to obtain patent protection for the technology covered in our patent applications. In addition, we cannot ensure that any of the patent applications will issue or that the claims allowed on any issued patents will be sufficiently broad to protect our technology or platform and provide us with competitive advantages. Moreover, failure to comply with applicable procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar requirements with the United States Patent and Trademark Office could result in abandonment or lapse of the affected patent, trademark or application. Furthermore, any issued patents may be challenged, , or by third parties.
Many patent applications in the United States may not be public for at least 18 months after they are filed, and since publication of discoveries in the scientific or patent literature tends to lag behind actual discoveries by several months, we cannot be certain that we will be the first creator of inventions covered by any patent application we make or that we will be the first to file patent applications on such inventions. In addition, recent changes to the patent laws in the United States may bring into question the validity of certain software patents and may make it more difficult and costly to prosecute patent applications. Such changes may lead to uncertainties or increased costs and risks surrounding the prosecution, validity, ownership, enforcement and defense of our issued patents and patent applications and other intellectual property, the outcome of third-party claims of infringement, misappropriation, or other of intellectual property brought us and the actual or (including treble ) that may be awarded in connection with any such current or future , and could have a material effect on our business.
We also rely on unpatented proprietary technology. Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary rights, unauthorized parties may attempt to copy aspects of our technology or obtain and use information that we regard as proprietary. It is possible that others will independently develop the same or similar technology or otherwise obtain access to our unpatented technology. To protect our trade secrets and other proprietary information, we require employees, consultants and independent contractors to enter into confidentiality agreements. However, such agreements may not be enforceable in full or in part in all jurisdictions and any breach could have a negative effect on our business and our remedy for such breach may be limited. The contractual provisions that we enter into may not prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual property rights and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual
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property rights. As such, we cannot guarantee that the steps taken by us will prevent misappropriation of our technology. We cannot assure you that these agreements will provide meaningful protection for our trade secrets, know-how, or other proprietary information in the event of any unauthorized use, misappropriation, or disclosure of such trade secrets, know-how, or other proprietary information. If we are unable to maintain the proprietary nature of our technologies, our business would be materially adversely affected.
We rely on our trademarks, trade names and brand names to distinguish our features from the products of our competitors, and have registered or applied to register many of these trademarks in the United States and certain countries outside the United States. However, occasionally third parties may have already registered identical or similar marks for products or features that also address the software market. As we rely in part on brand names and trademark protection to enforce our intellectual property rights, efforts by third parties to limit use of our brand names or trademarks and barriers to the registration of brand names and trademarks in various countries may restrict our ability to promote and maintain a cohesive brand throughout our key markets. Occasionally trademark offices have taken the view that certain of our trademarks, including SMARTSCAN, are merely descriptive or not inherently protectable. There can also be no assurance that pending or future U.S. or foreign trademark applications will be approved in a timely manner or at all, or that such registrations will effectively protect our brand names and trademarks. Third parties may also oppose our trademark applications, or otherwise challenge our use of the trademarks. For example, our applications to register KARMA POINTS as a trademark in the European Union and United Kingdom have been opposed by a third party. In the event that our trademarks are or we do not protect our trademarks, we could be to rebrand our platform, which would result in of brand recognition and would require us to devote resources to advertising and marketing new brands.
Policing unauthorized use of our technology and trademarks is difficult. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect our proprietary rights to as great an extent as the laws of the United States, and many foreign countries do not enforce these laws as diligently as government agencies and private parties in the United States. For example, many foreign countries limit the enforceability of patents against certain third parties, including government agencies or government contractors. In these countries, any patents that we may obtain may provide limited or no benefit. Effective trade secret protection may also not be available in every country in which our features are available or where we have employees or independent contractors. The loss of trade secret protection could make it easier for third parties to compete with our features by copying functionality. In addition, any changes in, or unexpected interpretations of, the trade secret and employment laws in any country in which we operate may compromise our ability to enforce our trade secret and intellectual property rights. From time to time, legal action by us may be necessary to enforce our patents and other intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets, to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others or to of or . Such could result in substantial costs and of resources and could affect our business, operating results and financial condition. If we are to protect our proprietary rights (including aspects of our software and platform protected other than by patent rights), we will find ourselves at a competitive to others who need not incur the additional expense, time and effort required to create our platform and other features that have us to be to date. Moreover, we may need to expend additional resources to our intellectual property rights in foreign countries, and our to do so could our business or affect our international expansion.
Our use of “open source” and third-party software could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our features and could subject us to possible litigation.
A portion of the technologies we use in our platform, database infrastructure (Bedrock), Expensify.com, new.expensify.com and mobile application incorporate “open source” software, and we may incorporate open source software in our platform and mobile application in the future. From time to time, companies that use third-party open source software have faced claims challenging the use of such open source software and their compliance with the terms of the applicable open source license. We may be subject to
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suits by parties claiming ownership of what we believe to be open source software, or claiming non-compliance with the applicable open source licensing terms. If we combine our proprietary software with open source software in a certain manner, we could, under certain open source licenses, be required to release the source code of our proprietary software to the public, including authorizing further modification and redistribution, or otherwise be limited in the licensing of our services, each of which could provide an advantage to our competitors or other entrants to the market, allow them to create similar products with lower development effort and time, and ultimately result in a loss of sales for us. While we employ practices designed to monitor our compliance with the licenses of third-party open source software and protect our valuable proprietary source code, we may inadvertently use third-party open source software in a manner that exposes us to claims of non-compliance with the applicable terms of such license, including claims for of intellectual property rights or for of contract. Additionally, if a third-party software provider has incorporated open source software into software that we license from such provider, we could be required to source code that incorporates or is a modification of such licensed software. Furthermore, there is an increasing number of open-source software license types, almost none of which have been tested in a court of law, resulting in a dearth of guidance regarding the proper legal interpretation of such license types. If an author or other third party that distributes open source software that we use or license were to that we had not complied with the conditions of the applicable open source license, we may also have to expend substantial time and resources to re-engineer some or all of our software, incur significant legal expenses such , be subject to significant , or be from the sale of our platform that contained the open source software.
In addition, the use of third-party open source software typically exposes us to greater risks than the use of third-party commercial software because open-source licensors generally do not provide warranties or controls on the functionality or origin of the software. Use of open source software may also present additional security risks because the public availability of such software may make it easier for hackers and other third parties to determine how to compromise our platform. Any of the foregoing could be harmful to our business, results of operations, or financial condition.
We license technology from third parties, and our inability to maintain those licenses could harm our business.
We rely on software licensed from third parties to offer our platform. In addition, we may need to obtain future licenses from third parties to use intellectual property rights associated with the development of our platform, which might not be available on acceptable terms, or at all. Any loss of the right to use any third-party software required for the development and maintenance of our platform or mobile application could result in loss of functionality or availability of our platform or mobile application until equivalent technology is either developed by us, or, if available, is identified, obtained and integrated. Any errors or defects in third-party software could result in errors or a failure of our platform or mobile application. Licensing technologies from third parties also exposes us to increased risk of being the subject of intellectual property infringement due to, among other things, our lower level of visibility into the development process with respect to such technology and the care taken to safeguard against risks. We cannot be certain that our licensors do not or will not on the intellectual property rights of third parties or that our licensors have or will have sufficient rights to the licensed intellectual property in all jurisdictions in which we may sell our platform. Some of our agreements with our licensors may be by them for convenience, or otherwise provide for a limited term. If we are to continue to license technology because of intellectual property brought by third parties our licensors or us, or if we are to continue our license agreements or enter into new licenses on commercially reasonable terms, our ability to develop and sell features and services containing or dependent on that technology would be limited, and our business could be . Additionally, if we are to license technology from third parties, we may be to acquire or develop alternative technology, which we may be to do in a commercially feasible manner or at all, and may require us to use alternative technology of lower quality or performance standards. This could limit or our ability to offer new or competitive features and increase our costs. Any of the foregoing
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would disrupt the distribution and sale of subscriptions to our platform and harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Any litigation against us could be costly and time-consuming to defend.
We have in the past and may in the future become subject to legal proceedings and claims that arise in the ordinary course of business. We could be subject to claims, lawsuits (including class actions and individual lawsuits), government investigations and other proceedings involving consumer protection, labor and employment, immigration, import and export practices, product labeling, competition, accessibility, securities, tax, marketing and communications practices, commercial disputes, defamation, civil rights infringement, negligence, intellectual property rights infringement, invasion of privacy, product liability, regulatory compliance, or other legal claims, including claims relating to information that is published or made available via our platform. For example, in November 2020, the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) notified us of a number of complaints filed against us in connection with David Barrett's email on October 23, 2020 urging customers to protect democracy. We responded to the in November and December 2020, requesting of all . On May 31, 2022 we received notice from the FEC clearing us of any in relation to these . However, we cannot you that the matter will not result in further , regulatory inquiries or future proceedings. See Part I, Item 3 “Legal Proceedings” for additional information regarding our legal proceedings.
The number and significance of our legal disputes and inquiries have increased as we have grown larger, as our business has expanded in scope and geographic reach, and as our features and services have increased in complexity, and we expect the potential for future legal proceedings, claims and disputes will continue to increase.
Regardless of the outcome, legal proceedings might result in substantial costs and may divert management and key personnel’s attention and resources, which might seriously harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Plaintiffs may seek, and we may become subject to, preliminary or provisional rulings in the course of litigation, including preliminary injunctions requiring us to cease some or all of our operations. We may decide to settle legal disputes on terms that are unfavorable to us; for example, we may be required to cease some or all of our operations or pay substantial amounts to the other party, which could materially and adversely affect our business. Furthermore, if any litigation to which we are a party is resolved adversely, we may be subject to an judgment that we may not choose to appeal or that may not be reversed upon appeal. We may have to seek a license to continue practices found to be in of a third party’s rights. If we are required, or choose to enter into, royalty or licensing arrangements, such arrangements may not be available on reasonable terms or at all and may significantly increase our operating costs and expenses. As a result, we may also be required to develop or procure alternative non- technology or use of technology, and doing so could require significant effort and expense or may not be feasible. In addition, insurance might not cover these , might not provide sufficient payments to cover all the costs to one or more such , and might not continue to be available on terms acceptable to us. A claim brought us that is or could result in costs and could have a material effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our employees, commercial partners and vendors may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including noncompliance with regulatory standards and requirements.
We are exposed to the risk that our employees, commercial partners and vendors may engage in fraudulent or illegal activity. Misconduct by these parties could include intentional, reckless and/or negligent conduct or disclosure of unauthorized activities to us that violate: (i) the rules of the applicable regulatory bodies; (ii) data privacy laws or other similar non-United States laws; or (iii) laws that require the true, complete and accurate reporting of financial information or data. It is not always possible to identify and deter misconduct by our employees and other third parties, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent these activities may not be effective in controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or
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losses or in protecting us from governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to be in compliance with such laws or regulations. In addition, we are subject to the risk that a person or government could allege such fraud or other misconduct, even if none occurred. If any such actions are instituted against us and we are not successful in defending ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could result in the imposition of significant fines or other sanctions, including the imposition of civil, criminal and administrative penalties, additional integrity reporting and oversight obligations. Whether or not we are successful in defending any such actions or , we could incur substantial costs, including legal fees, and the attention of management in ourselves any of these or , which could have a material effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We may need additional capital, and we cannot be sure that additional financing will be available.
In the future, we may raise additional capital through additional debt or equity financings to support our business growth, to respond to business opportunities, challenges, or unforeseen circumstances, or for other reasons. On an ongoing basis, we evaluate sources of financing and may raise additional capital in the future. Our ability to obtain additional capital will depend on our development efforts, business plans, investor demand, operating performance, the condition of the capital markets, and other factors. We cannot assure you that additional financing will be available to us on favorable terms when required, or at all. If we raise additional funds through the issuance of equity or equity-linked securities, those securities may have rights, preferences, or privileges senior to the rights of existing stockholders, and existing stockholders may experience dilution. Debt financing, if available, may involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which could reduce our operational flexibility or make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities. In addition, subject to limited exceptions, our Letter of Credit Facility and Security Agreement with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (“CIBC”), entered into on October 9, 2025 (“LOC Security Agreement”), restricts us and our subsidiaries’ ability to, among other things, incur certain additional indebtedness, create or incur certain liens, permit a change of control, sell or transfer assets, pay dividends or make distributions, subject to certain exceptions.
Our operating activities may be restricted as a result of covenants related to the indebtedness under our LOC Security Agreement and/or future indebtedness, and we may be required to repay any outstanding indebtedness in an event of default, which would have an adverse effect on our business.
Our LOC Security Agreement consists of a $7.5 million irrevocable standby letter of credit, which matures on March 20, 2026, and subjects us, and any future indebtedness would likely subject us, to various customary covenants, including requirements as to financial reporting, restrictions on our ability to maintain cash deposits outside of CIBC above certain thresholds, to dispose of our business or property, to change our line of business, to liquidate or dissolve, to enter into any change in control transaction, to merge or consolidate with any other entity or to acquire all or substantially all the capital stock or property of another entity, to incur additional indebtedness, to incur liens on our property, to pay any dividends or other distributions on capital stock other than dividends payable solely in capital stock, to redeem capital stock, to engage in transactions with affiliates, to encumber our intellectual property and certain other restrictions on our activities. Our business may be adversely affected by any such restrictions on our ability to operate our business.
Additionally, our ability to meet our debt obligations and other expenses will depend on our future performance, which will be affected by financial, business, economic, regulatory and other factors, many of which we are unable to control. We may be required to repay any outstanding indebtedness if an event of default occurs under the LOC Security Agreement, or under any future indebtedness. Under the LOC Security Agreement, an event of default will occur if, among other things, we fail to make payments under such agreement if due; we breach certain of our covenants under such agreement, subject to specified cure periods with respect to certain breaches; we or our assets become subject to certain legal proceedings, such as bankruptcy proceedings; we are unable to pay our debts as they become due; or we default on contracts with third parties which would permit CIBC to accelerate the maturity of any
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outstanding indebtedness or that could have a material adverse change on us. We may not have enough available cash or be able to raise additional funds through equity or debt financings to repay any outstanding indebtedness at the time any such event of default occurs. CIBC could also exercise its rights as collateral agent to take possession of, and to dispose of, the collateral securing the letter of credit, which collateral includes substantially all of our personal property (including intellectual property). Our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected as a result of any of these events. We may seek to enter into an extension of the LOC Security Agreement or enter into a new facility with another lender. We may not be able to extend the term or obtain other debt financing on terms that are favorable to us, if at all, and we could be subject to additional restrictions on our business operations. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on satisfactory terms when required, our ability to support our business growth and to respond to business could be significantly , and our business may be .
As of December 31, 2025, we were in compliance with all debt covenants under the LOC Security Agreement.
Changes in government trade policies, including the imposition of tariffs, could materially adversely affect our results of operations.
We lease servers and other hardware in order to provide our services. These servers are highly custom, built to order servers, which from time to time need to be upgraded, repaired or replaced. Many of these servers contain parts that are manufactured in Taiwan, China, and other international regions. Severe tariffs on imports from some or all of these regions have been imposed in the recent past, and could be imposed in the future. The imposition of such tariffs could materially increase the cost of maintenance for our servers or prevent us from being able to obtain parts all together. While our systems are designed to be redundant and fault tolerant, our inability to upgrade or repair them could result in our inability to continue to provide services to the expectations of our customers, which could lead to a loss of customers and materially adversely affect our results of operations.
A failure to maintain an effective system of disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting could adversely affect our ability to produce timely and accurate financial statements or comply with applicable regulations. Additionally, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, and the market price of our Class A common stock may be seriously harmed.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”) requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. In order to develop, maintain and, if required, improve the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting, we have expended, and may continue to expend, significant resources, including accounting-related costs and investments to strengthen our accounting systems. If any of these new or improved controls and systems do not perform as expected, we may experience material weaknesses in our controls.
If we are unable to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures, our ability to record, process and report financial information accurately, and to prepare financial statements within required time periods, could be adversely affected, which could subject us to litigation or investigations requiring management resources and payment of legal and other expenses, negatively affect investor confidence in our financial statements and adversely impact our stock price. If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an unqualified opinion as to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, the market price of our Class A common stock could be affected. We could also become subject to or by the stock exchange on which our securities are listed, the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional financial and management resources.
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Additionally, our current controls and any new controls that we develop may become inadequate because of changes in conditions in our business, and weaknesses in our disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting may be discovered in the future. Any failure to develop or maintain effective controls or any difficulties encountered in their implementation or improvement could harm our results of operations or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations and may result in a restatement of our consolidated financial statements for prior periods. Such failure could also adversely affect the results of periodic management evaluations and annual independent registered public accounting firm attestation reports regarding the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting that we are required to include in our periodic reports that are filed with the SEC. Ineffective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting could also cause investors to confidence in our reported financial and other information, which would likely have a effect on the trading price of our Class A common stock. In addition, if we are to continue to meet these requirements, we may not be to remain listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (“Nasdaq”).
Pursuant to Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, our independent registered public accounting firm has provided an attestation report regarding our internal control over financial reporting. We have incurred and expect to continue to incur significant expenses and devote substantial management effort toward ensuring compliance with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. As a result of the complexity involved in complying with the rules and regulations applicable to public companies, our management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, and we may need to expend additional significant resources, each of which could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.
If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies prove to be incorrect, our results of operations could be adversely affected.
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”) requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in our consolidated financial statements. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as provided in the section titled “Management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations.” The results of these estimates form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities and equity, and the amount of revenue and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Significant assumptions and estimates used in preparing our consolidated financial statements include those related to the Company's classification of employee and employee-related expenses, the useful lives and recoverability of long-lived assets and deferred contract acquisition costs, income taxes, capitalization of internal-use software costs and stock-based compensation expense. Our results of operations may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our results of operations to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the trading price of our Class A common stock.
Our business and financial performance may differ from any projections that we disclose or any information that may be attributed to us by third parties.
From time to time, we may provide guidance via public disclosures regarding our projected business or financial performance. However, any such projections involve risks, assumptions and uncertainties, and our actual results could differ materially from such projections. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those identified in these risk factors, some or all of which are not predictable or within our control. Other unknown or unpredictable factors also could adversely impact our performance, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any projections, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, various news sources, bloggers and other publishers often make statements regarding our historical or projected business or financial performance, and you should not rely on any such information even if it is attributed directly or indirectly
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to us. Moreover, we may choose not to provide guidance regarding our projected business or financial performance, which may have an adverse impact on our stock price.
Our international operations subject us to potentially adverse tax consequences.
We report our taxable income in various jurisdictions worldwide based upon our business operations in those jurisdictions. Our intercompany relationships are subject to complex transfer pricing regulations administered by taxing authorities in various jurisdictions. The relevant taxing authorities may disagree with our determinations as to the value of assets sold or acquired or income and expenses attributable to specific jurisdictions. If such a disagreement were to occur, and our position were not sustained, we could be required to pay additional taxes, interest and penalties, which could result in one-time tax charges, higher effective tax rates, reduced cash flows and lower overall profitability of our operations.
We could be required to collect additional sales, use, value-added and other indirect taxes, or be subject to other tax liabilities in various jurisdictions, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
The application of indirect taxes, such as sales and use, value-added tax, provincial, goods and services, business, digital services and gross receipts taxes, to businesses like ours is a complex and evolving issue. Significant judgment is required to evaluate applicable tax obligations and, as a result, amounts recorded are estimates and are subject to adjustments. In many cases, the ultimate tax determination is uncertain because it is not clear when and how new and existing statutes might apply to our business. If we are found to have not adequately addressed our tax obligations, our business could be adversely impacted.
The U.S. Supreme Court held in South Dakota v. Wayfair that a U.S. state may require an online retailer to collect sales taxes imposed by the state in which the buyer is located, even if the retailer has no physical presence in that state, thus permitting a wider enforcement of such sales tax collection requirements. If our calculation, collection and remittance of taxes in the jurisdictions in which we do business were determined to be deficient, our business and results of operations could be adversely impacted. A successful assertion by a taxing authority that we should collect additional sales, use or other taxes or remit such taxes directly to states could result in substantial tax liabilities for past sales and additional administrative expenses, which could seriously harm our business.
Changes in our effective tax rate or tax liability may adversely affect our operating results.
Our effective tax rate could increase due to several factors, including:
• changes in the relative amounts of income before taxes in the various jurisdictions in which we operate due to differing statutory tax rates in various jurisdictions;
• changes in tax laws, tax treaties and regulations or the interpretation of them;
• changes to our assessment about our ability to realize our deferred tax assets that are based on estimates of our future results, the prudence and feasibility of possible tax planning strategies and the economic and political environments in which we do business;
• the outcome of future tax audits, examinations, or administrative appeals; and
• limitations or adverse findings regarding our ability to do business in some jurisdictions.
Any of these developments could adversely affect our operating results.
We may have exposure to greater than anticipated tax liabilities.
Our tax obligations are varied and include U.S., federal, state and local taxes and international taxes due to the nature of our business. The tax laws that are applicable to our business are subject to interpretation and require significant judgment. We may recognize additional tax expense and be subject to additional tax liabilities due to changes in tax laws, regulations, and administrative practices and principles, including changes to the tax framework in the jurisdictions in which we operate.
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We are subject to regular review and audit by U.S. federal, state, and foreign tax authorities. Tax authorities may disagree with certain positions we have taken, and any adverse outcome of such a review or audit could increase the amount of taxes imposed on our business, and harm our financial position, results of operations, and cash flows.
In addition, economic and political pressures to increase tax revenue in various jurisdictions may make resolving tax disputes in our favor more difficult. While to date no material adjustments have been requested by tax authorities, an unfavorable outcome from any tax examination or audit could result in higher tax costs, penalties and interest, thereby adversely affecting our financial condition or results of operations. We regularly assess the likely outcomes of any audits and other tax disputes to determine the appropriateness of our tax provision and establish reserves for material, known tax exposures. However, the calculation of such tax exposures involves the application of complex tax laws and regulations in many jurisdictions. Therefore, there can be no assurance that we will accurately predict the outcomes of any tax examination, audit or other tax dispute or that issues raised by tax authorities will be resolved at a financial cost that does not exceed our related reserves.
Risks Related to the Multiple Class Structure of Our Common Stock and the Voting Trust Agreement
The multiple class structure of our common stock and the ownership of all of our LT10 and LT50 common stock by Trust Beneficiaries through the Voting Trust have the effect of concentrating voting control with the Voting Trust for the foreseeable future, which will limit your ability to influence corporate matters, including a change in control. We are controlled by the Voting Trust, whose interests may differ from those of our public stockholders. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation also delegates significant authority to an Executive Committee.
Each share of our LT10 and LT50 common stock is entitled to 10 and 50 votes per share, respectively, and each share of our Class A common stock is entitled to one vote per share. All shares of LT10 and LT50 common stock are held directly by the Voting Trust established in connection with our initial public offering pursuant to a voting trust agreement (“Voting Trust Agreement”). As of December 31, 2025, the Voting Trust held 4,209,827 and 8,083,690 shares of LT10 and LT50 common stock, respectively, representing approximately 13.2% of the economic interest and 84.7% of the voting power of outstanding capital stock. All decisions with respect to the voting (but not the disposition) of shares held in the Voting Trust from time to time will be made by the trustees of the Voting Trust (“Trustees”) in their sole and absolute discretion, and with no responsibility under the Voting Trust Agreement as stockholder, trustee or otherwise, except for his or her own individual malfeasance. The Voting Trust and its Trustees will, for the foreseeable future, have significant influence over our corporate management and affairs, and will be able to control virtually all matters requiring stockholder approval. The Voting Trust is able to, subject to applicable law, elect all of the members of our Board of Directors and control actions to be taken by us and our Board of Directors, including amendments to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and bylaws, compensation matters and approval of significant corporate transactions, including mergers and sales of substantially all of our assets. The directors so elected will have the authority, subject to the terms of our indebtedness and applicable rules and regulations, to issue additional stock, implement stock repurchase programs, declare dividends and make other decisions. This concentrated control will limit your ability to influence corporate matters for the foreseeable future and may materially affect the market price of our Class A common stock. It is possible that the interests of the Voting Trust may, in some circumstances, with our interests and the interests of our other stockholders, including you. For example, the Voting Trust may have different tax positions or other differing incentives from other stockholders that could influence its decisions regarding whether and when to cause us to of assets, incur new or refinance existing indebtedness, or take other actions. Additionally, the Voting Trust and the holders of our LT10 and LT50 common stock may cause us to make strategic decisions or pursue acquisitions that could involve risks to you or may not be aligned with your interests.
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Additionally, for as long as the Voting Trust holds securities representing at least 50% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation delegates to the Executive Committee all of the power and authority of the Board of Directors in the management of our business and affairs, provided that the Executive Committee will not have power or authority in reference to (i) matters that must be approved by the Audit Committee of the board, (ii) matters that must be approved by a committee qualified to grant equity to persons subject to Section 16 of the Exchange Act for purposes of exempting transactions pursuant to Section 16b-3 thereunder, (iii) matters required under Delaware law to be approved by the full Board of Directors, or (iv) as otherwise required by SEC rules and the rules of Nasdaq. The members of the Executive Committee currently are, and their successors are generally expected to be, directors who are also our employees or service providers, and the Executive Committee currently consists of David Barrett, Ryan Schaffer, Carlos Alvarez, Jason Mills and Daniel Vidal.
The concentrated control is also likely to have the effect of limiting the likelihood of an unsolicited merger proposal, unsolicited tender offer, or proxy contest for the removal of directors. As a result, our governance structure and the Voting Trust may have the effect of depriving our stockholders of an opportunity to sell their shares at a premium over prevailing market prices and make it more difficult to replace our directors and management.
Delaware law could also require holders of our LT10 and LT50 common stock to vote separately as a single class in the event we seek to amend our amended and restated certificate of incorporation to increase or decrease the par value of a class of our common stock or in a manner that alters or changes the powers, preferences or special rights of LT10 or LT50 common stock in a manner that affects its holders adversely. Future transfers by holders of LT10 and LT50 common stock may result in those shares converting on a one-for-one basis to Class A common stock, which will have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those holders of LT10 and LT50 common stock who retain their shares.
We are a “controlled company” within the meaning of Nasdaq listing standards and, as a result, qualify for, and rely on, exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements. You will not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to such requirements.
The Voting Trust controls a majority of the voting power of our outstanding common stock. As a result, we qualify as a “controlled company” within the meaning of the corporate governance standards of Nasdaq. Under these rules, a listed company of which more than 50% of the voting power is held by an individual, group or another company is a “controlled company” and may elect not to comply with certain corporate governance requirements, including the requirement that a majority of the Board of Directors consist of independent directors, the requirement that we have a nominating and corporate governance committee that is composed entirely of independent directors, and the requirement that we have a compensation committee that is composed entirely of independent directors.
We rely on some or all of these exceptions. As a result, we do not have a majority of independent directors, we do not have a nominating and corporate governance committee, and the members of our compensation committee are not independent directors. Accordingly, you do not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to all of the corporate governance requirements of Nasdaq.
The multiple class structure of our common stock features certain provisions that are novel or uncommon among other corporations with multiple class structures.
A number of provisions relating to the multiple class structure of our common stock are novel or uncommon among other corporations with multiple class structures. For example, whenever a holder of LT10 or LT50 common stock desires to transfer or convert shares of his or her LT10 or LT50 common stock, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and the Voting Trust Agreement contain certain provisions that require, subject to certain exceptions, the trustees of the Voting Trust to attempt to find a holder of shares of Class A common stock to exchange such shares for such shares of LT10 or LT50
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common stock, and such shares of LT10 or LT50 common stock will only convert into shares of Class A common stock if no such Class A stockholder is identified. As a result, shares of our LT10 and LT50 common stock may convert into shares of Class A common stock at a slower rate.
We cannot predict the impact our capital structure, governance structure, and the concentrated control by the Voting Trust may have on our stock price or business.
We cannot predict whether our multiple share class capital structure, combined with the concentrated control by the Voting Trust and other aspects of our governance structure, will result in a lower trading price or greater fluctuations in the trading price of our Class A common stock, or will result in adverse publicity or other adverse consequences. The holding of low-voting stock, such as our Class A common stock, may not be permitted by the investment policies of certain institutional investors or may be less attractive to the portfolio managers of certain institutional investors. For example, in July 2017, FTSE Russell, a provider of widely followed stock indexes, stated that it plans to require new constituents of its indexes to have at least five percent of their voting rights in the hands of public stockholders. In addition, in July 2017, S&P Dow Jones, another provider of widely followed stock indexes, stated that companies with multiple share classes will not be eligible for certain of their indexes. As a result, our Class A common stock will likely not be eligible for these stock indexes. We cannot assure you that other stock indexes will not take a similar approach to FTSE Russell or S&P Dow Jones in the future. Exclusion from indexes could make our Class A common stock less to investors and, as a result, the market price of our Class A common stock could be affected.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Class A Common Stock
Our share price may be volatile.
The market price of our Class A common stock has been and may continue to be volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to the risk factors described in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and others beyond our control, including:
• actual or anticipated fluctuations in our results of operations;
• our actual or anticipated operating performance and the operating performance of our competitors;
• changes in the financial projections we provide to the public, our failure to meet these projections or our failure to provide such projections;
• failure of securities analysts to initiate or maintain coverage of us, changes in financial estimates by any securities analysts who follow our company, or our failure to meet the estimates or the expectations of investors;
• any major change in our Board of Directors, management, or key personnel;
• price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market, including as a result of trends in the economy as a whole;
• the economy as a whole in the United States and internationally, and market conditions in our industry;
• rumors and market speculation involving us or other companies in our industry;
• announcements by us or our competitors of significant innovations, new products, services, features, integrations, or capabilities, acquisitions, strategic investments, partnerships, joint ventures, or capital commitments;
• the legal and regulatory landscape and changes in the application of existing laws or adoption of new laws that impact our business;
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• legal and regulatory claims, litigation, or pre-litigation disputes and other proceedings;
• the economic, political, and social impact of, and uncertainty relating to, the outbreaks of pandemics, epidemics and other contagious diseases;
• changes in our capital structure;
• other events or factors, including those resulting from war, incidents of terrorism, or responses to these events; and
• sales or expected sales of our Class A common stock by us, our officers, directors, principal stockholders and employees.
Stock prices of many companies, including technology companies, have fluctuated in a manner often unrelated to the operating performance of those companies. In the past, stockholders have instituted securities class action litigation following periods of stock 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, results of operations and financial condition. See Part I, Item 3 “Legal Proceedings” for additional information regarding our legal proceedings.
Future sales of our Class A common stock in the public market could cause our share price to fall.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our Class A common stock in the public market or the perception that these sales might occur in large quantities, could cause the market price of our Class A common stock to decline and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. As of December 31, 2025, we had 80,767,385 shares of Class A common stock outstanding, 4,209,827 shares of LT10 common stock outstanding and 8,083,690 shares of LT50 common stock outstanding. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation imposes transfer restrictions on shares of our LT10 and LT50 common stock.
There were 3,248,373 shares of Class A common stock issuable upon the exercise of exercisable options outstanding as of December 31, 2025. We registered all of the shares of Class A common stock issuable upon the exercise of outstanding options, upon the settlement of restricted stock units (“RSUs”) issued following our initial public offering (“IPO”) or in connection with other equity incentives we may grant in the future, for public resale under the Securities Act. The shares of Class A common stock will become eligible for sale once issued, subject to compliance with applicable securities laws.
We may issue our shares of common stock or securities convertible into our common stock from time to time in connection with financings, acquisitions, investments, or otherwise. Any such issuance could result in substantial dilution to our existing stockholders and cause the trading price of our Class A common stock to decline.
Increases in interest rates may cause the market price of our Class A common stock to decline.
Increases in interest rates, like what has been experienced in recent years, may cause a corresponding decline in demand for equity investments. Any such increase in interest rates or reduction in demand for our Class A common stock resulting from other relatively more attractive investment opportunities may cause the market price of our Class A common stock to decline.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock, and we do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Our current indebtedness, including our LOC Security Agreement with CIBC, contains, and our future indebtedness may contain, restrictions on our ability to pay cash dividends on our capital stock. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our Executive Committee, for as long as the Voting Trust controls a majority of the voting power of our outstanding common stock, and at the discretion of our Board of Directors thereafter.
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Accordingly, investors in our Class A common stock must rely on sales of their Class A common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.
Future sales and issuances of our Class A common stock or rights to purchase our Class A common stock, including pursuant to our equity incentive plans, or other equity securities or securities convertible into our Class A common stock, could result in additional dilution of the percentage ownership of our stockholders and could cause the stock price of our Class A common stock to decline.
In the future, we may sell Class A common stock, convertible securities, or other equity securities, including preferred securities, in one or more transactions at prices and in a manner we determine from time to time. We also expect to issue Class A common stock to employees, consultants and directors pursuant to our equity incentive plans. If we sell Class A common stock, convertible securities, or other equity securities in subsequent transactions, or Class A common stock or LT10 or LT50 common stock is issued pursuant to equity incentive plans, investors may be materially diluted. New investors in subsequent transactions could gain rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of holders of our Class A common stock.
Anti-takeover provisions contained in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, as well as provisions of Delaware law, could impair a takeover attempt and could also reduce the market price of our Class A common stock.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, contain and Delaware law contains provisions which could have the effect of rendering more difficult, delaying or preventing an acquisition deemed undesirable by our Board of Directors. Our corporate governance documents include provisions:
• authorizing blank check preferred stock, which could be issued with voting, liquidation, dividend and other rights superior to our common stock;
• eliminating the ability of our stockholders to take action by consent in lieu of a meeting following the date on which the Voting Trust holds less than a majority of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock;
• requiring advance notice of stockholder proposals for business to be conducted at meetings of our stockholders and for nominations of candidates for election to our Board of Directors;
• providing to our Board of Directors the exclusive right to determine the size of the board, and providing that any vacancies or newly created seats on the board may only be filled by the Board of Directors, unless the board determines that such vacancies be filled by the stockholders;
• maintaining our current multi-class structure; and
• limiting the liability of, and providing indemnification to, our directors and officers.
These provisions, alone or together, could delay or prevent hostile takeovers and changes in control or changes in our management.
As a Delaware corporation, we are also subject to provisions of Delaware law, including Section 203 of the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware (the “Delaware General Corporation Law”), which prevents some stockholders holding more than 15% of our outstanding common stock from engaging in certain business combinations without approval of the holders of substantially all of our outstanding common stock.
Any provision of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, amended and restated bylaws or Delaware law that has the effect of delaying or deterring a change in control could limit the opportunity for our stockholders to receive a premium for their shares of our common stock, and could also affect the price that some investors are willing to pay for our Class A common stock.
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Claims for indemnification by our directors and officers may reduce our available funds to satisfy successful third-party claims against us and may reduce the amount of money available to us.
Our amended and restated bylaws provide that we will indemnify our directors and officers, in each case to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law.
In addition, as permitted by Section 145 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated bylaws and our indemnification agreements that we have entered or intend to enter into with our directors and officers provide that:
• we will indemnify our directors and officers for serving us in those capacities or for serving other business enterprises at our request, to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law. Delaware law provides that a corporation may indemnify such person if such person acted in good faith and in a manner such person reasonably believed to be in or not opposed to the best interests of the registrant and, with respect to any criminal proceeding, had no reasonable cause to believe such person’s conduct was unlawful;
• we may, in our discretion, indemnify employees and agents in those circumstances where indemnification is permitted by applicable law;
• we are required to advance expenses, as incurred, to our directors and officers in connection with defending a proceeding, except that such directors or officers shall undertake to repay such advances if it is ultimately determined that such person is not entitled to indemnification;
• the rights conferred in our amended and restated bylaws are not exclusive, and we are authorized to enter into indemnification agreements with our directors, officers, employees and agents and to obtain insurance to indemnify such persons; and
• we may not retroactively amend our amended and restated bylaw provisions to reduce our indemnification obligations to directors, officers, employees and agents.
While we have procured directors’ and officers’ liability insurance policies, such insurance policies may not be available to us in the future at a reasonable rate, may not cover all potential claims for indemnification, and may not be adequate to indemnify us for all liability that may be imposed.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides for an exclusive forum in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware for certain disputes between us and our stockholders, and that the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action under the Securities Act, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or employees.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (or, if such court does not have subject matter jurisdiction thereof, the federal district court 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 owed by any of our current or former directors, officers, other employees, agents or stockholders to us or our stockholders, any action asserting a claim arising pursuant to any provision of the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws (as either may be amended or restated) or as to which the Delaware General Corporation Law confers jurisdiction on the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, or any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine of the State of Delaware; provided that the exclusive forum provision will not apply to suits brought to enforce any liability or duty created by the Exchange Act to the extent that the Exchange Act confers federal jurisdiction over such , subject to applicable law. Our amended and certificate of incorporation will also provide that the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the forum for the resolution of any asserting a cause of action us or any of our directors, officers, or employees arising under the Securities Act.
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We believe these provisions may benefit us by providing increased consistency in the application of Delaware law and federal securities laws by chancellors and judges, as applicable, particularly experienced in resolving corporate disputes, efficient administration of cases on a more expedited schedule relative to other forums and protection against the burdens of multi-forum litigation. 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 any of our directors, officers, other employees or stockholders, which may discourage lawsuits with respect to such claims. If a court were to find the choice of forum provision that will be contained in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could materially affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
General Risk Factors
Pandemics, epidemics or other health crises may have a negative effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, and liquidity.
Our business could be materially and adversely affected by the risks, or the public perception of the risks, related to a pandemic, epidemic, or other health crises. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in lower demand for our platform, as employees incurred fewer work- and travel-related expenses and submitted fewer reimbursement requests, and very small businesses and SMBs were impacted especially negatively.
The degree to which pandemics, epidemics and other public health crises will affect our business in the future will depend on developments that are highly uncertain and cannot currently be predicted. These developments include, but are not limited to, the duration, extent and severity of any such crisis; actions taken to contain any such crisis; the ultimate societal impact of any such crisis and any lasting changes in business and consumer behavior, including with respect to remote work, business travel and business expense spending and reimbursement; the duration and nature of related restrictions on economic activity and domestic and international trade; and the extent of the impact of these and other factors on our employees, partners, third-party service providers and customers. The effects of future pandemics, epidemics or other public health crises could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations, financial condition and growth prospects.
If securities or industry analysts do not continue to publish research or publish unfavorable research about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our Class A common stock is influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts publish about us or our business. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of our company or fails to publish reports on us regularly, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline. Moreover, if our operating results do not meet the expectations of the investor community, one or more of the analysts who cover our company may change their recommendations regarding our company, and our stock price could decline.
We are subject to various risks associated with climate change and other environmental, social, and governance matters.
There is continued scrutiny from investors, customers, policymakers, and other stakeholders regarding companies’ management of climate change, human capital, and various other ESG matters. For example, there are inherent environmental risks wherever business is conducted, and climate change is expected to increase the frequency or severity of certain disasters or result in chronic changes that result in additional risks.
We engage in various initiatives to manage ESG matters and address related stakeholder expectations; however, such initiatives can be costly and may not have the desired effect. Methodologies and data for such initiatives are complex and continue to evolve. Moreover, stakeholder expectations are not uniform
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and, at times, conflict. Any failure to successfully navigate such expectations, including any regulatory requirements or interpretations, may result in reputational harm or other adverse impacts to our business.
