Item 1A. Risk Factors.
Investing in our Class A common stock, which we refer to as our “common stock”, involves a high degree of risk. Investors should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information contained in this report, including our consolidated financial statements and the related notes appearing in this annual report, before deciding to invest in our common stock. If any of the following risks actually occur, it could harm our business, prospects, operating results and financial condition. In such event, the trading price of our common stock could decline and investors might lose all or part of their investment.
Summary of Risk Factors
Our business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. Some of the principal risks associated with our business include the following:
• Our business, operating results, and cash flows may be adversely impacted by uncertain macroeconomic conditions, and the uncertain geopolitical environment.
• If we do not manage the supply of our products and their components efficiently, or if our suppliers fail to perform their contractual obligations to us or are otherwise unable to allocate a sufficient volume of components to us, our ability to deliver products could be adversely affected and result in delayed or reduced revenue, reduced product margins or lost sales opportunities altogether.
• We rely on a limited number of suppliers, and in some cases single-source suppliers, and any disruption or termination of our supply arrangements could delay shipments of our products and could harm our relationships with current and prospective customers.
• Adverse changes to tariffs, trade agreements, and trade policies may have a negative effect on our business and results of operations.
• Our sales cycles can be long, unpredictable and expensive, particularly during a global economic slowdown, making it difficult for us to predict future sales.
• We are devoting significant resources toward developing flash storage solutions for hyperscalers, but there can be no assurance that our efforts will lead to meaningful revenue, operating margin, or cash flow, or additional hyperscaler design wins.
• We face intense competition from established companies and others.
• If we fail to develop and introduce new or enhanced storage offerings successfully, our ability to attract and retain customers could be harmed.
• If we fail to execute our transition to subscription offerings successfully, our revenues and results of operation may be harmed.
• Sales of our subscription and consumption offerings as a percentage of our total sales are difficult to predict, and we expect they will fluctuate over time, which will impact our product and total revenue growth.
• If our security measures are compromised, or the security, confidentiality, integrity or availability of our information technology or data is compromised, our business could experience a material adverse impact.
• Our gross margins are impacted by a variety of factors and vary from period to period, making them difficult to predict with certainty.
• Our operating results may fluctuate significantly, which could make our future results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations.
• The sales prices of our products and services may fluctuate or decline, which may reduce our gross profits, revenue growth, and adversely impact our financial results.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
Our business, operating results, and cash flows may be adversely impacted by uncertain macroeconomic conditions, and the uncertain geopolitical environment.
Our operations and performance depend in part on worldwide economic conditions and the economic health of our current and prospective customers. Recent macroeconomic and geopolitical events, including tariffs, inflation, elevated interest rates, geopolitical tensions, and political and fiscal challenges in the United States and abroad, have, and may continue to have, an adverse effect on the budgets, confidence and demand of our customers, particularly in the United States where we derive the majority of our revenue. These pressures create a great deal of uncertainty and affect our customer demand, margins, costs and operations. Macroeconomic conditions can and do further exacerbate other risks discussed in this “Risk Factors” section, such as risks related to our sales and marketing efforts. If we are unable to successfully manage the effects of these pressures, our business, operating results, cash flows and financial condition may be adversely affected.
If we do not manage the supply of our products and their components efficiently, or if our suppliers fail to perform their contractual obligations to us or are otherwise unable to allocate a sufficient volume of components to us, our ability to deliver products could be adversely affected and result in delayed or reduced revenue, reduced product margins or lost sales opportunities altogether.
Managing the supply of our products and underlying components is complex and has become increasingly difficult, in part, due to component quality, component scarcity, increased global demand, and inflationary pressure. Our supply chain has been, and may continue to be adversely impacted by component cost increases in our supply chain. In response to these cost increases, we raised our prices during the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, which may result in reduced sales or the loss of customers, and adversely impact our business and results of operations. We enter into agreements with our suppliers to provide components at specified prices, volume, and timing. Our suppliers have in the past, and may in the future, seek to renegotiate terms of our supply agreements. Furthermore, in the current environment of increased global demand and component scarcity, suppliers may lack the capacity to allocate the necessary volume of components to meet our manufacturing requirements. If our suppliers fail to perform their obligations or if they are unable or refuse to provide components to us at the specified prices, volumes, or at the times that we have agreed upon, or if they are simply unable to allocate the volume of components that we need, we may be unable to secure alternate supply on commercially reasonable terms or within our required timeframes. As a result, we could face component shortages, higher component costs, manufacturing disruptions, longer customer lead times and delays in shipping our products, or lost sales opportunities altogether. Such a disruption could cause us to miss revenue opportunities, damage our relationships with customers and partners, and negatively impact our reputation. A significant or sustained supply chain failure of this nature could adversely affect our business, financial condition, product margins, results of operations, and prospects.
In addition, to scale our supply chain, we must manage our supply and inventory effectively, including ensuring a sufficient supply of flash to support our hyperscaler customer. If our hyperscale customer reduces its demand for our flash storage solutions, we may be obligated to fulfill component purchase commitments. If we are unable to effectively manage our supply and inventory, including the supply of flash necessary to fulfill potential hyperscaler demand, our results of operations could be adversely affected.
Our third-party contract manufacturers procure components and build our products based on our forecasts, and we generally do not hold inventory for a prolonged period of time. Our forecasts are based on estimates of future demand for our products, which are in turn based on historical trends and analyses from our sales and marketing organizations, adjusted for overall market conditions. In order to reduce manufacturing lead times and plan for adequate component supply, we may issue orders for components and products that are non-cancelable and non-returnable. Our inventory management systems and related supply chain visibility tools may be inadequate to enable us to make accurate forecasts and effectively manage the supply of our products and components. If we have excess supply, we may reduce our prices and write down or write off excess or obsolete inventory, which in turn could result in lower gross margins. Alternatively, insufficient supply levels may lead to shortages that exacerbate other risk factors and result in delayed revenue, reduced product margins or lost sales opportunities altogether.
We rely on a limited number of suppliers, and in some cases single-source suppliers, and any disruption or termination of our supply arrangements could delay shipments of our products and could harm our relationships with current and prospective customers.
We rely on a limited number of suppliers and, in some cases, on single-source suppliers, for several key components of our products, and we have not generally entered into agreements for the long-term purchase of these components. If we are unable to obtain components from our existing suppliers, we may need to obtain these components through secondary sources or markets. Our reliance on a limited number of suppliers and the lack of any guaranteed sources of supply exposes us to several risks, including:
• the inability to obtain, or delay in obtaining, an adequate supply of key components, including flash;
• price volatility for the components of our products;
• failure of a supplier to meet our quality or production requirements;
• failure of a supplier of key components to remain in business or adjust to market conditions; and
• consolidation among suppliers, resulting in some suppliers exiting the industry, discontinuing the manufacture of components or increasing the price of components.
Further, we source some of our product components from suppliers outside the United States, including from China, which subjects us to additional logistical risks and risks associated with complying with local rules and regulations in foreign countries. Significant changes to existing international trade agreements could result in import delays or the imposition of increased tariffs on our sourcing partners, which could lead to sourcing or logistics disruptions to our business. For example, there have been, and may continue to be, significant changes to U.S. trade policies, legislation, treaties and tariffs, including announcements of import tariffs and export restrictions. As new legislation and/or regulations are implemented, existing trade agreements are renegotiated or terminated, and trade restrictions and tariffs are imposed on foreign-sourced or U.S. goods, it may be inefficient and expensive for us to alter our business operations in order to adapt to or comply with such changes. Such operational changes could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.
As a result of these risks, we cannot assure investors that we will be able to obtain a sufficient supply of key product components in the future or that the cost of these components will not increase. If our component supply is disrupted or delayed, or if we need to replace our suppliers, there can be no assurance that additional components will be available when required or that components will be available on favorable terms, which could extend our manufacturing lead times, increase the costs of our components and harm our business, operating results and financial condition. We may not be able to continue to procure components at reasonable prices, which may impact our business negatively or require us to enter into longer-term contracts to obtain components. Even if we enter into such long-term contracts, our suppliers may fail to perform their contractual obligations or may otherwise be unable to supply components in the quantities or at the prices agreed upon. Any of the foregoing disruptions could exacerbate other risk factors, increase our costs and decrease our gross margins, harming our business, operating results and financial condition.
Adverse changes to tariffs, trade agreements, and trade policies may have a negative effect on our business and results of operations.
We rely on contract manufacturers and component vendors, some of which are located outside the United States. The importation of our products and the underlying components may be affected by changes in applicable tariffs, trade agreements, and trade policies, and expose us to risks associated with doing business globally. The United States and other countries in our supply chain or in which we have sales have imposed, and may impose additional, tariffs, duties, quotas, or other restrictions or regulations, or may adversely adjust prevailing tariff levels, quotas, duties, or other restrictions or regulations. Countries impose, modify and remove tariffs and other trade restrictions in response to a variety of factors, including economic and political conditions, which make it impossible for us to predict future developments regarding tariffs and other trade restrictions. Additionally, changes in U.S. policy have and may continue to lead to significant changes in tariffs for imported goods. The imposition of tariffs on our products or their underlying components may require us to raise our prices, which may result in the loss of customers and harm our business and results of operations, or we may choose to pay for these tariffs without raising prices which may negatively impact our results of operations and profitability.
Our sales cycles can be long, unpredictable and expensive, making it difficult for us to predict future sales.
Our sales efforts involve educating our customers about the use and benefits across our data storage platform (Everpure Platform) and often involve an evaluation process that can result in a lengthy sales cycle, particularly for larger customers and hyperscalers. We spend substantial time and resources on our sales efforts without any assurance that our efforts will produce any sales. In addition, purchases are frequently subject to our customers’ budget constraints, multiple approvals and unplanned administrative and other delays. These factors can lead to unpredictable and extended closing times of sales to our customers. Some of our customers make large concentrated purchases to complete or upgrade specific data storage deployments. A substantial portion of our quarterly sales typically occurs during the last several weeks of the quarter, which we believe largely reflects customer buying patterns of products similar to ours and other technology products generally. As a result, our revenue and operating results have and may continue to fluctuate from quarter to quarter.
Since revenue from a product sale is not recognized until performance obligations are satisfied, a substantial portion of our sales late in a quarter may negatively impact the recognition of the associated revenue. Furthermore, our products come with a 30-day money back guarantee, allowing a customer to return a product within 30 days of receipt if the customer is not satisfied with its purchase for any reason. These factors, among others, make it difficult for us to predict when customers will purchase our products, which may adversely affect our operating results and cause our operating results to fluctuate. In addition, if sales expected from a specific customer for a particular quarter are not realized in that quarter or at all, our operating results may suffer.
Our business may be harmed by trends in the overall data storage market.
Despite ongoing data growth, the data storage market in which we compete has not experienced substantial growth in the past few years due to a combination of technology transitions, increased storage efficiency, competitive pricing dynamics and changing economic and business environments. Some customers are shifting spending toward the public cloud and software as a service, as well as other storage deployment models. The impact of these trends on future growth of the overall data storage market is uncertain. If we fail to accurately predict trends, successfully update our product offerings or adapt our sales programs to meet changing customer demands and priorities, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed. Reductions in the overall data storage market or the specific markets in which we compete would harm our business and operating results .
We are devoting significant resources toward developing flash storage solutions for hyperscalers, but there can be no assurance that our efforts will lead to meaningful revenue, operating margin or cash flow, or additional hyperscaler design wins.
We are devoting significant resources toward expanding our sales to our existing hyperscale customer and to additional hyperscale customers. Achieving a hyperscaler design win requires us to dedicate significant resources and investment in pursuit of a single customer opportunity without any guarantee of revenue. Additionally, we may be obligated to fulfill NAND flash purchase commitments if our hyperscale customer reduces its demand for our flash storage solutions. While we believe the opportunity to sell our solutions to our existing hyperscale customer and additional hyperscalers is significant, and that sales to hyperscalers may in the future account for a significant portion of our revenue, there can be no assurance that our efforts will lead to meaningful revenue, operating margin or cash flow, or additional hyperscaler design wins. Further, even if we do secure additional hyperscaler design wins, a design win does not guarantee sales. Our existing, and potential future, hyperscale customers could choose to delay or cancel purchasing or licensing our technology and services. It is therefore difficult to predict the volume and timing of sales, if any, that will follow from any design win that we secure. Moreover, if our existing hyperscale customer were to delay, reduce or cancel its purchases from us, our business, operating results, cash flows and financial condition would be adversely affected.
The evolving market for data storage and data management products makes it difficult to forecast demand for our Everpure Platform.
The market for data storage and data management products is rapidly evolving. Changes in the application requirements, data center infrastructure trends and the broader technology landscape result in evolving customer requirements for capacity, scalability and other enterprise features of storage systems. Our future financial performance depends on our ability to adapt to competitive dynamics and emerging customer demands and trends, such as the opportunities created by the recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI). We continue to expand and evolve our Everpure Platform to compete directly with hard disk systems, and that strategy may take longer than we anticipate or may not succeed due to unforeseen factors. We may be unable to capture significant storage workloads for AI environments and hyperscalers. The enhancement of all-flash storage products by incumbent vendors and changes or advances in alternative technologies or adoption of cloud storage offerings that do not utilize our Everpure Platform could adversely affect the demand for our products.
Offerings from large public cloud providers are expanding quickly and serve as alternatives to our Everpure Platform for a variety of customer workloads. Since these providers are known for developing storage systems internally, this trend reduces the demand for storage systems like ours. It is difficult to predict customer adoption rates of new offerings, customer demand for our Everpure Platform or the future growth rate and size of our addressable market. Reduced demand for our Everpure Platform caused by technological challenges, alternative technologies and products or any other reason would result in a lower revenue growth rate or decreased revenue, either of which would negatively impact our business and operating results.
We face intense competition from established companies and others.
We face intense competition from a number of established companies that sell competing storage products, including Dell EMC, HP Enterprise, Huawei, Hitachi Vantara, IBM, and NetApp. We also compete against cloud providers and vendors of hyperconverged products, which combine compute, networking and storage. These providers are growing and expanding their product offerings, potentially displacing some demand for our products. In addition, some of our competitors offer bundled products and services in order to reduce the initial cost of their storage products. Further, some of our competitors offer their storage products either at significant discounts or even for free in competing against us. Our competitors may have:
• greater name and brand recognition and longer operating histories;
• larger sales and marketing and customer support budgets and resources;
• broader distribution and established relationships with distribution partners and customers;
• the ability to bundle storage products with other products and services to address customers’ requirements;
• greater resources to make acquisitions;
• larger and more mature product and intellectual property portfolios; and
• substantially greater financial, technical and other resources.
Many of our competitors have developed or acquired storage technologies with features or data reduction technologies that directly compete with our Everpure Platform or have introduced business programs designed, among other things, to compete with our innovative programs, such as our Evergreen Storage model. We expect our competitors to continue to improve their products, reduce their prices and introduce new offerings that may, or may claim to, offer greater value compared to our Everpure Platform. These developments may render our products or technologies obsolete or less competitive. These and other competitive pressures may prevent us from competing successfully against our competitors.
Many of our competitors have long-standing relationships with key decision makers at current and prospective customers, which may inhibit our ability to compete.
Many of our competitors benefit from established brand awareness and long-standing relationships with key decision makers at our current and prospective customers. Our competitors often leverage these existing relationships to discourage customers from evaluating or purchasing our Everpure Platform. Additionally, most of our prospective customers have existing storage products supplied by our competitors who have an advantage in retaining the customer because, among other things, the incumbent vendor already understands the customer’s IT infrastructure, user demands and needs, or the customer is concerned about actual or perceived costs of switching to a new vendor and technology. If we are unable to sell our Everpure Platform to new customers or persuade existing customers to continue purchasing our Everpure Platform, we will not be able to maintain or increase our market share and revenue, which would adversely affect our business and operating results.
We rely on contract manufacturers to manufacture our products, and if we fail to manage our relationships with our contract manufacturers successfully, our business could be negatively impacted.
We rely on a limited number of contract manufacturers to manufacture our products, which reduces our control over the assembly process and exposes us to risks, such as reduced control over quality assurance, costs and product supply. If we fail to manage our relationships with these contract manufacturers effectively, or if these contract manufacturers experience delays, disruptions, capacity constraints or quality control problems, our ability to timely ship products to our customers will be impaired, potentially on short notice, and our competitive position, reputation and financial results could be harmed. If we are required, for whatever reason, to change contract manufacturers or assume internal manufacturing operations, we may lose revenue, incur increased costs and damage our customer relationships. Qualifying a new contract manufacturer and commencing production is expensive and time-consuming. We may need to increase our component purchases, contract manufacturing capacity and internal test and quality functions if we experience increased demand. The inability of our contract manufacturers to provide us with adequate supplies of high-quality products could exacerbate other risk factors and cause a delay in our order fulfillment, and our business, operating results and financial condition may be harmed.
If we fail to successfully maintain or grow our relationships with partners, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.
Our future success is highly dependent upon our ability to establish and maintain successful relationships with our partners, including value-added resellers, service providers and systems integrators. In addition to selling our Everpure Platform, our partners may offer installation, post-sale service and support in their local markets. In markets where we rely on partners more heavily, we have less contact with our customers and less control over the sales process and the quality and responsiveness of our partners. As a result, it may be more difficult for us to ensure the proper delivery and installation of our Everpure Platform or the quality or responsiveness of the support and services being offered. Moreover, because our success depends on our partner relationships, we have recently increased our partner incentive compensation arrangements which we expect to negatively impact revenue. However, there can be no assurance that this increased incentive compensation will result in a corresponding increase in our sales. Any failure on our part to effectively identify, train and manage our channel partners and to monitor their sales activity, as well as the customer support and services provided to our customers, could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
Our partners may choose to discontinue offering our Everpure Platform or may not devote sufficient attention and resources toward selling our Everpure Platform. We typically enter into non-exclusive, written agreements with our channel partners. These agreements generally have a one-year, self-renewing term, have no minimum sales commitment and do not prohibit our channel partners from offering competing products and services. Additionally, our competitors may provide incentives to our existing and potential channel partners to use, purchase or offer their products and services or to prevent or reduce sales of our products and services. The occurrence of any of these events could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
Our brand name and business may be harmed by our competitors’ marketing strategies.
Building and maintaining brand recognition and customer goodwill is critical to our success. On occasion, our competitors’ marketing efforts have included negative or misleading statements about us and our Everpure Platform. If we are unable to effectively respond to our competitors’ marketing efforts and protect our brand and customer goodwill now or in the future, our business will be adversely affected.
Sales to governments are subject to a number of challenges and risks that may adversely impact our business.
Sales to governmental agencies may in the future account for a significant portion of our revenue and pose additional challenges and risks to our sales efforts. Governments have and may continue to impose restrictions or requirements that must be complied with in order for us to sell to certain governmental customers. Government demand and payment for our Everpure Platform may be impacted by public sector budgetary cycles and funding reductions or delays, such as an extended federal government shutdown, which may adversely affect public sector demand for our Everpure Platform. We sell our offerings to governmental agencies through our channel partners, and these agencies may have statutory, contractual or other legal rights to terminate contracts with our distributors and resellers for convenience or due to a default, and any such termination may adversely impact our results of operations. Governments routinely investigate and audit government contractors’ administrative processes, and any unfavorable audit could result in the government refusing to continue buying our Everpure Platform, which would adversely impact our revenue and results of operations, or institute fines or civil or criminal liability if the audit uncovers improper or illegal activities. Finally, governments may require certain products to be manufactured in the United States or other relatively high-cost manufacturing locations, and we may not manufacture all products in locations that meet these requirements, affecting our ability to sell to certain governmental agencies.
Risks Related to Our Platform
If we fail to develop and introduce new or enhanced storage offerings successfully, our ability to attract and retain customers could be harmed.
We operate in a dynamic environment characterized by rapidly changing technologies and industry standards and technological obsolescence. To compete successfully, we must design, develop, market and sell new or enhanced storage and data management offerings that provide increasingly higher levels of performance, capacity, functionality and reliability and meet our customers’ expectations, which is a complex and uncertain process. We believe that we must continue to dedicate significant resources to our research and development efforts and innovative business models such as Evergreen//One to improve our competitive position. We continue to expand our large capacity data storage offerings to compete directly with hard disk systems. Our investments may take longer to generate revenue or may generate less revenue than we anticipate. The introduction of new storage offerings by our competitors, or the emergence of alternative technologies or industry standards could render our Everpure Platform obsolete or less competitive.
As we introduce new or enhanced offerings, we must successfully manage their launch and customer adoption. If we are not able to successfully manage the development and release of new or enhanced offerings, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed. Similarly, if we fail to introduce new or enhanced offerings, such as new or improved software features, that meet our customers’ needs in a timely or cost-effective fashion, we may lose market share and our operating results could be adversely affected.
If we fail to execute our transition to subscription offerings successfully, our revenues and results of operation may be harmed.
We offer our Everpure Platform on a subscription basis, including our hardware and software products through Evergreen//One . Our subscription offerings are relatively new to the storage market and will continue to evolve, and we may not be able to compete effectively, drive continued revenue growth or maintain profitability with these business models. Our subscription offerings require different accounting of our customer transactions, such as changing how we recognize revenue and capitalize commissions, among other things. In addition, our subscription offerings require compliance with additional regulatory, legal and trade licensing requirements in some countries and entail incremental operational, technical, legal and other costs. Continued market acceptance of subscription offerings depends on our ability to create a seamless customer experience and optimally price our offerings in light of market conditions, our costs and customer demand. Additionally, subscription models may unfavorably impact the pricing of and demand for our on-premise offerings, which could reduce our revenues and profitability. If we do not successfully execute our subscription offering strategy, our financial results could be negatively impacted.
Our Everpure Platform is highly technical and may contain defects or bugs, which could cause data unavailability, loss, breach or corruption that might, in turn, result in liability and harm to our reputation and business.
Our Everpure Platform is highly technical and complex and is often used to store information critical to our customers’ business operations. Our Everpure Platform may contain errors, defects or security vulnerabilities that could result in data unavailability, loss, corruption or other harm to our customers. Some errors in our Everpure Platform may only be discovered after it has been installed and used by customers. We have, from time to time, identified vulnerabilities in our Everpure Platform. Despite our efforts to detect and remediate actual and potential vulnerabilities in our systems, we cannot be certain that we will be able to address any such vulnerabilities, and there may be delays in developing and deploying patches and other remedial measures to adequately address vulnerabilities. We may also incur unexpected costs replacing defective hardware or ensuring that hardware remains interoperable and upgradable. Any of these errors, defects, bugs or security vulnerabilities may leave us, our Everpure Platform and our customers susceptible to exploitation, including by malicious actors, which could result in a loss of revenue, injury to our reputation, loss of customers or increased service and warranty costs, and adversely affect our business and operating results. In addition, errors or failures in the products of third-party technology vendors may be attributed to us and may harm our reputation.
We could face claims for product liability, tort or breach of warranty. We may not be able to enforce provisions in our contracts relating to warranty disclaimers and liability limitations. Defending a lawsuit, regardless of its merit, would be costly and could divert management’s attention and harm our reputation. Our business liability insurance coverage may be inadequate with respect to a claim and future coverage may not be available on acceptable terms or at all. Any of these issues could result in claims against us, and our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.
If we are unable to ensure that our Everpure Platform interoperates with third party operating systems, software applications and hardware, we may lose or fail to increase our market share.
Our Everpure Platform must interoperate with our customers’ infrastructure, specifically networks, servers, software and operating systems, which are offered by a wide variety of vendors. When new or updated versions of these operating systems or applications are introduced, we may need to develop updated versions of our software so that our Everpure Platform continues to interoperate properly. We may not deliver or maintain interoperability quickly, cost-effectively or at all as these efforts require capital investment and engineering resources. If we fail to maintain compatibility of our Everpure Platform with these infrastructure components, our customers may not be able to fully utilize our Everpure Platform, and we may, among other consequences, lose or fail to increase our market share and experience reduced demand for our Everpure Platform, which may harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
Our Everpure Platform must conform to industry standards in order to be accepted by customers.
Generally, our Everpure Platform comprises only a part of an IT environment. The servers, network, software and other components and systems deployed by our customers must comply with established industry standards in order to interoperate and function efficiently together. We depend on companies that provide other systems in this ecosystem to conform to prevailing industry standards. These companies are often significantly larger and more influential in driving industry standards than we are. Some industry standards may not be widely adopted or implemented uniformly and competing standards may emerge that our customers prefer. If larger companies do not conform to the same industry standards that we do, or if competing standards emerge, sales of our Everpure Platform could be adversely affected, which may harm our business.
Our ability to successfully market and sell our Everpure Platform depends in part on ease of use and the quality of our customer experience, and any failure to offer high-quality technical services and support could harm our business.
Once our customers deploy our Everpure Platform, they depend on our customer experience organization to drive non-disruptive upgrades and resolve technical issues. Our ability to provide effective technical services largely depends on our ability to attract, train and retain qualified personnel, as well as engage with qualified support partners that provide a similar level of customer support. In addition, our sales process is highly dependent on our reputation and on recommendations and reviews from our existing customers. We may need to provide customized installation and configuration services to our customers before our Everpure Platform is fully operational in their environments. Any failure to maintain, or a market perception that we do not maintain, high-quality technical services and support could harm our reputation, our ability to sell our Everpure Platform to existing and prospective customers and our business.
Risks Related to Our Operating Results or Financial Condition
Our gross margins are impacted by a variety of factors and vary from period to period, making them difficult to predict with certainty.
Our gross margins fluctuate from period to period due primarily to our component costs, product pricing, customer mix and product mix. A variety of factors may cause our gross margins to fluctuate and make them difficult to predict, including, but not limited to:
• sales and marketing initiatives, discount levels, rebates and competitive pricing;
• changes in customer mix (including our hyperscale customer), geographic mix, or product mix, including the relative sales of our lower product gross margin FlashBlade//E , FlashArray//E , and FlashArray//C solutions;
• the cost of components, including flash and DRAM, and freight;
• new product introductions and enhancements with higher product costs;
• excess inventory levels or purchase obligations as a result of changes in demand forecasts or product transitions;
• an increase in product returns, product warranty, order rescheduling and cancellations;
• the timing of technical support service contracts and contract renewals;
• inventory stocking requirements to mitigate supply chain constraints, accommodate unforeseen demand or support new product introductions; and
• inflation and other adverse economic pressures.
During fiscal 2026, the cost of our components increased significantly, and we anticipate continued component pricing volatility throughout fiscal 2027. Elevated global demand for the components used in our products has made future cost fluctuations highly unpredictable. We maintain supply agreements with our component suppliers that help mitigate, but do not eliminate, significant component cost volatility. While we implemented product price increases during the first quarter of fiscal 2027 to help offset these rising expenses, ongoing component cost volatility has placed, and may continue to place, downward pressure on our gross margins.
If we are unable to manage these factors effectively, our gross margins may decline, and fluctuations in gross margins may make it difficult to manage our business and achieve or maintain profitability, which could materially harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
We intend to continue focusing on revenue growth and increasing our market penetration and international presence by investing in our business, which may put pressure on near-term profitability.
Our operating expenses largely are based on anticipated revenue, and a high percentage of our expenses are, and will continue to be, fixed in the short term. If we fail to adequately increase revenue and manage costs, we may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future. As a result, our business could be harmed, and our operating results could suffer.
Our strategy is to continue investing in marketing, sales, support and research and development. We believe continuing to invest heavily in our business, including investments to scale operations to support our hyperscaler customer, is critical to our future success and meeting our growth objectives. We anticipate that our operating expenses will continue to increase in absolute terms. Even if we achieve or maintain significant revenue growth, we may experience losses, forgoing near-term profitability on a U.S. GAAP basis.
Our operating results may fluctuate significantly, which could make our future results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations.
Our operating results may fluctuate due to a variety of factors, a portion of which are outside of our control. As a result, comparing our results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. Factors that are difficult to predict and that could cause our operating results to fluctuate include:
• the timing and magnitude of orders, shipments and acceptance of our products in any quarter, including product returns, order rescheduling and cancellations by our customers;
• the impact on timing and amount of revenue recognized resulting from the cancellation of unfulfilled orders by our customers or our inability to fulfill orders;
• fluctuations or seasonality in demand and prices for our products;
• our ability to control the costs of the components we use or to timely adopt subsequent generations of components;
• disruption in our supply chains, shipping logistics, component availability and related procurement costs;
• reductions in customers’ budgets for IT purchases;
• changes in industry standards in the data storage industry;
• our ability to develop, introduce and ship new offerings that meet customer requirements and to effectively manage product transitions;
• changes in the competitive dynamics of our markets, including new entrants or price discounting;
• our ability to control or mitigate costs, including our operating expenses, to support business growth and our continued expansion;
• the impact on our revenue mix from changes in our customers’ consuming our technology as a service rather than purchasing our solutions;
• the impact of inflation on labor and other costs, fluctuations in the exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and foreign currencies, other adverse economic conditions, and the impact of public health epidemics or pandemics; and
• future accounting pronouncements and changes in accounting policies.
The occurrence of any one of these factors could negatively affect our operating results in any particular quarter.
The sales prices of our offerings may fluctuate or decline, which may adversely affect our gross margins and operating results.
The sales prices of our offerings may fluctuate or decline for a variety of reasons, including competitive pricing pressures, discounts, the introduction of competing products or services or promotional programs, a change in our mix of products and services, cost of components, supply chain constraints, inflation and other adverse economic conditions. As a result of the increase in our component costs during fiscal 2026, we raised our prices during the first quarter of fiscal year 2027. Due to the uncertainty around our component costs, we may be required to raise our prices again in the future.
We expect competition to increase in the future, thereby leading to increased pricing pressures. Larger competitors may reduce the price of products or services that compete with ours or may bundle them with other products and services. Additionally, although we price our offerings predominantly in U.S. dollars, currency fluctuations in certain countries and regions may negatively impact actual prices that partners and customers are willing to pay in those countries and regions. Furthermore, our product prices may decrease over product life cycles. If we are required to decrease our prices to be competitive and are not able to offset this decrease by increases in the volume of sales or the sales of new products with higher margins, our gross margins and operating results could be adversely affected.
We have experienced growth in prior periods, and we may not be able to sustain future growth effectively or at all.
We have significantly expanded our overall business, customer base, headcount, channel partner relationships and operations in prior periods, and we anticipate that we will continue to expand and experience growth in future periods. Our future operating results will depend to a large extent on our ability to successfully sustain our growth and manage our continued expansion. To sustain and manage our growth successfully, we believe that we must, among other things, effectively allocate resources and operate our business across a wide range of priorities.
We expect that our future growth will continue to place strain on our managerial, administrative, operational, financial and other resources. We will incur costs associated with this future growth prior to realizing the anticipated benefits, and the return on these investments may be lower than, or develop slower than we expect or may never materialize. Investors should not consider our revenue growth in prior periods as indicative of our future performance. In future periods, we may not achieve similar percentage revenue growth rates as we have achieved in some past periods. If we are unable to maintain adequate revenue or revenue growth, our stock price could be volatile, and it may be difficult to achieve and maintain profitability. If we are unable to manage our growth successfully, we may not be able to take advantage of market opportunities or release new offerings in a timely manner, and we may fail to satisfy customer expectations, maintain product quality, execute on our business plan or adequately respond to competitive pressures, each of which could adversely impact our growth and affect our business and operating results.
If we are unable to sell renewals of our subscription services to our customers, our future revenue and operating results will be harmed.
Existing customers may not renew their subscription services agreements after the initial period and, given changing customer purchasing preferences, we may not be able to accurately predict our renewal rates. Our customers’ renewal rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including their available budget and the level of their satisfaction with our Everpure Platform, customer support and pricing compared to our competitors. If our customers renew their contracts, they may renew on terms that are less economically beneficial to us. If our customers do not renew their agreements or renew on less favorable terms, our revenue may grow more slowly than expected, if at all.
Sales from our subscription and consumption offerings as a percentage of our total sales are difficult to predict, and we expect they will fluctuate over time, which will impact our product and total revenue growth.
Our sales from our subscription and consumption offerings as a percentage of our total sales are difficult to predict and we expect they will fluctuate over time. With a traditional CapEx sale, a large portion of revenue is recognized as product revenue when the order is fulfilled. By contrast, revenue for our subscription and consumption offerings is recognized over the term of the relevant contract period and the majority of revenue is included in subscription services revenue. An increase in sales from our subscription and consumption offerings as a percentage of total sales may have a near-term negative impact on both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year product and total revenue growth rate comparisons. By contrast, a relative decrease in sales of our subscription and consumption offerings as a percentage of total sales may have a near-term positive impact on both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year product and total revenue growth rate comparisons. As such, we expect fluctuations in sales of our subscription and consumption offerings to impact both product and total revenue growth.
We may require additional capital to support business growth, and this capital might not be available on acceptable terms, or at all.
We intend to continue investing in our business growth and may require additional funds to support business initiatives, including the need to develop new Everpure Platform offerings or enhance our existing Everpure Platform offerings, enhance our operating infrastructure and acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, we may need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds. If we raise additional funds through further issuances of equity or convertible debt securities, our stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges superior to those of holders of our common stock. Any debt financing we undertake in the future could involve additional restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. We may not be able to obtain additional financing on terms favorable to us, if at all. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us, when we require it, our ability to support our business growth and to respond to business challenges could be significantly limited and our prospects and financial condition could be harmed.
We are exposed to the credit risk of some of our customers, which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
Most of our sales are made on an open credit basis. We monitor individual customer payment capability when we grant open credit arrangements and may limit these open credit arrangements based on perceived creditworthiness. We also maintain allowances we believe are adequate to cover exposure for doubtful accounts. Although we have programs in place that are designed to monitor and mitigate these risks, we cannot assure investors these programs will be effective in managing our credit risks, especially as we expand our business internationally. If we are unable to adequately control these risks, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.
Risks Related to Our Operations
If our security measures, or those maintained on our behalf, are compromised, or the security, confidentiality, integrity or availability of our information technology, software, services, networks, products, communications or data is compromised, limited, or fails, our business could experience a material adverse impact, including without limitation, a material interruption to our operations, harm to our reputation, a loss of customers, significant fines, penalties and liabilities, or breach or triggering of data protection laws, privacy policies or other obligations.
In the ordinary course of our business, we collect, store, transmit and otherwise process proprietary, confidential and sensitive data, including by using our internal systems, networks and servers, which may include intellectual property, our proprietary business information and that of our customers, suppliers and business partners and sales data, which may, on occasion, include personally identifiable information. Additionally, we design and sell products that allow our customers to store their data. We also rely on third-party service providers and technologies to operate our business and elements of our infrastructure and our business operations depend, in part, on the success of these third parties’ own cybersecurity measures. Any failure by a third-party to prevent or mitigate data security breaches or improper access to our confidential data or the confidential data of our customers, suppliers and business partners, could adversely affect our business. The security of our networks and those of our third-party service providers, and the intrusion protection features of our products are critical to our operations and business strategy.
Cyberattacks, malicious internet-based activity and online and offline fraud are prevalent and continue to increase. We and third-party service providers on whom we rely have been, and may in the future be, subject to attempts to gain unauthorized access to our data or systems. The threats to our information systems and information and those of third parties on whom we rely, include traditional computer “hackers,” social engineering attacks including phishing, vishing, smishing and domain spoofing (for example, attempts to induce fraudulent invoice payments or divert money from us), faulty password management, software bugs, malicious code (such as viruses and worms), malware installation, personnel misconduct or error, theft, denial-of-service attacks (such as credential stuffing), advanced persistent threat intrusions, server malfunction, software or hardware failures, loss of data or other computer assets, adware, as well as attacks from nation-state and nation-state supported actors. These threats are also becoming increasingly difficult to detect. Recent advances in AI have increased the sophistication of these types of attacks as attackers are able to automate cyberattacks and create more personalized and targeted communications. Additionally, ransomware attacks, including those from organized criminal threat actors, nation-states and nation-state supported actors, are prevalent and could lead to significant interruptions, delays, or outages in our operations, disruptions in our services, loss of data, loss of income, significant extra expense to restore data or systems, reputational loss and the diversion of funds. To alleviate the financial, operational and reputational impact of a ransomware attack, it may be preferable to make extortion payments, but we may be unwilling or unable to do so (including, for example, if applicable laws or regulations prohibit such payments). Similarly, supply chain attacks have increased in frequency and severity, and there have been high-profile incidents of third-party service providers causing widespread disruptions to their customers’ infrastructure due to errors in their SaaS offerings. We cannot guarantee that third parties and infrastructure in our supply chain have not been compromised or that they do not contain exploitable defects or bugs that could result in a breach of or disruption to our Everpure Platform, systems and network or the systems and networks of third parties that support us and our business. Moreover, we may have limited remedies against third-party providers in the event of a service disruption.
We devote significant resources to network security, authentication technologies, data encryption, employee training and other security measures designed to protect our systems and data, including to secure the transmission and storage of data and prevent third-party access to our data or accounts, but there can be no assurance that our security measures or those of our service providers, partners and other third parties upon whom we rely will be effective in protecting against a security incident or the material adverse impacts that may arise from a security incident. Notwithstanding our efforts, we may fail to detect the existence of security breaches or incidents. Malicious third parties might use techniques that we are unable to defend against to compromise and infiltrate our systems. The techniques used by malicious actors change frequently and are often not recognized until launched against a target. Any destructive or intrusive breach of our internal systems could result in the information stored on our networks, including, without limitation, source code for our products and services or the networks and systems of third parties upon whom we rely being accessed, publicly disclosed, lost or stolen. Additionally, an effective attack could disrupt the proper functioning of our Everpure Platform, allow unauthorized access to our or our customers' sensitive, proprietary or confidential information, disrupt or temporarily interrupt our and our customers’ operations or cause other destructive outcomes, including the theft of information sufficient to engage in fraudulent transactions.
The risk that these types of events could seriously harm our business is likely to increase as we expand our network of channel partners, resellers and authorized service providers and operate in more countries. The economic costs to us to eliminate or alleviate cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities could be significant and may be difficult to anticipate or measure because the damage may differ based on the identity and motive of the programmer or hacker, which are often difficult to identify.
If any of these types of security incidents occurs and we are unable to protect our platform, products, systems and data, or if we are perceived to have such a security incident, our relationships with our business partners and customers could be materially damaged, our reputation and brand could be materially harmed, use of our Everpure Platform could decrease and we could be exposed to a risk of loss or litigation , including, without limitation, class action litigation, and other possible liabilities. A security incident could also result in government enforcement actions that could include investigations, fines, penalties, audits and inspections, additional reporting requirements and/or oversight, temporary or permanent bans on all or some processing of personal information. For a description of our processes for assessing, identifying and managing material risks from cybersecurity threats, see Part 1. Item 1C. Cybersecurity in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Moreover, applicable data protection laws, contracts, policies and other data protection obligations may require us to notify relevant stakeholders of security incidents, including affected individuals, customers, regulators, and credit reporting agencies. Such disclosures are costly and the disclosures or the failure to comply with such requirements could lead to material adverse impacts such as negative publicity, loss of customer confidence in our services or security measures, investigations and private or government claims. Security incidents that impact our information technology systems could also result in breaches of our contracts (some of which may not have liability limitations and/or require us to indemnify affected parties) and could lead to litigation with customers, partners or other relevant stakeholders. These proceedings could force us to spend money in defense or settlement, divert management’s time and attention, increase our costs of doing business and adversely affect our reputation or otherwise adversely affect our business.
If we are unable to attract, motivate and retain sales, engineering and other key personnel, including our management team, we may not be able to increase our revenue and our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.
Our ability to increase our revenue depends on our ability to attract, motivate, and retain qualified sales, engineering and other key employees, including our management. These positions may require candidates with specific backgrounds in software and the storage industry, and competition for employees with such expertise is intense. We have from time to time experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications. To the extent that we are successful in hiring to fill these positions, we may need a significant amount of time to train new employees before they are effective and efficient in performing their jobs. If we are unable to adequately address these challenges, our ability to recruit and retain employees and to ensure employee productivity could be negatively affected. From time to time, there may be changes in our management team, which could create short term uncertainty. For example, in fiscal 2026, we have hired a new chief financial officer and chief revenue officer. All of our employees, including members of our management team and executive officers, are generally employed on an at-will basis, which means that they could terminate their employment with us at any time. If we are unable to attract, motivate and retain qualified sales, engineering and other key employees, including our management or if they are unable to work effectively, our business and operating results could suffer.
If we fail to adequately expand and optimize our sales force, our growth will be impeded.
We need to continue to expand and optimize our sales organization in order to grow our customer base and our business. We plan to continue to expand and train our sales force, both domestically and internationally. We must design and implement effective sales incentive programs, and it can take time before new sales representatives are fully trained and productive. We must adapt our sales processes for new sales and marketing approaches, including those required by our shift to subscription services and the changes resulting from evolving economic and budgetary constraints. If we are unable to hire, develop and retain qualified sales personnel or if new sales personnel are unable to achieve desired productivity levels in a reasonable period of time, we may not be able to realize the expected benefits of these investments or increase our revenue and our business and operating results could suffer.
Our company culture has contributed to our success, and if we cannot maintain this culture as we grow, we could lose the innovation, creativity and teamwork fostered by our culture, and our business may be harmed.
We believe that our company culture has been a critical contributor to our success. Our culture fosters innovation, creativity, teamwork, passion for customers, focus on execution, and facilitates critical knowledge sharing. In particular, we believe that the difference between our sales, support and engineering cultures and those of incumbent vendors, is a key competitive advantage and differentiator for our customers and partners. As we grow and change or are required to adapt to changes in business operations, we may find it difficult to maintain these important aspects of our company culture, which could limit our ability to innovate and operate effectively. Any failure to preserve our culture could also negatively affect our ability to retain and recruit personnel, continue to perform at current levels or execute on our business strategy.
Our long-term success depends, in part, on sales outside of the United States, which subjects us to costs and risks associated with international operations.
We maintain operations outside of the United States, which we have been expanding and intend to continue to expand in the future. As a company headquartered in the United States, conducting and expanding international operations subjects us to costs and risks that we may not face in the United States, including:
• exposure to foreign currency exchange rate risk;
• difficulties in collecting payments internationally;
• managing and staffing international operations;
• establishing relationships with channel partners in international locations;
• increased travel, infrastructure and legal compliance costs associated with international locations;
• requirements to comply with a wide variety of laws and regulations associated with international operations, including taxes, customs and licensing requirements;
• significant fines, penalties and collateral consequences if we or our partners fail to comply with anti-bribery laws;
• heightened risk of improper, unfair or corrupt business practices in certain geographies;
• potentially adverse tax consequences, including repatriation of earnings;
• increased financial accounting and reporting burdens and complexities;
• political, social and economic instability abroad, terrorist attacks, war and security concerns in general; and
• reduced or varied protection for intellectual property rights in some countries.
The occurrence of any of these risks could negatively affect our international operations and, consequently, our business, operating results and financial condition generally.
Our international operations, as well as tax law changes, could expose us to potentially adverse tax consequences.
Changes in federal, state, or international tax laws or tax rulings could adversely affect our effective tax rate and our operating results. We generally conduct our international operations through wholly owned subsidiaries and report our taxable income in various jurisdictions worldwide based upon our business operations in those jurisdictions. Given proposed tax legislation and other global tax developments, we continue to evaluate our corporate structure and intercompany relationships. Future changes to U.S. and global tax laws may adversely impact our effective tax rate.
On July 4, 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was enacted in the United States; while certain provisions reduced our current tax expense, future interpretations or changes in guidance could materially affect our cash tax obligations, deferred tax positions, and effective tax rate over time.
Many countries around the world are beginning to implement legislation and other guidance to align their international tax rules with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) recommendations and related action plans that aim to standardize and modernize global corporate tax policy, including changes to cross-border tax, transfer-pricing documentation rules and nexus-based tax incentive practices. As part of these broader BEPS initiatives, many jurisdictions are now implementing the OECD’s Pillar Two global minimum tax framework, which introduces a 15% minimum effective tax rate for large multinational groups. Certain countries in which we operate have enacted legislation adopting Pillar Two, and additional jurisdictions continue to issue guidance or consider implementing similar rules. In January 2026, the OECD released a “side‑by‑side” administrative package introducing new safe harbors and potential relief for certain U.S.-parented multinational groups. While the impact of Pillar Two has not been material to date, differences in jurisdictional implementation, the expiration of transition relief, or changes in our global tax profile could increase our effective tax rate, cash tax payments, or compliance costs in future periods. We continue to monitor developments across the jurisdictions in which we operate.
Our intercompany relationships are, and after the implementation of any changes to our corporate structure will continue to be, 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 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 tax charges, higher effective tax rates, reduced cash flows and lower overall profitability of our operations.
Third-party claims that we infringe their intellectual property rights could be costly and harm our business.
There is a substantial amount of intellectual property litigation in the data storage industry, and we may become party to, or threatened with, litigation or other adversarial proceedings regarding our intellectual property rights. The outcome of intellectual property litigation is subject to uncertainties that cannot be adequately quantified in advance. We have been, and may in the future be, subject to claims that we infringe upon the intellectual property rights of other intellectual property holders, particularly as we grow and face increasing competition.
Any intellectual property rights claim against us or our customers, suppliers, and channel partners, with or without merit, could be time-consuming and expensive to litigate or settle, divert management’s resources and attention from operating our business and force us to acquire intellectual property rights and licenses, which may involve substantial royalty payments. Further, a party making such a claim, if successful, could secure a judgment that requires us to pay substantial damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees if we are found to have willfully infringed a patent. An adverse determination also could invalidate our intellectual property rights, prevent us from manufacturing and selling our products and may require that we procure or develop substitute products that do not infringe, which could require significant effort and expense. We are also incorporating AI into the operations of our business. The intellectual property rights surrounding AI technologies are unsettled, and the use or adoption of AI technologies in our business could expose us to copyright infringement or other intellectual property misappropriation claims.
We may not be able to re-engineer our products to avoid infringement, and we may have to seek a license for the infringed technology, which may not be available on reasonable terms or at all, may significantly increase our operating expenses or may require us to restrict our business activities in one or more respects. Even if we were able to obtain a license, it could be non-exclusive, which may give our competitors access to the same technologies licensed to us. Claims that we have misappropriated the confidential information or trade secrets of third parties could have a similar negative impact on our business. Any of these events could harm our business and financial condition.
We currently have a number of agreements in effect with our customers, suppliers and channel partners pursuant to which we have agreed to defend, indemnify and hold them harmless from damages and costs which may arise from claims of infringement by our products of third-party patents, trademarks or other proprietary rights. The scope of these indemnity obligations varies but may, in some instances, include indemnification for damages and expenses, including attorneys’ fees. Our insurance may not cover intellectual property infringement claims. A claim that our products infringe a third party’s intellectual property rights could harm our relationships with our customers, deter future customers from purchasing our products and expose us to costly litigation and settlement expenses. Even if we are not a party to any litigation between a customer and a third party relating to infringement claims by our products, an adverse outcome in any such litigation could make it more difficult for us to defend our products against intellectual property infringement claims in any subsequent litigation in which we are a named party. Any of these results could harm our brand, business and financial condition.
The success of our business depends in part on our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights.
We rely on a combination of patent, copyright, service mark, trademark and trade secret laws, as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual restrictions, to establish and protect our proprietary rights, all of which provide only limited protection. We have over 3,000 issued patents and patent applications in the United States and foreign countries. We cannot assure investors that future patents issued to us, if any, will give us the protection that we seek, if at all, or that any patents issued to us will not be challenged, invalidated, circumvented or held to be unenforceable. Our issued and future patents may not provide sufficiently broad protection or may not be enforceable. Further, the laws of certain foreign countries do not provide the same level of protection of corporate proprietary information and assets such as intellectual property, trademarks, trade secrets, know-how and records, as the laws of the United States. For instance, the legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents and other intellectual property protection. As a result, we may encounter significant problems in protecting and defending our intellectual property or proprietary rights abroad.
Changes to intellectual property laws in the United States and other jurisdictions could also diminish the value of our patents and patent applications or narrow the scope of our patent protection, among other intellectual property rights. We cannot be certain that the steps we have taken will prevent theft, unauthorized use or the reverse engineering of our proprietary information and other intellectual property, including technical data, manufacturing processes, data sets or other sensitive information. Moreover, others may independently develop technologies that are competitive to ours or that infringe our intellectual property. Furthermore, any of our trademarks may be challenged by others or invalidated through administrative process or litigation.
Protecting against the unauthorized use of our intellectual property, products and other proprietary rights is expensive and difficult. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our intellectual property rights or to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. Any such litigation could result in substantial costs and diversion of management’s resources and attention, either of which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition. Further, many of our current and potential competitors have the ability to dedicate substantially greater resources than us to defend intellectual property infringement claims and enforce their intellectual property rights. Accordingly, we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property. Effective patent, trademark, service mark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be available in every country in which our products are available. An inability to adequately protect and enforce our intellectual property and other proprietary rights could harm our business and financial condition.
Our use of open source software could impose limitations on our ability to commercialize our Everpure Platform.
We use open source software in our Everpure Platform and expect to continue to use open source software in the future. Although we monitor our use of open source software, the terms of many open source licenses have not been interpreted by U.S. or foreign courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a manner that imposes unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to market our offerings. From time to time, we may face claims from third parties claiming ownership of, or demanding release of, the open source software or derivative works that we have developed using such software, which could include our proprietary source code, or otherwise seeking to enforce the terms of the applicable open source license. These claims could result in litigation and could require us to make our software source code freely available, seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our Everpure Platform for certain uses or cease offering the implicated solutions unless and until we can re-engineer them to avoid infringement. This re-engineering process could require significant additional research and development resources, and we may be required to discontinue providing some of our software if re-engineering cannot be accomplished on a timely basis, any of which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
Failure to comply with governmental laws and regulations could harm our business.
Our business is subject to regulation by various federal, state, local and foreign governmental agencies, including agencies responsible for monitoring and enforcing employment and labor laws, workplace safety, product safety, environmental laws, consumer protection laws, anti-bribery laws, import/export controls, data privacy, securities laws and tax laws and regulations. In certain jurisdictions, these regulatory requirements may be more stringent than in the United States. For example, the European Union has adopted certain directives to facilitate the recycling of electrical and electronic equipment sold in the European Union, including the Restriction on the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive.
Changes in applicable laws, regulations and standards could harm our business, operating results and financial condition. For example, since the start of the new presidential administration in 2025, U.S. policy changes have been implemented at a rapid pace and additional changes are likely. Changes to U.S. policy implemented by the U.S. Congress and the new presidential administration have impacted and may in the future impact, among other things, the U.S. and global economy, international trade relations, tariffs, unemployment, immigration, healthcare, taxation, the U.S. regulatory environment, inflation and other areas. Although we cannot predict the impact, if any, of these changes to our business, they could adversely affect our business.
We are also subject to a variety of data privacy laws, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). Other jurisdictions have enacted similar laws. We have modified our data protection compliance program in response to data privacy regulations and will continue to monitor the implementation and evolution of global data protection regulations, but if we are not compliant with such privacy regulations, we may be subject to significant fines and our business may be harmed. The potential effects of new or modified privacy laws may be far-reaching and require us to modify our data processing practices and policies and to incur substantial costs and expenses. Customers may choose to implement technological solutions to comply with such laws that impact the performance and competitiveness of our Everpure Platform. Even the perception of privacy concerns, whether or not valid, may harm our reputation and inhibit competitiveness and adoption of our offerings by current and future customers.
In addition, sustainability reporting and disclosure requirements continue to evolve, with increasing global regulation. Companies must develop an expanded set of metrics and measures, data collection and processing, controls, and reporting processes in order to meet regulatory requirements. As global sustainability regulatory requirements evolve, this could lead to disruptions in our product manufacturing, increase our operating costs, and harm our profitability. If we fail, or are seen as failing, to effectively respond to sustainability regulatory requirements, our reputation and brand could be harmed, demand for our offerings could decline, and our profitability could be adversely impacted. Sustainability at Everpure includes but is not limited to topics such as environment, human capital, ethics, data security, and privacy.
Noncompliance with applicable regulations or requirements could subject us to investigations, sanctions, mandatory product recalls, enforcement actions, disgorgement of profits, fines, damages, civil and criminal penalties or injunctions. If any governmental sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal litigation, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed. In addition, responding to any action will likely result in a significant diversion of management’s attention and resources and an increase in professional fees. Enforcement actions and sanctions could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
Governmental regulations affecting the import or export of products could negatively affect our revenue.
The U.S. and various foreign governments have imposed controls, export license requirements and restrictions on the import or export of some technologies, especially encryption technology, as well as laws relating to forced labor and conflict minerals. From time to time, governmental agencies have proposed additional regulation of encryption technology, such as requiring the escrow of imports or exports. If we fail to obtain required import or export approval for our products or their various components, or to timely provide requested documentation, our international and domestic sales could be harmed and our revenue may be adversely affected. In many cases, we rely on vendors and channel partners to handle logistics associated with the import and export of our products, so our visibility and control over these matters may be limited. In addition, failure to comply with such regulations could result in penalties, costs and restrictions on export privileges, which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
We may acquire other businesses which could require significant management attention, disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value, and adversely affect our operating results.
We have completed acquisitions in the past and continue to evaluate and consider additional strategic transactions, including acquisitions of, or investments in, businesses, technologies, services, products and other assets in the future. For example, in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, we entered into a definitive agreement for the purchase of 1touch, which we expect to close in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, subject to the satisfaction of the transaction closing conditions. We also may enter into relationships with other businesses in order to expand our product offerings, which could involve preferred or exclusive licenses, additional channels of distribution or discount pricing or investments in other companies. Negotiating these transactions can be time-consuming, difficult and expensive, and our ability to close these transactions may be subject to third-party or government approvals, which are beyond our control. Consequently, we can make no assurance that these transactions, once undertaken and announced, will close.
These kinds of acquisitions or investments may result in unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. In particular, we may encounter difficulties integrating the businesses, technologies, products, personnel or operations of acquired companies, particularly if the key personnel of the acquired business choose not to work for us, and we may have difficulty retaining the customers of any acquired business. Acquisitions and investments may also disrupt our ongoing business, divert our resources and require significant management attention that would otherwise be available for development of our business. Any acquisition or investment could expose us to unknown liabilities. We may not successfully evaluate or utilize the acquired technology or personnel, or accurately forecast the financial impact of an acquisition or investment transaction. Moreover, we cannot assure investors that the anticipated benefits of any acquisition or investment will be realized. In connection with these types of transactions, we may issue additional equity securities that dilute our stockholders, use cash that we may need in the future to operate our business, incur debt on terms unfavorable to us or that we are unable to repay, incur large charges or substantial liabilities, encounter difficulties integrating diverse business cultures and become subject to adverse tax consequences, substantial impairment or deferred compensation charges. These challenges related to acquisitions or investments could harm our business and financial condition.
Risks Related to Our Credit Facility
Restrictive covenants in the agreement governing our revolving credit facility may restrict our ability to pursue business strategies.
In June 2025, we entered into a Credit Agreement with a consortium of financial institutions and lenders that provides for a five-year, senior unsecured revolving credit facility of $500.0 million (Credit Facility). We can borrow, repay and re-borrow funds under this Credit Facility at any time through June 2030, subject to customary borrowing conditions, for general corporate purposes and working capital.
The agreement governing our Credit Facility includes a financial covenant and other restrictive covenants that limit our ability, among other things, to incur additional indebtedness; consolidate or merge; and incur liens, and such restrictions could limit our ability to engage in activities that may be in our long term best interest. Our failure to comply with the financial covenant and other restrictive covenants could result in an event of default, which if not cured or waived, could result in the lenders requiring immediate payment of all outstanding borrowings thereunder.
Risks Related to Our Common Stock
The trading price of our common stock has been and may continue to be volatile, and an active, liquid, and orderly market for our common stock may not be sustained.
The trading price of our common stock has been, and will likely continue to be, highly volatile. Since shares of our common stock were sold in our initial public offering in October 2015 at a price of $17.00 per share, our closing stock price has ranged from $8.76 to $98.70, through March 18, 2026. Some of the factors, many of which are beyond our control, affecting our volatility may include:
• price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market from time to time;
• significant volatility in the market price and trading volume of technology companies in general and of companies in our industry;
• actual or anticipated changes in our results of operations or fluctuations in our operating results;
• whether our operating results meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors;
• issuance or new or updated research or reports by securities analysts, including the publication of unfavorable reports or change in recommendation or downgrading of our common stock;
• actual or anticipated developments in our competitors’ businesses or the competitive landscape generally;
• litigation involving us, our industry or both;
• general economic conditions and trends, including the impact of interest rates on the overall stock market and the market for technology company stocks;
• major catastrophic events;
• sales of large blocks of our stock; or
• departures of key personnel.
In several recent situations where the price of a stock has been volatile, holders of that stock have instituted securities class action litigation against the issuer. If any of our stockholders were to bring a lawsuit against us, the defense and disposition of the lawsuit could be costly and divert the time and attention of our management and harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
We cannot guarantee that our share repurchase program will enhance shareholder value, and share repurchases could affect the price of our common stock.
Our Board of Directors has periodically authorized share repurchases, funded from available working capital, including up to an additional $400.0 million authorized in December 2025. The repurchase authorization has no fixed end date. Although our Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program, this program does not obligate us to repurchase any specific dollar amount or number of shares. The share repurchase program could affect the price of our common stock, increase volatility and diminish our cash reserves.
If securities analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or if they downgrade our stock, our stock price could decline.
The trading market for our common stock will likely be influenced by research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. If one or more of these analysts downgrades our stock, lowers their price target, or publishes unfavorable or inaccurate research about our business, our stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of us or fails to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our stock could decrease, which could cause our stock price and trading volume to decline.
We have never paid dividends on our common stock and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future.
We have never declared or paid any dividends on our common stock. We intend to retain any earnings to finance the operation and expansion of our business, and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the future. As a result, investors may only receive a return on their investment in our common stock if the market price of our common stock increases.
Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws and under Delaware law might discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our management and, therefore, depress the price of our common stock.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could depress the trading price of our common stock by acting to discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our management that our stockholders may deem advantageous. These provisions:
• establish a classified Board of Directors so that not all members of our Board of Directors are elected at one time;
• authorize the issuance of “blank check” preferred stock that our Board of Directors could issue to increase the number of outstanding shares to discourage a takeover attempt;
• prohibit stockholder action by written consent, which requires all stockholder actions to be taken at a meeting of our stockholders;
• prohibit stockholders from calling a special meeting of our stockholders;
• provide that the Board of Directors is expressly authorized to make, alter or repeal our bylaws; and
• establish advance notice requirements for nominations for elections to our Board of Directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders at stockholder meetings.
Additionally, we are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which generally prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any of a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder and which may discourage, delay, or prevent a change of control of our company.
Any provision of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, bylaws or Delaware law that has the effect of delaying or deterring a change in control could limit the opportunity for our stockholders to receive a premium for their shares of our common stock, and could also affect the price that some investors are willing to pay for our common stock.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware will be exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf; any action asserting a breach of fiduciary duty; any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our bylaws; or any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine. The choice of forum provision may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers or other employees, which may discourage such lawsuits against us and our directors, officers and other employees. If a court were to find the choice of forum provision contained in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our business and financial condition.
General Risk Factors
Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fires, floods and other natural catastrophic events, and to interruption by man-made factors such as war, computer viruses or terrorism or by the impact of public health epidemics or pandemics.
We and our suppliers have operations in locations, including our headquarters in California, that are subject to earthquakes, fires, floods and other natural catastrophic events, such as climate change, severe weather and geological events, which could disrupt our operations or the operations of our customers and suppliers. Our customers affected by a natural disaster could postpone or cancel orders of our products, which could negatively impact our business. Moreover, should any of our key suppliers fail to deliver components to us as a result of a natural disaster, we may be unable to purchase these components in necessary quantities or may be forced to purchase components in the open market at significantly higher costs. We may also be forced to purchase components in advance of our normal supply chain demand to avoid potential market shortages. Our business interruption insurance may be insufficient to compensate us for losses due to a significant natural disaster or due to man-made factors. Any natural catastrophic events may also prevent our employees from being able to reach our offices in any jurisdiction around the world, and therefore impede our ability to conduct business as usual.
In addition, man-made factors, such as acts of war, terrorism or malicious computer viruses, and public health epidemics or pandemics, could cause disruptions in our or our customers’ businesses or the economy as a whole. To the extent that these disruptions result in delays or cancellations of customer orders or the deployment of our products, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.
