UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
(Mark One)
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ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016
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TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM TO
Commission File Number: 001-37874
Everbridge, Inc.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
Delaware |
26-2919312 |
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) |
(I.R.S. Employer |
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25 Corporate Drive, Suite 400 Burlington, Massachusetts |
01803 |
(Address of principal executive offices) |
(Zip Code) |
Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (818) 230-9700
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act: Common Stock, Par Value $0.001 Per Share; Common stock traded on The NASDAQ Global Market
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. YES ☐ NO ☒
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. YES ☐ NO ☒
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. YES ☒ NO ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). YES ☒ NO ☐
Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ☒
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definition of “large accelerated filer”, “accelerated filer”, and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):
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☒ (Do not check if a small reporting company) |
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Small reporting company |
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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). YES ☐ NO ☒
As of June 30, 2016, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second quarter, there was no established public market for the registrant’s common stock. The registrant’s common stock began trading on The NASDAQ Global Market on September 16, 2016. The number of shares of registrant’s Common Stock outstanding as of March 21, 2017 was 27,235,633.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Portions of the registrant’s Definitive Proxy Statement for its 2017 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Regulation 14A not later than 120 days after the end of the fiscal year covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
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Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations |
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Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters |
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Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence |
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Forward-Looking Statements
This Annual Report on Form 10-K, including the sections entitled “Business,” “Risk Factors,” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Statements that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of words such as, but not limited to, “anticipate,” “believe,” “can,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “seek,” “should,” “target,” “will,” “would” and similar expressions or variations intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements concerning the following:
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our ability to continue to add new customers, maintain existing customers and sell new products and professional services to new and existing customers; |
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the effects of increased competition as well as innovations by new and existing competitors in our market; |
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our ability to adapt to technological change and effectively enhance, innovate and scale our solutions; |
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our ability to effectively manage or sustain our growth and to attain and sustain profitability; |
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our ability to diversify our sources of revenue; |
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potential acquisitions and integration of complementary business and technologies; |
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our expected use of proceeds; |
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our ability to maintain, or strengthen awareness of, our brand; |
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perceived or actual security, integrity, reliability, quality or compatibility problems with our solutions, including related to security breaches in our customers systems, unscheduled downtime or outages; |
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statements regarding future revenue, hiring plans, expenses, capital expenditures, capital requirements and stock performance; |
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our ability to attract and retain qualified employees and key personnel and further expand our overall headcount; |
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our ability to grow, both domestically and internationally; |
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our ability to stay abreast of new or modified laws and regulations that currently apply or become applicable to our business both in the United States and internationally, including laws and regulations related to export compliance; |
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our ability to maintain, protect and enhance our intellectual property; |
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costs associated with defending intellectual property infringement and other claims; and |
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the future trading prices of our common stock and the impact of securities analysts’ reports on these prices. |
These statements represent the beliefs and assumptions of our management based on information currently available to us. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause actual results and the timing of certain events to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those identified below, and those discussed in the section titled “Risk Factors” included under Part I, Item 1A. Furthermore, such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this report. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date of this report.
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Overview
Everbridge is a global software company that provides enterprise software applications that automate and accelerate organizations’ operational response to critical events in order to keep people safe and businesses running. During public safety threats such as active shooter situations, terrorist attacks or severe weather conditions, as well as critical business events such as IT outages, cyber-attacks or other incidents such as product recalls or supply-chain interruptions, our SaaS-based platform enables our customers to quickly and reliably aggregate and assess threat data, locate people at risk and responders able to assist, automate the execution of pre-defined communications processes, and track progress on executing response plans. Our customers use our platform to identify and assess hundreds of different types of threats to their organizations, people, assets or brand. Our solutions enable organizations to deliver intelligent, contextual messages to, and receive verification of delivery from, hundreds or millions of recipients, across multiple communications modalities such as voice, SMS and e-mail. Our applications enable the delivery of messages in near real-time to more than 100 different communication devices, in over 200 countries and territories, in 15 languages and dialects – all simultaneously. We delivered 1.5 billion communications in 2016. We automate the process of sending contextual notifications to multiple constituencies and receiving return information on a person’s or operation’s status so that organizations can act quickly and precisely. Our Critical Event Management platform is comprised of a comprehensive set of software applications that address the full spectrum of tasks an organization has to perform to manage a critical event, including Mass Notification, Incident Management, Safety Connection, IT Alerting, Visual Command Center, Crisis Commander, Community Engagement and Secure Messaging. We believe that our broad suite of integrated, enterprise applications delivered via a single global platform is a significant competitive advantage in the market for Critical Event Management solutions, which we refer to generally as CEM.
In critical situations, the speed at which threats are assessed and information is transmitted and accessed is essential. For example, United States Department of Homeland Security research indicates that the average duration of an active shooter event at a school is approximately 12.5 minutes, while the average police response time to such events is 18 minutes. Accordingly, organizations must be able to aggregate multiple types of threat and incident data and determine whether their people, assets, or suppliers could be impacted, rapidly deliver messages that are tailored to multiple, specific audiences, in precise locations and be assured of delivery. Further, the proliferation of mobile and digital communications has resulted in individuals spending less time in a fixed office location, with International Data Corporation estimating that by 2020 mobile workers will account for 72% of the total United States workforce, and this trend has simultaneously increased the number of pathways through which people receive information. These developments have made it imperative that organizations be able to locate travelling or remote workers to determine who might be impacted by a critical event, and that critical communications be delivered via voice, SMS, and email, as well as to social media, outdoor signage and personal computers. Moreover, organizations require the ability to leverage all of these pathways, individually or in sequence, to reach people in situations where a certain means of communication may be inoperative or individuals are not responsive to a single pathway. During public safety threats and critical business events, the ability to gather, organize and analyze data in real time, and to enable secure, scalable, reliable and automated communications to people can be essential to saving lives, protecting assets and maintaining businesses. Further, the ability to rapidly organize a response by locating available responders and reducing the time required to manage them via automated communications can also result in significant economic savings, as each minute of unplanned downtime costs organizations an average of approximately $5,600, according to Gartner, Inc.
The severity, complexity and frequency of these critical events, their implications for business performance and personal safety, and regulatory and compliance challenges are increasing. The need for active shooter preparedness and public safety protection from terrorist attacks, as well managing the response to IT outages, cyber incidents, severe weather conditions, product recalls, supply-chain interruptions, hazardous material discharges and other urgent events, drive the need for a secure, scalable and reliable CEM system that can be operated quickly and easily. In addition, there has been a rapid proliferation of connected devices and networked physical objects – the Internet of Things, or IoT – that have the capability to communicate information about status and environment and generate data that enables individuals and enterprises to take appropriate action. These dynamics have led to a growing need for solutions that can deliver comprehensive yet targeted and contextually relevant content that facilitates the desired outcomes in critical situations and overcomes the information overload that individuals face. We estimate, based on data from Frost & Sullivan, presented in an independent study commissioned by us, and data from Markets and Markets, that the market for CEM solutions represented an $18.3 billion worldwide opportunity in 2015 and is expected to grow to $41.1 billion in 2020.
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Following the tragic events of 9/11, Everbridge was founded with a vision of helping people communicate effectively in critical situations. Our SaaS-based CEM platform is built on a secure, scalable and reliable infrastructure with multiple layers of redundancy to enable the rapid delivery of critical communications, with near real-time verification, over numerous devices and contact paths. Our Mass Notification application is our most established application and enables enterprises and governmental entities to aggregate and assess threat data, locate people based on their standard work or home location and send and receive two-way, contextually aware notifications to individuals or groups to keep them informed before, during and after natural or man-made disasters and other emergencies. For example, during Hurricane Sandy, our Mass Notification application was used along the U.S. East Coast to deliver more than eight million communications. By automating the delivery of these types of critical communications, we enable customers to increase the speed and accuracy of their response and reduce associated costs. Importantly, given the pressure and anxiety most people experience in critical situations, our Mass Notification application provides a simple user interface and automated workflows for ease of use. The expertise that we garnered developing our Mass Notification application and our customers’ reliance on our solutions led us to leverage our platform to deploy solutions for CEM use cases. In turn, we have developed a full suite of enterprise-scale applications that enable our customers to inform and organize people during critical situations, whether a broad audience or a targeted subset of individuals, globally or locally, and accounting for cultural, linguistic, regulatory and technological differences. As all of our applications leverage our CEM platform, customers can use a single contacts database, rules engine of algorithms and hierarchies and user interface to accomplish multiple objectives. Our applications are easy-to-use, quickly deployable and require limited implementation services and no development resources.
The following situations reflect examples of how our applications aggregate and assess data and enable improved management of critical events:
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When an active shooter situation or terrorist attack occurs, organizations can quickly identify employees in the affected area, including employees not at their usual business location, in order to confirm that they are safe and provide tailored instructions. For example, shelter-in-place instructions may be provided to people in an impacted building while evacuation instructions are provided to those in an adjacent building. At the same time, first responders and hospitals can use multiple modes of alerting to mobilize resources and call in staff to provide emergency care. |
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When a hurricane is imminent, local emergency management departments can alert affected communities with relevant safety and evacuation instructions while companies can put in place emergency plans to notify employees of office closures while coordinating work assignments to maintain the continuity of core operations. |
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Companies can consolidate separate command centers for emergency operations and supply chain events, using one common data set to aggregate and assess data on severe weather, political unrest and other types of threats to their own and suppliers’ operations, thereby reducing costs while gaining efficiencies. |
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When IT systems fail, IT administrators can shorten the time required to alert cross-department responders, use scheduling information to determine availability and quickly assemble appropriate personnel on a conference bridge, thereby reducing the costs incurred from downtime. |
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When a patient is suspected of having a stroke, an on-call specialist can provide a patient assessment via video communications during the ambulance trip and the emergency room can be readied for an immediate stroke treatment, accelerating critical time to treatment. |
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When a cyber incident shuts down an IT network, management can alert employees of the network shutdown via a secure, alternate communication path. |
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When a power line is down, utility workers can utilize pre-configured incident management templates to alert affected customers and responders and provide service updates. |
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When engine readings in critical equipment detect a malfunction, technicians with the appropriate skills can be automatically alerted and quickly deployed to minimize downtime and avoid revenue loss or service interruption. |
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When readings from an implanted medical device are abnormal, that information can be automatically routed to the individual’s healthcare provider to enable timely medical care. |
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When a young child goes missing, local officials can send alerts to and receive tips from their communities to aid in locating and returning the child. |
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When a financial services firm experiences disruptions in service, clients can be promptly notified and audit confirmations can be provided to document delivery. |
Our customer base has grown from 867 customers at the end of 2011 to more than 3,200 customers as of December 31, 2016. As of December 31, 2016, our customers were based in 28 countries and included eight of the 10 largest U.S. cities, eight of the 10 largest U.S.-based investment banks, 24 of the 25 busiest North American airports, six of the 10 largest global consulting firms, six of the 10 largest global auto makers, all four of the largest global accounting firms, four of the 10 largest U.S.-based health care providers and four of the 10 largest U.S.-based health insurers. We provide products and services to customers of varying sizes, including enterprises, small businesses, non-profit organizations, educational institutions and government agencies. Our customers span a wide variety of industries including technology, energy, financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, media and entertainment, retail, higher education and professional services.
We derive substantially all of our revenue from subscriptions to our critical communications applications, which represented 96%, 97% and 97% of our total revenue in 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively. Historically, we derived more than 86% of our revenue in each of the last three fiscal years from sales of our Mass Notification application. Our pricing model is based on the number of applications subscribed to and, per application, the number of people, locations and things connected to our platform, as well as the volume of communications. We also offer premium services including data feeds for social media, threat intelligence and weather. We generate additional revenue by expanding the number of applications, number of contacts and number of devices that our customers purchase over time.
Recent Developments
In September 2016, we closed our initial public offering, or IPO, in which we sold a total of 6,250,000 shares of our common stock. We received net cash proceeds of $66.1 million, net of underwriting discounts and commissions and other costs associated with the offering paid or payable by us.
In December 2016, we acquired 100% of the shares of Svensk Krisledning AB, or Crisis Commander. We acquired Crisis Commander for cash consideration of approximately $2.3 million with additional time and performance-based milestones that could result in additional payments of $0.4 million. Crisis Commander is a SaaS mobile crisis management company operating out of Sweden.
In January 2017, we acquired 100% of the shares of IDV Solutions, LLC, or IDV. We acquired IDV for cash consideration of approximately $21.3 million, with additional time and performance-based milestones that could result in additional payments of $6.2 million. IDV is a provider of threat assessment and operational visualization software located in Lansing, Michigan.
Industry Background
Over the past two decades, methods to assess critical events and to automate and accelerate the process of managing and responding to such events have evolved rapidly, in tandem with advances in technology, to include automated or system-generated responses, including voice calls, text messages, emails, social media and outdoor digital signage. In critical situations, the speed at which information is transmitted and accessed is essential.
Key Trends Driving a Fundamental Shift in Communications
Governmental entities and enterprises face increasing threats to the safety of their geographically disparate and constantly mobile residents and employees. According to the Global Terrorism Database, the number of global fatalities and injuries from terrorist acts has increased 400% from 2005 to 2015, and the world has witnessed
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devastating attacks in Orlando, Berlin, Brussels, Nice, San Bernardino, Istanbul and other global cities. According to estimates by the Institute for Economics and Peace, the economic cost of terrorism reached $52.9 billion in 2014. In addition, according to the Third National Climate Assessment prepared by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the United States has been experiencing severe weather events above long-term averages, with, for example, the number of heat waves in 2011 and 2012 at nearly triple the long-term average. Similarly, a PricewaterhouseCoopers study found that the number of cyber security incidents across all industries rose by 38% in 2015 versus the prior year and Lloyd’s estimates that cyber-attacks cost businesses as much $400 billion annually. Taken together, global reinsurer Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd. found that the cost of disaster events, including man-made and severe weather incidents, reached $85 billion worldwide in 2015.
At the same time, key business and technology trends continue to shift both the fundamental way that organizations communicate with relevant stakeholders and how individuals regularly consume information. People increasingly consume most of their information through mobile devices and applications as well as through social media and other digital channels. Increasingly, less information is shared using traditional “analog” communication methods, such as printed media, television and landline telephones. The proliferation of mobile and digital communications, as well as the emergence of the IoT, has accelerated the speed at which people communicate, exponentially increasing the volume of communications that individuals must process. As a result of these dynamics, it has become imperative that communications be appropriately contextualized, meaningful and actionable.
In light of these trends, communications have become one of the most important areas of technology investment. In a 2016 report, Gartner, Inc. estimates that $1.4 trillion, or 41.0%, of information technology, or IT, expenditure was for communications in 2016. Organizations are reaping the benefits of digital communications to more easily and relevantly interact with their target constituents including customers, partners, employees, residents and other key stakeholders. Likewise, as IT innovation continues to shift to on-demand models, organizations have increasingly migrated from on-premises software to cloud-based solutions in order to improve agility and efficiency when seeking to communicate with their global, mobile, distributed stakeholders.
In order to connect people across disparate communication modalities in diverse locations, organizations are increasingly investing in technologies that unify different analog and digital real-time and non-real-time communications. The integration of real-time enterprise communication services such as instant messaging and voice and video conferencing with non-real-time communication services such as voicemail, facsimile and e-mail can provide a consistent and unified user experience across multiple devices and media types.
During public safety threats and critical business events, the ability to communicate life-saving or damage-mitigating information is crucial. Speed, security, scalability and reliability of communications is essential. The severity, complexity and frequency of these critical events, their implications for personal safety or business performance and rising regulatory and compliance challenges are driving demand for CEM solutions, which we estimate, based on data from Frost & Sullivan, presented in an independent study commissioned by us, and data from Markets and Markets, represented an $18.3 billion worldwide market opportunity in 2015.
Evolution of Critical Event Management Solutions
Traditional solutions for critical communications have not kept pace with the increasingly digital world, the evolving threat landscape and the opportunity to leverage technological innovation to more effectively communicate with people. These solutions are often developed in-house or are not truly enterprise grade in scale and reliability, leaving many organizations to use analog, manual, one-way and people-based modalities to communicate with relevant stakeholders. These solutions lack the scale to reliably address the breadth of the different critical challenges that organizations increasingly face, the sophistication required to address evolving needs with aggregated data and analysis for threat assessment, automated workflows and the ability to rapidly deliver messages that are contextually tailored to multiple, specific audiences, in precise locations, using a variety of different communication modalities. Traditional critical communication solutions also typically send notifications based upon a person’s static work or home address. Given the mobile nature of today’s workforce, solutions now need to be able to dynamically locate who is near a critical event and send instructions to impacted parties and responders based upon where they actually are.
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CEM solutions build upon the strengths of modern critical communications. Organizations today typically manage critical events across the organization in silos that use disparate data sources and unintegrated tools, making it difficult to achieve a common operational view of threats and of the status of response. Utilizing a common contact base, consistent rules engines, threat databases that are integrated with information on the location of an organization’s people, assets and suppliers, and a common visualization platform, CEM solutions can provide a more integrated solution which can improve management control and visibility and lower costs. The ability to cohesively and rapidly share information and collaborate across the organization underlies creating a common operational approach.
Requirements of Effective Critical Event Management Solutions
In order to deliver effective critical communications solutions, several requirements must be met:
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Comprehensive Solution. Organizations require an enterprise-scale, comprehensive solution that can provide them with aggregated data and automated workflows and deliver intelligent, contextual messages across multiple communications modalities – all operated from desktop or mobile devices to accommodate managing critical events whenever they occur. |
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Scalability and Speed. Organizations require a solution that is agile and flexible enough to reach individuals at both high volume/low frequency intervals, such as emergency mass notification situations, and low volume/high frequency intervals, such as for IT alerting and secure messaging. |
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Enterprise-Grade Reliability. Given the inherent nature of critical events, organizations require a solution that is robust, resilient and highly redundant, with a high level of assured uptime and a low degree of fault tolerance. |
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Situational Assessment. Organizations require ready access to information from weather feeds, threat sources and IT monitoring systems, as well as the ability to incorporate trends from social media and feedback from their personnel in the field, in order to assess critical events and impacted areas. |
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Dynamic Location Capability. With today’s mobile workforce, organizations need to be able to locate and instruct impacted people, and identify and organize responders, based on where they actually are, not just based on their static office or home location. |
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Visualization. Organizations require a visualization platform that integrates threat and incident data from a wide variety of sources, as well as updates on the status of incident response tasks, in order to improve their ability to assess the potential impact of events and the success of mitigation strategies, and to improve management control. |
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Security and Regulatory Compliance. Organizations require a solution that is architected to ensure data and communications security given the significance of the content being managed and the regulatory requirements that apply to the sensitive data being communicated. |
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Intelligent Communication and Contextual Personalization. Organizations require sophisticated, intelligent technology that can tailor both the content of communications and the modalities through which they are delivered based on differing individual preferences and roles and responsibilities within the organization. |
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Ease-of-Use. Given the need for speed and the pressure and anxiety most people experience in critical situations, organizations require a solution that is simple and easy-to-use, particularly when lives and property are at risk. |
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Real-Time and After-Event Reporting and Analytics. To ensure that organizations can measure and improve performance around critical events, a solution should provide detailed, timely and compliant reporting and analytics on organizational responsiveness and the effectiveness of communications. |
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Global Reach and Local Expertise. Global communications require a “local” approach to deal with the complexity of varying cultural preferences, languages and device types, as well as technical and regulatory requirements. |
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Key Benefits of Our Solutions and Competitive Strengths
Everbridge was founded with a vision to help organizations communicate quickly and reliably to deliver the right message to the right people, on the right device, in the right location, at the right time during public safety threats and critical business events. Our CEM solutions enable organizations to assess threats, locate impacted people and assets, and manage and respond to critical events, all on a single platform Key benefits of our solutions and competitive strengths include the following:
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Comprehensive, Enterprise-Scale Platform. The core of our solutions is our critical communications platform, which provides multiple layers of redundancy to assure uptime and delivery of communications regardless of volume or throughput requirements. The platform is secure, scalable and reliable, enabling the delivery and verification of tens of millions of different communications virtually anywhere, in any volume, in near real-time. In 2016, we delivered 1.5 billion communications, or over 47 communications per second, through our globally distributed data centers. |
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Out-of-the-Box, Scalable and Mobile Applications. Our SaaS-based applications are out-of-the box, enterprise-ready and can be utilized without customer development, testing or ongoing maintenance. Regardless of a customer or prospect’s size or needs, our applications are built to scale to its largest and most complex critical communications requirements. |
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Aggregated Threat Data and Analysis. Our software gathers and analyzes information from weather data feeds, public safety and threat data feeds, social media, IT ticketing systems and monitoring systems, as well as inputs and feedback from two-way and polling messages. Data can be geo-mapped and threat and incident data can be used to automatically trigger simple or complex workflows that are tied to standard operating procedures or run-books. |
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Contextual Communications. We enable intelligence and personalization in the critical communications process by delivering contextual communications. Our customers can deliver and escalate critical communications broadly to a mass population or to a targeted subset of individuals based on geographic location, skill level, role and communication modality preferences for rich, two-way collaboration. |
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Dynamic Location Awareness. Our platform can provide organizations with the ability to send and receive notifications based on the last known locations of people, not just based on a static office or home address. Our platform integrates with a variety of sources of location information, including building access control systems and corporate network access solutions. This location-specific approach enables organizations to quickly determine which individuals may be affected by a public safety threat or able to respond to a critical business event, and to provide targeted and relevant instructions and two- way communications. |
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Large, Dynamic and Rich Communications Data Asset. As of December 31, 2016, our data asset consists of our contacts databases that manage approximately 130 million contact profiles and connections from more than 3,200 customers based in 28 countries. Our contacts databases, which we refer to as contact stores, are initially created through an upload of contacts from the customer and are automatically updated with the most current contact information provided by the customer or by individuals who opt-in to receive notifications from our Community Engagement application. Our contact stores are repositories for all contact details, attributes and business rules and preferences, such as a person’s last-known location, language spoken, special needs, technical certifications and on-call status. |
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Multi-channel Visualization. Our platform provides the ability to create an integrated view of threats, incidents and the status of response, all within the context of the locations of an organization’s people, assets and suppliers. Multiple channels of information can be displayed side-by-side so different facets of a critical event can be monitored simultaneously, and the same data can be displayed on personal computer screens and on a large command center wall to provide flexibility in deployment. |
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Automated Workflows. Our platform automates the workflows required to complete a critical notification, including establishing the individuals within an organization authorized to send messages, the groups of stakeholders to whom messages will be sent and the content of messages to be sent to different groups of relevant stakeholders, in each case based on incident type. We believe that this automation reduces the amount of time required to send critical notification as well as the associated cost. Our platform also enables customers to automatically establish procedures for improving the success of communication efforts. |
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Globally Local. Our platform is designed to be utilized globally while accounting for local cultural, linguistic, regulatory and technological differences. We have relationships with suppliers and carriers in multiple countries to ensure delivery in compliance with local, technical and regulatory requirements. We have localized our user interface in 15 languages and dialects that are spoken by more than 60% of the world’s population. |
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Next-Generation, Open Architecture. We developed our platform to easily integrate our applications with other systems. Our solutions provide open Application Program Initiatives, or APIs, and configurable integrations, enabling our platform to work with our customers’ and partners’ pre-existing processes and solutions, increasing the business value we deliver. |
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Actionable Reporting and Analytics. Our platform provides real-time dashboards, advanced map-based visualization and ad-hoc reporting across notifications, incidents and contacts. This information is easily accessed for required after-event reviews, continuous process improvements and regulatory compliance. |
Our Growth Strategy
We intend to drive growth in our business by building on our position as a global provider of critical event management, critical communications and enterprise safety applications. Key elements of our growth strategy include:
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Accelerate Our Acquisition of New Customers. We have multiple paths of entry into new customers with our portfolio of applications, which are used for a wide variety of use cases across a diverse set of verticals markets. We intend to capitalize on the breadth of our solutions and the technological advantages of our CEM platform to continue to attract new customers. In parallel, we plan to attract new customers by investing in sales and marketing and expanding our channel partner relationships. |
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Further Penetrate Our Existing Customers. With revenue retention rates of over 110% for each of the last three years, we believe that there is a significant opportunity within our existing customer base to expand their use of our platform, both by selling new applications and features to our existing customers and selling to additional departments in their organizations. We believe that we have a significant opportunity to increase the lifetime value of our customer relationships as we educate customers about the benefits of our current and future applications that they do not already utilize and of taking an integrated CEM approach. In the last three years we have added five new applications, which have already begun to experience significant growth. These new applications have grown from 6% in the first quarter of 2015 to 30% in the fourth quarter of 2016 of our contracted sales, which represent the total dollar value of new agreements entered into within the prior 12 months, exclusive of renewals. |
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Expand Our International Footprint. We intend to continue to expand our local presence in regions such as Europe, the Middle East and Asia to leverage our relationships with local carriers and our ability to deliver messages to over 200 countries and territories in 15 languages and dialects as well as expand our channel partnerships and also to opportunistically consider expanding in other regions. |
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Maintain Our Technology and Thought Leadership. We will continue to invest in our core CEM platform and our applications to maintain our technology leadership position. For example, we believe that we are the only company today that provides a full, integrated CEM solution and that we provide the first solution to offer dynamic versus static location awareness integrated with analysis and communications for the employee safety and security marketplace. Further, we believe we have a competitive advantage through our commitment to innovation and thought leadership that has enabled us to take market share from our competitors and accelerate our growth. |
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Opportunistically Pursue Acquisitions. We plan to selectively pursue acquisitions of complementary businesses, technologies and teams that allow us to penetrate new markets and add features and functionalities to our platform. |
Our Market Opportunity
There is a significant demand for CEM solutions that meet the above requirements. We estimate, based on data from Frost & Sullivan, presented in an independent study commissioned by us, and data from Markets and Markets, that the market for CEM solutions represented an $18.3 billion worldwide opportunity in 2015. This consists of an estimated addressable market of $7.3 billion in North America and $11.0 billion outside of North America. As the adoption of targeted and contextually aware CEM solutions continues to expand and take hold across a broader cross-section of organizations and industry verticals, we estimate, based on data from Frost & Sullivan, presented in an independent study commissioned by us, and data from Markets and Markets, that our addressable market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17.5% to $41.1 billion in 2020.
More specifically, Markets and Markets estimates that the aggregate market for mass notification software and services was $1.7 billion in 2015 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 20.9% to $4.4 billion in 2020. Within the market for mass notification software and services, Markets and Markets estimates that the distributed recipient solutions segment was $713 million in 2015, and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 24.8% to $2.6 billion in 2021. Further, Frost & Sullivan estimates that: (1) the market for IT service alerting was $183 million in 2015 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 32.7% to $753 million in 2020; (2) the market for telemedicine was $374 million in 2015 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.0% to $752 million in 2020; (3) the market for secure mobile messaging was $325 million in 2015 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 16.4% to $694 million in 2020; (4) the market for community engagement was $122 million in 2015 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 33.4% to $516 million in 2020; and (5) the market for IoT was $3.3 billion in 2015 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 24.6% to $9.9 billion in 2020. Finally, Markets and Markets estimates that: (1) the market for safety and security and physical security and information management was $9.6 billion in 2015, and is
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projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.9% to $14.8 billion in 2020; and (2) the market for predictive analytics was $2.7 billion in 2015, and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27.4% to $9.2 billion in 2020.
Our Platform
Since inception, our SaaS-based critical communications engine was architected on a single code base to deliver multi-tenant capability and the speed, scale and resilience necessary to communicate globally when a serious event occurs. This engine is designed to address both the emergency and operational components of a critical communications program, and is capable of providing two-way communications and verified delivery in accordance with our customers’ escalation policies. Our critical communications engine has multi-modal communications reach, including redundant global SMS and voice delivery capabilities, and is designed to comply with local, technical and regulatory requirements, which we believe has provided us with a competitive advantage. For example, we believe that our early deployment of local SMS codes intended to comply with rules established by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India allowed us to increase our SMS delivery success rates in India. Our CEM platform builds on the strengths of this critical communications engine, adding capabilities for integrated threat assessment, visualization, incident management and analytics.
Additional core technical attributes of our platform include:
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Monitors more than 100 types of threat data for situation assessment. |
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Multi-tenant architecture that supports multiple layers of redundancy to maximize uptime and delivery of critical content, regardless of volume or throughput requirements. |
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Dynamic spatial/geographic information system capability to geo-target communications by zip code, street address or a specific radius from a location. |
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Support for two-way communications and alerting on over 100 different devices and endpoints, including landline and wireless phones, hand-held communication and other voice-capable devices, satellite, SMS, two-way radios, outdoor digital signage, sirens and internet enabled devices. |
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Designed to meet rigorous security and compliance requirements for financial services firms, healthcare institutions, the U.S. federal government and other regulated industries, including facilitating compliance with health care requirements such as HIPAA privacy and security standards. |
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Extensive set of APIs and configuration capabilities to allow customers and partners to easily integrate our platform with other systems. Our APIs’ two-way invocation capabilities enable third-party systems to flexibly and easily integrate with our platform. |
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Multi-channel visualization capabilities support integrated views of threats, incidents and status of response to improve management visibility and control. |
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Supports easy-to-use native mobile applications, including multiple secure mobile applications for message initiation, management and reporting. |
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Supports push notifications and two-way conversations that enable mobile users to send and receive secure messages such as text, pictures, videos and the users’ current geographic locations. |
Our Contact Stores
Our contact stores manage approximately 130 million contact profiles and connections from more than 3,200 customers based in 28 countries as of December 31, 2016, up from 15 million contact profiles as of December 31, 2012. They are initially created through an upload of contacts from the customer and are automatically updated with the most current contact information provided by the customer or by individuals who opt-in to receive notification from our Community Engagement application. Our contact stores are simultaneously enriched by geographic, situational and other real-time data. Our contact stores are repositories for all contact details, attributes and business rules and preferences, such as a person’s last-known location, language spoken, special needs, technical certifications and on-call status.
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We leverage the data contained in our contact stores in a number of significant ways. Our data asset across multiple verticals enables us to develop best practices for reaching the intended contact, on the correct device, at the right location, at the appropriate time. We also use these data to better understand our customer base and their emerging use cases in order to improve our existing applications and develop new applications.
Everbridge Publishing Network
An important component of our platform is our Everbridge Publishing Network, which allows our customers to share relevant situational awareness information with each other. Public safety agencies, for example, can publish information to the Everbridge Publishing Network about incidents that might prove disruptive to the movement of people, goods and services for businesses within a certain area. If any of those businesses are also customers of ours, they will receive this information from a source they know is vetted and reliable, and will be able to take timely steps to mitigate or remediate the situation.
Our Applications
Through our CEM platform, we deliver reliable enterprise-ready applications that provide organizations with the ability to assess threats, locate people, automate actions, monitor incident response, and deliver contextual communications in any volume, in near-real time. We have designed our applications’ user interface to be easy to use. We understand that since some of our applications will be utilized to manage complex situations or to send large volumes of messages to key stakeholders during stressful situations, streamlining the user interface to reduce user errors and anxiety is essential. We conduct extensive usability testing and design reviews with our stakeholders, and have applied in our designs the lessons learned over more than a decade of working with critical communications users and professionals.
Our applications enable:
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Communications to key stakeholders during emergency situations. |
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Corporate communications with customers and employees. |
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Automated outreach to on-call personnel. |
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Integrated threat assessment and visualization. |
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Workgroup collaboration on mobile devices. |
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Integration of physical security data with location awareness data gathered from travel, network and access systems to rapidly find and communicate with employees during disruptive events. |
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Securely designed and efficiently implemented communications among healthcare providers and patients. |
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Community engagement and collaboration with citizens and businesses. |
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Critical IoT communications between machines and from machines to people |
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Mobile response plan deployment and management of incidence response. |
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Mass Notification. Our secure, scalable and reliable Mass Notification application is our most established application and enables enterprises and governmental entities to send contextually aware notifications to individuals or groups to keep them informed before, during and after natural or man-made disasters and other emergencies. We provide robust analytics, map-based targeting, flexible group management, distributed contact data, language localization, multiple options for contact data management and a globally-optimized approach to voice and SMS routing. We also support community engagement functionality, which provides a direct link between residents and emergency management departments with the goal of fostering public safety. |
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Safety Connection. Our Safety Connection application enables organizations to send notifications based on dynamic last known location of an individual, including the airport, street, building floor or conference room at which the individual was most recently present, while actively incorporating threat and other data to allow for targeted and relevant communications. When fully deployed, the application can also aggregate near real-time data from multiple sources, including building access control systems, wired and wireless network access points, travel management systems and mobile application check-ins. We believe that Safety Connection represents a significant advance in helping organizations use critical communications to keep their constituents safe, as many current solutions use only static office and residential locations that are not sufficiently location-aware relative to an increasingly mobile workforce. |
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Incident Management. Our Incident Management application enables organizations to automate workflows and make their communications contextually relevant using drag and drop business rules to determine who should be contacted, how they should be contacted and what information is required. We believe that this application decreases costly human errors and reduces downtime, while simultaneously capturing required compliance information. We also support cross-account collaboration and situational intelligence sharing during crises for corporations and communities. |
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IT Alerting. Our IT Alerting application enables IT professionals to alert and communicate with key members of their teams during an IT incident or outage, including during a cyber security breach. The application integrates with IT service management platforms, including ServiceNow, and uses automatic escalation of alerts, on-call scheduling and mobile alerting to automate manual tasks and keep IT teams collaborating during an incident. We also provide real-time shift calendars with integrated on-call notifications to help users better manage employee resources and get the right message to the right person, at the right time through automated staffing. Taken together, our IT Alerting application has the potential to provide meaningful savings to organizations by reducing mean-time-to-repair. Each minute of unplanned downtime costs organizations an average of approximately $5,600, according to Gartner, while 59% of Fortune 500 companies experience 1.6 hours of downtime per week, according to Dunn & Bradstreet. IHS, Inc. estimates information and communication technology downtime costs North American organizations $700 billion per year. |
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Visual Command Center. Our Virtual Command Center application enables customers to monitor and integrate more than 100 types of threat data, as well as information on internal incidents, to generate and visualize an alert when potential risks occur within proximity of an organization’s physical locations, suppliers, assets or people. The solution improves the ability to more quickly understand and assess the impact of threats, execute the correct response, and monitor on-going resolution in order to mitigate risk to personnel safety, business continuity, assets and supply chain operations. |
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Community Engagement. Our Community Engagement application integrates emergency management and community outreach by providing local governments with a unified solution to connect residents to their public safety department, public information resources, and neighbors via social media and mobile applications. This creates a stronger and more engaged community improving the communication reach for emergency personnel, while providing residents with real-time emergency and community information, and allows residents to anonymously opt-in and provide tips. For example, the City of Philadelphia experienced a 70% increase in opt-ins in 2015 with our Community Engagement application. |
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Secure Messaging. Our Secure Messaging application meets the compliance and security requirements of organizations that need to provide an alternative way for their employees to communicate and share nonpublic information. A tailored version of our Secure Messaging application, CareConverge, is designed for medical professionals and facilitates HIPAA-compliant communications without the need for pagers and other single use devices, supporting the development of a “connected” hospital. CareConverge also facilitates telemedicine by allowing medical professionals to hold video conferences with patients and other medical professionals as well as share medical imaging, lab results and other critical information. Our Secure Messaging application also enables financial services organizations’ employees and customers to securely communicate via text, voice, and video, while remaining FINRA compliant. |
Our Technology
The design and development of our applications, and our critical communication and critical event management platforms include the following key attributes:
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Robust, Enterprise-Grade Scalability and Reliability. Given the mission-critical nature of our solutions, our multi-tenant platform was designed to provide a robust, high level of resiliency, scalability and redundancy. We use multiple geographically distributed service providers and communications carriers to achieve a high degree of redundancy, fault tolerance and cost-effective operations. We have multiple layers of redundancy and a horizontal scaling model across our infrastructure to deliver high availability and performance. Our redundant data centers are located in Los Angeles, California; Denver, Colorado; San Francisco, California; Dallas, Texas; St. Louis, Missouri; and Toronto, Canada as well as in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Similarly, we leverage redundant downstream communications providers to enable our services to remain uninterrupted even if a particular provider encounters technical difficulties. |
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Multi-Modal, Globally Local Communications Delivery. We optimize international call routing across hundreds of telecommunications providers to enable higher voice quality, improved delivery rates during emergencies and the ability to configure local caller IDs to improve recognition and answer rates. We also work with multiple SMS providers to identify regulatory hurdles and deploy and actively manage an optimal mix of national and international SMS codes to ensure high delivery and response rates. |
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Security and Compliance. Our security and data protection policies and controls are based on the Federal Information Security Management Act risk management framework defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, special publication, or SP, 800-37. To meet the rigorous standards of our enterprise and government customers, an independent and accredited third-party security assessment firm annually verifies our compliance with over 800 security and data protection requirements detailed in NIST SP 800-53. Through this process, we map our compliance with other security and data privacy frameworks including ISO 27001 and HIPAA. In addition, we hold certifications including SysTrust Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 16, Service Operations Controls 2 & 3.We have also been awarded approvals by DHS that enable us to receive priority treatment for vital voice and data circuits or other telecommunications services. More recently, our critical communications solutions received designation under the SAFETY Act and certification by DHS that places us on the approved product list for homeland security and provides us with the highest level of liability protection available under the SAFETY Act. The certification similarly protects our customers from legal liability claims arising from acts of terrorism, as contemplated by the SAFETY Act. Further, our solutions are accredited under FISMA and we are certified under the EU-US Privacy Shield to meet regulatory requirements governing the processing of European Union residents’ personal data outside of the European Union. |
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Dynamic Location Detection. Our platform can create and update dynamic data sets containing a contact’s last-known location, including the airport, street, building floor or conference room at which the contact was most recently present. Multiple data sources can be aggregated including building access control and badging systems, wired and wireless network access points, and corporate travel management and office hoteling systems. These data are used to best locate a contact in an emergency or critical business situation, independent of the contact’s home or office location. Contacts can also share their location via a three-in-one mobile panic button application, which sends a panic message to the applicable organization’s security team, and also includes the ability to send audio and video content, to check-in to capture and report geo-location data and to establish a safe corridor through a potentially unsafe area. |
Our Comprehensive Customer Support Services
We are committed to the success of our customers. We demonstrate this commitment by offering a comprehensive set of support services to help our customers get started quickly, follow best practices, and realize on-going value from our critical communications solution. Our support services include:
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Rapid Onboarding. We leverage a proven methodology and domain expertise, honed through thousands of customer on-boardings worldwide, to enable rapid use of our platform and compliance with industry best practices. Promptly after a customer purchases one or more of our applications, our dedicated onboarding team begins to configure our solutions to meet the customer’s needs, including specific messages and scenarios, ad-hoc report templates and incident management reviews. The onboarding service incorporates years of critical communications experiences, including our critical communications certification training through Everbridge University, to improve customer success. The average implementation time for new customers purchasing our solutions is 10 hours. |
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Everbridge University. We offer online education, training and professional development through Everbridge University, with role-based training modules that can be customized to meet a customer’s needs and that can facilitate formalized knowledge transfer and ensure ongoing self-sufficiency. Everbridge University is available anytime, online and is configured for self-paced use. To date, Everbridge University has delivered over 700,000 online training lessons. |
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Dedicated Account Management. We assign dedicated account managers to all customers. Our account managers work exclusively with customers in a specific industry so they understand the applicable needs and challenges. They act as informed guides to help our customers make effective decisions in deploying our applications. Account managers perform regular service reviews and post-incident analyses of customer communications to incorporate communication best practices, and recommend additional applications to meet the customer’s critical communications needs. |
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24/7 Technical Support & Emergency Live Operator Service. We have established geographically redundant technical support centers in the Los Angeles, California; Boston, Massachusetts; and London, United Kingdom areas. From these support centers, we offer our customers 24/7 support by phone, email or through our online support center. In addition, our support centers offer a 24/7 emergency live operator service to assist customers with sending critical communications. |
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Our Customers
Our customer base has grown from 867 customers at the end of 2011 to more than 3,200 customers as of December 31, 2016. We define a customer as a contracting entity from which we generated $100 or more of revenue in the prior month, either directly or through a channel partner. We do not include customers of our wholly-owned subsidiary, Microtech, which generates an immaterial amount of our revenue in any given year. At the end of 2011 we had 20 customers with contracts valued at $100,000 or more, whereas as of December 31, 2016 we had 106 customers with contracts valued at $100,000 or more, including eight customers with contracts in excess of $500,000. As of December 31, 2016, our customers were based in 28 countries and included eight of the 10 largest U.S. cities, eight of the 10 largest U.S.-based investment banks, 24 of the 25 busiest North American airports, six of the 10 largest global consulting firms, six of the 10 largest global auto makers, all four of the largest global accounting firms, four of the 10 largest U.S.-based health care providers and four of the 10 largest U.S.-based health insurers. We provide solutions to customers of varying sizes, including enterprises, small businesses, non-profit organizations, educational institutions and government agencies. Our customers span a wide variety of industries, including technology, energy, financial services, transportation, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, media and entertainment, retail, higher education and professional services. For the year ended December 31, 2016, 49% of our revenue was generated from enterprise customers, 35% from government and government-related customers and 16% from healthcare-related customers. No customer contributed more than 5% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2016.
Some of our representative customers by sector include the following:
Enterprise |
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Healthcare |
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State and Local Government |
Alexion Pharmaceuticals |
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Alexian Brothers Medical Center |
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Boston Police Department |
Cardtronics |
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Boston Children’s Hospital |
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Chicago Department of Aviation |
Choice Hotels |
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Catholic Health Initiatives |
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City of Torrance |
Customers Bank |
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Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia |
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Florida Division of Emergency Management |
Digital Realty DTE Energy East West Bank EnerNOC Ericsson Express Scripts KOR Energy Pearson Sierra Nevada Uber Xerox |
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Covenant Health System Doctors Health at Renaissance Health System Florida Health Hawaii Pacific Health Molina Healthcare Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center Penrose St. Francis Health Services Spectrum Health Vanderbilt University Medical Center |
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Los Angeles Police Department Miami International Airport Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District National Capital Region Northeast Region Community Awareness Emergency Response State of Connecticut, Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection University of Louisiana System U.S. Department of Transportation
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Sales and Marketing
Our sales and marketing organizations collaborate to create brand preference, efficiently and effectively generate leads, build a strong sales pipeline and cultivate customer relationships to help drive revenue growth. Our go-to-market strategy consists of a strong thought-leadership program, digital marketing engine and a diversified sales organization designed to efficiently sell across vertical markets to organizations of all sizes. We have dedicated sales teams focused on corporate customers, government customers and healthcare organizations, which covers U.S. federal, state and local governmental entities.
We believe that our sales and marketing model is economically compelling. We spent $0.95 and $0.93 to generate each $1.00 of new sales in 2016 and 2015, respectively, which reflects our sales and marketing expense incurred in 2016 and 2015 (other than expense related to full-time employees dedicated to client retention) compared to 12
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months of contract value for contracts entered into in 2016 and 2015, and $0.06 to renew each $1.00 of renewal sales in each of 2016 and 2015, which reflects our sales and marketing expense related to full-time employees dedicated to client retention compared to 12 months of contract value for contracts renewed in 2016 and 2015.
Sales
We sell our solutions through our telephone and direct inside sales teams, a direct field sales team and a growing partner channel. Our global sales teams focus on both new customer acquisition and up-selling and cross-selling additional and new offerings, respectively, to our existing customers. Our sales teams are organized by geography, consisting of the Americas; Europe, the Middle East and Africa, or EMEA; as well as by target organization size. Our inside sales team focuses typically on small and middle-market transactions, while larger or more complex transactions are generally handled by our direct field sales teams. Our highly trained sales engineers help define customer use cases, manage pilots and train channel partners.
In addition to the vertical and geographic distribution of our salesforce, we have dedicated teams of account executives focused on net new accounts, account managers responsible for renewal and growth of existing accounts, and business development representatives targeting new and growth business opportunity creation. Our sales representatives use phone, email and web meetings to interact with prospects and customers. In 2016, we increased the headcount of our sales organization, and we intend to continue to invest in building our global sales and go-to-market organizations.
We also sell through channel partners both domestically and internationally. To help integrate our applications with other third-party services and take advantage of current and emerging technologies, we seek to enter into alliances with leading technology companies.
Marketing
We focus our marketing efforts on increasing the strength of the Everbridge brand, communicating product advantages and business benefits, generating leads for our salesforce and channel partners, leveraging geographic market strengths and driving product adoption. We run campaigns that take advantage of a network effect in which success within a region encourages other organizations within that area to choose our solutions, in part to be using a system consistent with that of other entities in the area with which they may share information or best practices. We deliver targeted content to demonstrate our thought leadership in critical communications best practices and use digital advertising methods to drive conversion of potential prospects, which convert to opportunities for our sales organization.
Our marketing team focuses on inbound marketing through our industry-leading content, resources, and sharing customer best practices. We rely on multiple marketing and sales automation tools to efficiently market to, and automatically identify qualified individuals using product and industry specific criteria. We use multiple marketing tactics to engage with prospective customers including: email marketing, event marketing, print and digital advertising, and webinar events. We engage with existing customers to provide vertically-based education and awareness and to promote expanded use of our current and new software offerings within these customers. We also host regional and national events to engage both customers and prospects, deliver product training and foster community.
Research and Development
We invest substantial resources in research and development and leverage offshore development in multiple geographies to implement a “follow the sun” engineering strategy and to increase the efficiency of our overall development efforts. We enhance our core technology platform and applications, develop new end market-specific solutions and applications, and conduct application and quality assurance testing. Our technical and engineering team monitors and tests our applications on a regular basis, and we maintain a regular release process to refine, update, and enhance our existing applications. Research and development expense totaled $14.8 million, $11.5 million and $7.4 million for 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.
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The market for CEM solutions is highly fragmented, intensely competitive and constantly evolving. We compete with an array of established and emerging companies, many of whom are single product or single market focused, as well as in-house solutions. With the introduction of new technologies and market entrants, we expect the competitive environment to remain intense going forward. The primary competitors for our Mass Notification and Incident Management applications include: BlackBerry Limited, Emergency Communications Network, F24 AG, Enera Inc., Nuance Communications, Inc., SWN Communications Inc. and SunGard Data Systems Inc. The primary competitors for our IT Alerting application include: PagerDuty, Inc. and xMatters, Inc. The primary competitors for our Secure Messaging application include: DocHalo, LLC, Spok, Inc., Perfect Serve, Inc. and TigerText, Inc. With respect to our recent acquisitions, the primary competitors for our Visual Command Center and Crisis Commander applications include Planet Risk Inc. and In Case of Crisis, respectively.
We compete on the basis of a number of factors, including:
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product functionality, including local and multi-modal delivery in international markets; |
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breadth of offerings; |
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performance, security, scalability and reliability; |
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compliance with local regulations and multi-language support; |
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brand recognition, reputation and customer satisfaction; |
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ease of implementation, use and maintenance; and |
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total cost of ownership. |
We believe that we compete favorably with respect to all of these factors and that we are well positioned as a leading provider of targeted and contextually relevant critical communications.
Intellectual Property
Our future success and competitive position depend in part on our ability to protect our intellectual property and proprietary technologies. To safeguard these rights, we rely on a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws and contractual protections in the United States and other jurisdictions.
As of December 31, 2016, we had 14 issued patents and four patent applications pending in the United States. We also had one issued patent in Canada. We cannot assure you that any patents will issue from any patent applications, that patents that issue from such applications will give us the protection that we seek or that any such patents will not be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented. Any patents that may issue in the future from our pending or future patent applications may not provide sufficiently broad protection and may not be enforceable in actions against alleged infringers.
We have registered the “Everbridge” and “Nixle” names in the United States, and have registered the “Everbridge” name in the European Union. We have registrations and/or pending applications for additional marks in the United States; however, we cannot assure you that any future trademark registrations will be issued for pending or future applications or that any registered trademarks will be enforceable or provide adequate protection of our proprietary rights.
We also license software from third parties for integration into our offerings, including open source software and other software available on commercially reasonable terms. We cannot assure you that such third parties will maintain such software or continue to make it available.
We are the registered holder of a variety of domestic and international domain names that include everbridge.com, as well as similar variations on that name.
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In order to protect our unpatented proprietary technologies and processes, we rely on trade secret laws and confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, vendors and others. Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary technology and trade secrets, unauthorized parties may attempt to misappropriate, reverse engineer or otherwise obtain and use them. In addition, others may independently discover our trade secrets, in which case we would not be able to assert trade secret rights, or develop similar technologies and processes. Further, the contractual provisions that we enter into may not prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual property rights and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual property rights.
If we become more successful, we believe that competitors will be more likely to try to develop solutions that are similar to ours and that may infringe our proprietary rights. It may also be more likely that competitors or other third parties will claim that our solutions infringe their proprietary rights.
Patent and other intellectual property disputes are common in our industry and we have been involved in such disputes from time to time in the ordinary course of our business. Some companies, including some of our competitors, own large numbers of patents, copyrights and trademarks, which they may use to assert claims against us. Third parties may in the future assert claims of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property rights against us. They may also assert such claims against our customers whom we typically indemnify against claims that our solution infringes, misappropriates or otherwise violates the intellectual property rights of third parties. As the numbers of products and competitors in our market increase and overlaps occur, claims of infringement, misappropriation and other violations of intellectual property rights may increase. Any claim of infringement, misappropriation or other violation of intellectual property rights by a third party, even those without merit, could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against the claim and could distract our management from our business.
Government Regulation
We are subject to a number of U.S. federal and state and foreign laws and regulations that involve matters central to our business. These laws and regulations may involve privacy, data protection, intellectual property, competition, consumer protection, export taxation or other subjects. Many of the laws and regulations to which we are subject are still evolving and being tested in courts and could be interpreted in ways that could harm our business. In addition, the application and interpretation of these laws and regulations often are uncertain, particularly in the new and rapidly evolving industry in which we operate. Because global laws and regulations have continued to develop and evolve rapidly, it is possible that we may not be, or may not have been, compliant with each such applicable law or regulation.
Culture and Employees
We believe that our culture has been a key contributor to our success to-date and that the critical nature of the solutions that we provide promotes a sense of greater purpose and fulfillment in our employees. We have invested in building a strong corporate culture and believe it is one of our most important and sustainable sources of competitive advantage.
As of December 31, 2016, we had 467 full-time employees, including 98 in data center operations and customer support, 182 in sales and marketing, 123 in research and development and 64 in general and administrative. As of December 31, 2016, we had 360 full-time employees in the United States and 107 full-time employees internationally. None of our U.S. employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. We believe our employee relations are good and we have not experienced any work stoppages.
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Our principal executive offices are located in Burlington, Massachusetts, where we occupy an approximately 45,000 square-foot facility under a lease expiring on May 31, 2022, and in Pasadena, California, where we occupy an approximately 19,000 square-foot facility under a lease expiring on June 30, 2018. We also have offices in San Francisco, California; Lansing, Michigan; Windsor, United Kingdom; Colchester, United Kingdom, Norsburg, Sweden and Beijing, China.
Legal Proceedings
From time to time we may become involved in legal proceedings or be subject to claims arising in the ordinary course of our business. We are not presently a party to any legal proceedings that, if determined adversely to us, would individually or taken together have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition or cash flows. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources and other factors.
Segments
We view our operations and manage our business as one operating segment. See our consolidated financial statements for a discussion of revenues, operating loss, net loss and total assets.
Corporate Information
We were initially incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware under the name 3n Global, Inc. in January 2008. 3n Global, Inc. was initially a wholly-owned subsidiary of National Notification Network, LLC, which was formed in November 2002 as a limited liability company organized under the laws of the State of California. In May 2008, pursuant to a merger agreement between 3n Global, Inc. and National Notification Network, LLC, National Notification Network, LLC merged with and into 3n Global, Inc. We changed our name to Everbridge, Inc. in April 2009.
Our principal executive offices are located at 25 Corporate Drive, Suite 400 Burlington, Massachusetts. Our telephone number is (818) 230-9700. Our website address is www.everbridge.com.
“Everbridge, Inc.,” the Everbridge logo, and other trademarks or service marks of Everbridge, Inc. appearing in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are the property of Everbridge, Inc. This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains additional trade names, trademarks and service marks of others, which are the property of their respective owners. Solely for convenience, trademarks and trade names referred to in this Annual Report on Form 10-K may appear without the ® or TM symbols.
Geographic Information
For a description of our revenue and long-lived assets by geographic location, see Note 16 of the Notes to our Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Available Information
Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to reports filed pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, are made available free of charge on or through our website at www.ir.Everbridge.com as soon as reasonably practicable after such reports are filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. The SEC also maintains a website, www.sec.gov, which contains reports and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC. The public may read and copy any files with the SEC Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC 20549. The public may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling 1-800-SEC-0330. We are not, however, including the information contained on our website, or information that may be accessed through links on our website, as part of, or incorporating such information by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
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Our operations and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties including those described below. You should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, in addition to other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes, as well as our other public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties that we are unaware of, or that we currently believe are not material, may also become important factors that adversely affect our business. If any of the following risks or others not specified below materialize, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. In that case, the trading price of our common stock could decline.
Risks Related to Our Business and Our Industry
If our business does not grow as we expect, or if we fail to manage our growth effectively, our operating results and business prospects would suffer.
We increased our number of full-time employees from 303 to 418 to 467 as of December 31, 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively. In 2016, we made a significant investment in our sales organization, growing our headcount by 16%, and our revenue increased by $18.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to 2015, due in part to the increase in our customer base.
However, our business may not continue to grow as quickly or at all in the future, which would adversely affect our revenue and business prospects. Our business growth depends on a number of factors including:
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our ability to execute upon our business plan effectively; |
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our ability to accelerate our acquisition of new customers; |
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our ability to further sell to our existing customers new applications and features and to additional departments in their organizations; |
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our ability to develop new applications to target new markets and use cases; |
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our ability to expand our international footprint; |
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the growth of the market in which we operate; |
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our ability to maintain our technology leadership position; and |
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our ability to acquire complementary business, technologies and teams we need. |
Further, our growth has placed, and will continue to place, a strain on our managerial, operational, financial and other resources, and our future operating results depend to a large extent on our ability to successfully manage our anticipated expansion and growth. To manage our growth successfully and handle the responsibilities of being a public company, we believe we must effectively, among other things:
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increase our customer base and upsell and cross-sell additional and new applications to our existing customers; |
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invest in sales and marketing and expand our channel partner relationships; |
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develop new applications that target new markets and use cases; |
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expand our international operations; and |
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improve our platform and applications, financial and operational systems, procedures and controls. |
We intend to continue our investment in sales and marketing, platform and applications, research and development, and general and administrative functions and other areas to grow our business. We are likely to recognize the costs associated with these investments earlier than some of the anticipated benefits and the return on these investments may be lower, or may develop more slowly, than we expect, which could adversely affect our operating results.
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If we are unable to manage our growth effectively in a manner that preserves the key aspects of our corporate culture, we may not be able to take advantage of market opportunities or develop new applications or upgrades to our existing applications and we may fail to satisfy customer requirements, maintain the quality and security of our applications, execute on our business plan or respond to competitive pressures, which could result in our financial results suffering and a decline in our stock price.
We have not been profitable on a consistent basis historically and may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
We have posted a net loss in each year since inception, including net losses of $11.3 million, $10.8 million and $0.6 million in the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, 2014, respectively. As of December 31, 2016, we had an accumulated deficit of $89.6 million. While we have experienced significant revenue growth in recent periods and profitability solely in the quarters ended March 31, 2014, June 30, 2014 and September 30, 2014, we are not certain whether or when we will obtain a high enough volume of sales of our applications to sustain or increase our growth or achieve or maintain profitability in the future. We also expect our costs to increase in future periods, which could negatively affect our future operating results if our revenue does not increase. In particular, we expect to continue to expend substantial financial and other resources on:
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sales and marketing, including a significant expansion of our sales organization, both domestically and internationally; |
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research and development related to our platform and applications, including investments in our research and development team; |
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continued international expansion of our business; and |
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general and administration expenses, including legal and accounting expenses related to being a public company. |
These investments may not result in increased revenue or growth in our business. If we are unable to increase our revenue at a rate sufficient to offset the expected increase in our costs, our business, financial position and results of operations will be harmed, and we may not be able to achieve or maintain profitability over the long term. Additionally, we may encounter unforeseen operating expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors that may result in losses in future periods. If our revenue growth does not meet our expectations in future periods, our financial performance may be harmed, and we may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
To date, we have derived substantially all of our revenue from the sale of our Mass Notification application. If we are unable to renew or increase sales of this application, or if we are unable to increase sales of our other applications, our business and operating results could be adversely affected.
While we have recently introduced five new critical communications applications, one of which was introduced in the middle of 2014, three of which were introduced in 2015 and one of which was introduced in 2016, we derived 86%, 91% and 96% of our revenue from sales of our Mass Notification application in 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively, and expect to continue to derive a substantial portion of our revenue from sales of this application in the near term. As a result, our operating results could suffer due to:
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any decline in demand for our Mass Notification application; |
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pricing or other competitive pressures from competing products; |
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the introduction of applications and technologies that serve as a replacement or substitute for, or represent an improvement over, our Mass Notification application; |
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technological innovations or new standards that our Mass Notification application do not address; and |
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sensitivity to current or future prices offered by us or competing solutions. |
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Because of our reliance on our Mass Notification application, our inability to renew or increase sales of this application or a decline in prices of this application would harm our business and operating results more seriously than if we derived significant revenue from a variety of applications. Any factor adversely affecting sales of our historical or new applications, including release cycles, market acceptance, competition, performance and reliability, reputation and economic and market conditions, could adversely affect our business and operating results.
If we are unable to develop upgrades to our platform, develop new applications, sell our platform and applications into new markets or further penetrate our existing market, our revenue may not grow.
Our ability to increase sales will depend in large part on our ability to enhance and improve our platform and applications, introduce new applications in a timely manner, develop new use cases for our platform and further penetrate our existing market. The success of any enhancement to our platform or new applications depends on several factors, including the timely completion, introduction and market acceptance of enhanced or new applications, the ability to maintain and develop relationships with channel partners and communications carriers, the ability to attract, retain and effectively train sales and marketing personnel and the effectiveness of our marketing programs. Any new application that we develop or acquire may not be introduced in a timely or cost-effective manner, and may not achieve the broad market acceptance necessary to generate significant revenue. Any new markets into which we attempt to sell our applications, including new vertical markets and new countries or regions, may not be receptive. Our ability to further penetrate our existing markets depends on the quality of our platform and applications and our ability to design our platform and applications to meet consumer demand. Any failure to enhance or improve our platform and applications as well as introduce new applications may adversely affect our revenue growth and operating results.
If we are unable to attract new customers or sell additional applications to our existing customers, our revenue and revenue growth will be harmed.
A part of our growth strategy is to add new customers and sell additional applications to our existing customers. Our ability to maintain existing customers, sell them new applications and to add new customers will depend in significant part on our ability to anticipate industry evolution, practices and standards and to continue to introduce and enhance the applications we offer on a timely basis to keep pace with technological developments. However, we may prove unsuccessful in developing new applications and improving existing applications. In addition, the success of any new application depends on several factors, including the timely completion, introduction and market acceptance of the application. Any new applications we develop or acquire might not be introduced in a timely or cost-effective manner and might not achieve the broad market acceptance necessary to generate significant revenue. If any of our competitors implements new technologies before we are able to implement them or better anticipates market opportunities, those competitors may be able to provide more effective or cheaper products than ours. As a result, we may be unable to renew our agreements with existing customers, attract new customers or grow or maintain our business from existing customers, which could harm our revenue and growth.
Failure to effectively develop and expand our sales and marketing capabilities could harm our ability to increase our customer base and achieve broader market acceptance of our platform and applications.
To increase total customers and achieve broader market acceptance of our platform and applications, we will need to expand our sales and marketing organization, including the vertical and geographic distribution of our salesforce and our teams of account executives focused on new accounts, account managers responsible for renewal and growth of existing accounts, and business development representatives targeting new and growth business opportunity creation. We will continue to dedicate significant resources to our global sales and marketing organizations. The effectiveness of our sales and marketing teams has varied over time and may vary in the future, and depends in part on our ability to maintain and improve our platform and applications. All of these efforts will require us to invest significant financial and other resources and we are unlikely to see the benefits, if any, of these increases until future periods after incurring these expenses. Our business will be seriously harmed if our efforts do not generate a correspondingly significant increase in revenue. We may not achieve revenue growth from expanding our salesforce if we are unable to hire, develop and retain talented sales personnel, if our new sales personnel are unable to achieve desired productivity levels in a reasonable period of time or if our sales and marketing programs are not effective.
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The nature of our business exposes us to inherent liability risks.
Our applications, including our Mass Notification, Incident Management, IT Alerting, Safety Connection, Community Engagement, Visual Command Center, Crisis Commander and Secure Messaging applications, are designed to communicate life-saving or damage-mitigating information to the right people, on the right device, in the right location, at the right time during public safety threats and critical business events. Due to the nature of such applications, we are potentially exposed to greater risks of liability for employee acts or omissions or system failures than may be inherent in other businesses. Although substantially all of our customer agreements contain provisions limiting our liability to our customers, we cannot assure you that these limitations will be enforced or the costs of any litigation related to actual or alleged omissions or failures would have a material adverse effect on us even if we prevail. Further, certain of our insurance policies and the laws of some states may limit or prohibit insurance coverage for punitive or certain other types of damages or liability arising from gross negligence and we cannot assure you that we are adequately insured against the risks that we face.
Because we generally recognize revenue ratably over the term of our contract with a customer, downturns or upturns in sales will not be fully reflected in our operating results until future periods.
Our revenue is primarily generated from subscriptions to our critical communications applications. Our customers do not have the right to take possession of our software platform and applications. Revenue from subscriptions, including additional fees for items such as incremental usage, is recognized ratably over the subscription period beginning on the date that the subscription is made available to the customer. Our agreements with our customers typically range from one to three years. As a result, much of the revenue that we report in each quarter is attributable to agreements entered into during previous quarters. Consequently, a decline in sales, customer renewals or market acceptance of our applications in any one quarter would not necessarily be fully reflected in the revenue in that quarter, and would negatively affect our revenue and profitability in future quarters. This ratable revenue recognition also makes it difficult for us to rapidly increase our revenue through additional sales in any period, as revenue from new customers generally is recognized over the applicable agreement term.
We operate in an emerging and evolving market, which may develop more slowly or differently than we expect. If our market does not grow as we expect, or if we cannot expand our platform and applications to meet the demands of this market, our revenue may decline, fail to grow or fail to grow at an accelerated rate, and we may incur operating losses.
The market for CEM solutions is in an early stage of development, and it is uncertain whether this market will develop, and even if it does develop, how rapidly or how consistently it will develop or whether our platform and applications will be accepted into the markets in which we operate and plan to operate. Our success will depend, to a substantial extent, on the widespread adoption of our platform and applications as an alternative to historical mass notification systems. Some organizations may be reluctant or unwilling to use our platform and applications for a number of reasons, including concerns about additional costs, uncertainty regarding the reliability and security of cloud-based offerings or lack of awareness of the benefits of our platform and applications. Many organizations have invested substantial personnel and financial resources to integrate traditional on-premise applications into their businesses, and therefore may be reluctant or unwilling to migrate to cloud-based applications. Our ability to expand sales of our platform and applications into new markets depends on several factors, including the awareness of our platform and applications; the timely completion, introduction and market acceptance of enhancements to our platform and applications or new applications that we may introduce; our ability to attract, retain and effectively train sales and marketing personnel; our ability to develop relationships with channel partners and communication carriers; the effectiveness of our marketing programs; the costs of our platform and applications; and the success of our competitors. If we are unsuccessful in developing and marketing our platform and applications into new markets, or if organizations do not perceive or value the benefits of our platform and applications, the market for our platform and applications might not continue to develop or might develop more slowly than we expect, either of which would harm our revenue and growth prospects.
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Our estimates of market opportunity and forecasts of market growth may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the market in which we compete achieves the forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow at similar rates, if at all.
Market opportunity estimates and growth forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate. Our estimates and forecasts relating to the size and expected growth of our addressable market may prove to be inaccurate. Even if the market in which we compete meets our size estimates and forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow at similar rates, if at all.
The markets in which we participate are competitive, and if we do not compete effectively, our operating results could be harmed.
The market for critical communications solutions is highly fragmented, competitive and constantly evolving. With the introduction of new technologies and market entrants, we expect that the competitive environment in which we compete will remain intense going forward. Some of our competitors have made or may make acquisitions or may enter into partnerships or other strategic relationships to provide a more comprehensive offering than they individually had offered or achieve greater economies of scale. In addition, new entrants not currently considered to be competitors may enter the market through acquisitions, partnerships or strategic relationships. We compete on the basis of a number of factors, including:
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application functionality, including local and multi-modal delivery in international markets; |
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breadth of offerings; |
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performance, security, scalability and reliability; |
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compliance with local regulations and multi-language support; |
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brand recognition, reputation and customer satisfaction; |
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ease of application implementation, use and maintenance; and |
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total cost of ownership. |
We face competition from in-house solutions, large integrated systems vendors and established and emerging cloud and SaaS and other software providers. Our competitors vary in size and in the breadth and scope of the products and services offered. Many of our competitors and potential competitors have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, more established customer relationships, larger marketing budgets and greater resources than we do. While some of our competitors provide a platform with applications to support one or more use cases, many others provide point-solutions that address a single use case. Further, other potential competitors not currently offering competitive applications may expand their offerings to compete with our solutions. Our competitors may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards and customer requirements. An existing competitor or new entrant could introduce new technology that reduces demand for our solutions. In addition to application and technology competition, we face pricing competition. Some of our competitors offer their applications or services at a lower price, which has resulted in pricing pressures. Some of our larger competitors have the operating flexibility to bundle competing applications and services with other offerings, including offering them at a lower price as part of a larger sale. For all of these reasons, we may not be able to compete successfully and competition could result in reduced sales, reduced margins, losses or the failure of our applications to achieve or maintain market acceptance, any of which could harm our business.
We may not be able to scale our business quickly enough to meet our customers’ growing needs and if we are not able to grow efficiently, our operating results could be harmed.
As usage of our platform and applications grows, we will need to continue making significant investments to develop and implement new applications, technologies, security features and cloud-based infrastructure operations. In addition, we will need to appropriately scale our internal business systems and our services organization, including customer support and professional services, to serve our growing customer base, particularly as our customer demographics change over time. Any failure of, or delay in, these efforts could impair the performance of our platform and applications and reduce customer satisfaction. Even if we are able to upgrade our systems and
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expand our staff, any such expansion may be expensive and complex, requiring management’s time and attention. To the extent that we do not effectively scale our platform and operations to meet the growing needs of our customers, we may not be able to grow as quickly as we anticipate, our customers may reduce or cancel use of our applications and professional services, we may be unable to compete effectively and our business and operating results may be harmed.
Our quarterly results of operations may fluctuate, and if we fail to meet or exceed the expectations of investors or securities analysts, our stock price could decline.
Our quarterly revenue and results of operations have historically varied from period to period, and we expect that they will continue to do so as a result of a variety of factors, including many that are outside of our control. Our future revenue is difficult to predict. Our expense levels are relatively fixed in the short term and are based, in part, on our expectations as to future revenue. If revenue levels are below our expectations, we may incur higher losses and may never attain or maintain consistent profitability. Our operating results may be disproportionately affected by a reduction in revenue because a proportionately smaller amount of our expenses varies with our revenues. If our quarterly revenue or results of operations fall below the expectations of investors or securities analysts, the price of our common stock could decline substantially. Fluctuations in our results of operations may be due to a number of factors, including:
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fluctuations in demand for our platform and applications; |
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changes in our business or pricing policies in response to competitive pricing actions or otherwise; |
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the timing and success of introductions of new applications or upgrades to our platform; |
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the impact of acquisition transaction-related amortization expenses and other certain expenses on our gross profit; |
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competition, including entry into the industry by new competitors and new offerings by existing competitors; |
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changes in the business or pricing policies of our competitors; |
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the amount and timing of expenditures, including those related to expanding our operations, increasing research and development, enhancing our platform, introducing new applications or growing our sales and marketing teams; |
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our ability to effectively manage growth within existing and new markets, both domestically and internationally; |
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changes in the payment terms for our applications; |
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our ability to successfully manage any future acquisitions of businesses or technologies; |
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the strength of regional, national and global economies; and |
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the impact of natural disasters or man-made problems such as cyber incidents and terrorism. |
Due to the foregoing factors and the other risks discussed in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, you should not rely on quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our results of operations as an indication of our future performance nor should you consider our recent revenue growth or results in any single period to be indicative of our future performance.
Interruptions or delays in service from our third-party data center providers could impair our ability to make our platform and applications available to our customers, resulting in customer dissatisfaction, damage to our reputation, loss of customers, limited growth and reduction in revenue.
We currently serve part of our platform functions from third-party data center hosting facilities operated by Century Link and located in the Los Angeles, California and Denver, Colorado areas. In addition, we serve ancillary functions for our customers from third-party data center hosting facilities operated by Interoute located in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, and by Elastichost in Toronto, Canada. We also rely on Amazon Web Services located in California and Virginia to host certain of our platform functions and applications. Our operations
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depend, in part, on our third-party facility providers’ abilities to protect these facilities against damage or interruption from natural disasters, power or telecommunications failures, cyber incidents, criminal acts and similar events. In the event that any of our third-party facilities arrangements are terminated, or if there is a lapse of service or damage to a facility, we could experience interruptions in our platform as well as delays and additional expenses in arranging new facilities and services. Any changes in third-party service levels at our data centers or any errors, defects, disruptions, cyber incidents or other performance problems with our solutions could harm our reputation.
Any damage to, or failure of, the systems of our third-party providers could result in interruptions to our platform. Despite precautions taken at our data centers, the occurrence of spikes in usage volume, natural disasters, cyber incidents, acts of terrorism, vandalism or sabotage, closure of a facility without adequate notice or other unanticipated problems could result in lengthy interruptions in the availability of our platform and applications. Problems faced by our third-party data center locations, with the telecommunications network providers with whom they contract, or with the systems by which our telecommunications providers allocate capacity among their customers, including us, could adversely affect the experience of our customers. Because of the nature of the services that we provide to our customers during public safety threats and critical business events, any such interruption may arise when our customers are most reliant on our applications, thereby compounding the impact of any interruption on our business. Interruptions in our services might reduce our revenue, cause us to issue refunds to customers and subject us to potential liability.
Further, our insurance policies may not adequately compensate us for any losses that we may incur in the event of damage or interruption. Although we benefit from liability protection under the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technology Act of 2002, the occurrence of any of the foregoing could reduce our revenue, subject us to liability, cause us to issue credits to customers or cause customers not to renew their subscriptions for our applications, any of which could materially adversely affect our business.
Failures or reduced accessibility of third-party software on which we rely could impair the availability of our platform and applications and adversely affect our business.
We license software from third parties for integration into our platform and applications, including open source software. These licenses might not continue to be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all. While we are not substantially dependent upon any third-party software, the loss of the right to use all or a significant portion of our third-party software required for the development, maintenance and delivery of our applications could result in delays in the provision of our applications until we develop or identify, obtain and integrate equivalent technology, which could harm our business.
Any errors or defects in the hardware or software we use could result in errors, interruptions, cyber incidents or a failure of our applications. Any significant interruption in the availability of all or a significant portion of such software could have an adverse impact on our business unless and until we can replace the functionality provided by these applications at a similar cost. Furthermore, this software may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. The loss of the right to use all or a significant portion of this software could limit access to our platform and applications. Additionally, we rely upon third parties’ abilities to enhance their current applications, develop new applications on a timely and cost-effective basis and respond to emerging industry standards and other technological changes. We may be unable to effect changes to such third-party technologies, which may prevent us from rapidly responding to evolving customer requirements. We also may be unable to replace the functionality provided by the third-party software currently offered in conjunction with our applications in the event that such software becomes obsolete or incompatible with future versions of our platform and applications or is otherwise not adequately maintained or updated.
If we do not or cannot maintain the compatibility of our platform with third-party applications that our customers use in their businesses, our revenue will decline.
As a significant percentage of our customers choose to integrate our solutions with certain capabilities provided by third-party providers, the functionality and popularity of our solutions depend, in part, on our ability to integrate our platform and applications with certain third-party systems. Third-party providers may change the features of their technologies, restrict our access to their applications or alter the terms governing use of their applications in an adverse manner. Such changes could functionally limit or terminate our ability to use these third-party technologies
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in conjunction with our platform and applications, which could negatively impact our solutions and harm our business. If we fail to integrate our solutions with new third-party applications that our customers use, we may not be able to offer the functionality that our customers need, which would negatively impact our ability to generate revenue and adversely impact our business.
Changes in the mix of sizes or types of businesses or government agencies that purchase our platform and applications purchased or used by our customers could affect our operating results.
We have sold and will continue to sell to enterprises of all sizes, municipal and regional governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, educational institutions and healthcare organizations. Sales to larger organizations may entail longer sales cycles and more significant selling efforts. Selling to small businesses may involve greater credit risk and uncertainty. Changes in the sizes or types of businesses that purchase our applications could cause our operating results to be adversely affected.
If our, our customers’ or our third-party providers’ security measures are compromised or unauthorized access to the data of our customers or their employees, customers or constituents is otherwise obtained, our platform may be perceived as not being secure, our customers may be harmed and may curtail or cease their use of our applications, our reputation may be damaged and we may incur significant liabilities.
Our operations involve the storage and transmission of data of our customers and their employees, customers and constituents, including personally identifiable information such as contact information and physical location. Security incidents, whether as a result of third-party action, employee or customer error, technology impairment or failure, malfeasance or criminal activity, could result in unauthorized access to, or loss or unauthorized disclosure of, this information, litigation, indemnity obligations and other possible liabilities, as well as negative publicity, which could damage our reputation, impair our sales and harm our customers and our business. Cyber incidents and malicious internet-based activity continue to increase generally, and providers of cloud-based services have been targeted. If third parties with whom we work, such as vendors or developers, violate applicable laws or our security policies, such violations may also put our customers’ information at risk and could in turn have an adverse effect on our business. We may be unable to anticipate or prevent techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage systems because they change frequently and often are not detected until after an incident has occurred. As we increase our customer base and our brand becomes more widely known and recognized, third parties may increasingly seek to compromise our security controls or gain unauthorized access to our sensitive corporate information or customers’ data. Further, because of the nature of the services that we provide to our customers during public safety threats and critical business events, we may be a unique target for attacks.
Many governments have enacted laws requiring companies to notify individuals of data security incidents or unauthorized transfers involving certain types of personal data. In addition, some of our customers contractually require notification of any data security incident. Accordingly, security incidents experienced by our competitors, by our customers or by us may lead to public disclosures, which may lead to widespread negative publicity. Any security compromise in our industry, whether actual or perceived, could harm our reputation, erode customer confidence in the effectiveness of our security measures, negatively impact our ability to attract new customers, cause existing customers to elect not to renew their subscriptions or subject us to third-party lawsuits, regulatory fines or other action or liability, which could materially and adversely affect our business and operating results. Further, the costs of compliance with notification laws and contractual obligations may be significant and any requirement that we provide such notifications as a result of an actual or alleged compromise could have a material and adverse effect on our business.
While we maintain general liability insurance coverage and coverage for errors or omissions, we cannot assure you that such coverage would be adequate or would otherwise protect us from liabilities or damages with respect to claims alleging compromises of personal data or that such coverage will continue to be available on acceptable terms or at all.
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If our applications fail to function in a manner that allows our customers to operate in compliance with regulations and/or industry standards, our revenue and operating results could be harmed.
Certain of our customers require applications that ensure secure communications given the nature of the content being distributed and associated applicable regulatory requirements. In particular, our healthcare customers rely on our applications to communicate in a manner that is designed to comply with the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, the Final Omnibus Rule of January 25, 2013, which are collectively referred to as HIPAA, and which impose privacy and data security standards that protect individually identifiable health information by limiting the uses and disclosures of individually identifiable health information and requiring that certain data security standards be implemented to protect this information. As a “business associate” to “covered entities” that are subject to HIPAA, we also have our own compliance obligations directly under HIPAA and pursuant to the business associate agreements that we are required to enter into with our customers that are HIPAA-covered entities.
Governments and industry organizations may also adopt new laws, regulations or requirements, or make changes to existing laws or regulations, that could impact the demand for, or value of, our applications. If we are unable to adapt our applications to changing legal and regulatory standards or other requirements in a timely manner, or if our applications fail to allow our customers to communicate in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, our customers may lose confidence in our applications and could switch to products offered by our competitors, or threaten or bring legal actions against us.
In addition, governmental and other customers may require our applications to comply with certain privacy, security or other certifications and standards. For instance, with regard to transfers of personal data, the EU-US Safe Harbor program, which provided a valid legal basis for transfers of personal data from Europe to the United States, was invalidated in October 2015, which has a significant impact on the transfer of data from the European Union to U.S. companies, including us. We are certified under the EU-US Privacy Shield, the successor regime to the EU-US Safe Harbor. While we now have Privacy Shield certification and other legally recognized mechanisms in place that we believe allow for the lawful transfer of EU customer and employee information to the United States, it is possible that these mechanisms may also be challenged or evolve to include new legal requirements that could have an impact on how we move this data. If our applications fail to maintain compliance with these certifications and standards, or our competitors achieve compliance with these certifications and standards, we may be disqualified from selling our applications to such customers, or may otherwise be at a competitive disadvantage, either of which would harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. If our policies and practices are, or are perceived to be, insufficient or if our customers have concerns regarding the transfer of data from the European Union to the United States, we could be subject to enforcement actions or investigations by EU Data Protection Authorities or lawsuits by private parties, and our business could be negatively impacted.
If we fail to offer high-quality customer support, our business and reputation may suffer.
We offer our customers implementation services and 24/7 support through our customer support centers as well as education, professional development and certification through Everbridge University as well as a range of consulting services. Consulting service offerings include onsite implementation packages, Certified Emergency Management professional operational reviews, dedicated client care representatives, custom web-based training, and development of client-specific communications materials to increase internal awareness of system value.
Providing this education, training and support requires that our personnel who manage our training resources or provide customer support have specific experience, knowledge and expertise, making it more difficult for us to hire qualified personnel and to scale up our support operations. The importance of high-quality customer support will increase as we expand our business and pursue new customers and larger organizations. We may be unable to respond quickly enough to accommodate short-term increases in customer demand for support services or scale our services if our business grows. We also may be unable to modify the format of our support services or change our pricing to compete with changes in support services provided by our competitors. Increased customer demand for these services, without corresponding revenue, could increase our costs and harm our operating results. If we do not help our customers use applications within our platform and provide effective ongoing support, our ability to sell additional applications to, or to retain, existing customers may suffer and our reputation with existing or potential customers may be harmed.
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Our strategy includes pursuing acquisitions, and our potential inability to successfully integrate newly-acquired technologies, assets or businesses may harm our financial results. Future acquisitions of technologies, assets or businesses, which are paid for partially or entirely through the issuance of stock or stock rights, could dilute the ownership of our existing stockholders.
We may evaluate and consider potential strategic transactions, including acquisitions of, or investments in, businesses, technologies, services, products and other assets in the future. We also may enter into relationships with other businesses to expand our platform and applications, which could involve preferred or exclusive licenses, additional channels of distribution, discount pricing or investments in other companies.
We have acquired businesses and technology in the past. For example, we acquired Vocal Limited in March 2014, the assets of Nixle, LLC in December 2014, technology from Tapestry Telemed LLC in December 2014, Svensk Krisledning AB in December 2016 and IDV Solutions LLC in January 2017. We believe that part of our continued growth will be driven by acquisitions of other companies or their technologies, assets, businesses and teams. Any acquisitions we complete will give rise to risks, including:
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incurring higher than anticipated capital expenditures and operating expenses; |
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failing to assimilate the operations and personnel or failing to retain the key personnel of the acquired company or business; |
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failing to integrate the acquired technologies, or incurring significant expense to integrate acquired technologies, into our platform and applications; |
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disrupting our ongoing business; |
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diverting our management’s attention and other company resources; |
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failing to maintain uniform standards, controls and policies; |
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incurring significant accounting charges; |
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impairing relationships with our customers and employees; |
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finding that the acquired technology, asset or business does not further our business strategy, that we overpaid for the technology, asset or business or that we may be required to write off acquired assets or investments partially or entirely; |
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failing to realize the expected synergies of the transaction; |
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being exposed to unforeseen liabilities and contingencies that were not identified prior to acquiring the company; and |
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being unable to generate sufficient revenue and profits from acquisitions to offset the associated acquisition costs. |
Fully integrating an acquired technology, asset or business into our operations may take a significant amount of time. We may not be successful in overcoming these risks or any other problems encountered with acquisitions. To the extent that we do not successfully avoid or overcome the risks or problems related to any such acquisitions, our results of operations and financial condition could be harmed. Acquisitions also could impact our financial position and capital requirements, or could cause fluctuations in our quarterly and annual results of operations. Acquisitions could include significant goodwill and intangible assets, which may result in future impairment charges that would reduce our stated earnings. We may incur significant costs in our efforts to engage in strategic transactions and these expenditures may not result in successful acquisitions.
We expect that the consideration we might pay for any future acquisitions of technologies, assets, businesses or teams could include stock, rights to purchase stock, cash or some combination of the foregoing. If we issue stock or rights to purchase stock in connection with future acquisitions, net income per share and then-existing holders of our common stock may experience dilution.
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We rely on the performance of our senior management and highly skilled personnel, and if we are unable to attract, retain and motivate well-qualified employees, our business and results of operations could be harmed.
We believe our success has depended, and continues to depend, on the efforts and talents of senior management and key personnel, including Jaime Ellertson, our President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of our board of directors, Kenneth S. Goldman, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Imad Mouline, our Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Our future success depends on our continuing ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain highly qualified and skilled employees. Qualified individuals are in high demand, and we may incur significant costs to attract them. In addition, the loss of any of our senior management or key personnel could interrupt our ability to execute our business plan, as such individuals may be difficult to replace. If we do not succeed in attracting well-qualified employees or retaining and motivating existing employees, our business and results of operations could be harmed.
Uncertain or weakened global economic conditions may adversely affect our industry, business and results of operations.
Our overall performance depends on domestic and worldwide economic conditions, which may remain challenging for the foreseeable future. Financial developments seemingly unrelated to us or to our industry may adversely affect us and our planned international expansion. The U.S. economy and other key international economies have been impacted by threatened sovereign defaults and ratings downgrades, falling demand for a variety of goods and services, restricted credit, threats to major multinational companies, poor liquidity, reduced corporate profitability, volatility in credit, equity and foreign exchange markets, bankruptcies and overall uncertainty. These conditions affect the rate of information technology spending and could adversely affect our customers’ ability or willingness to purchase our applications and services, delay prospective customers’ purchasing decisions, reduce the value or duration of their subscriptions or affect renewal rates, any of which could adversely affect our operating results. We cannot predict the timing, strength or duration of the economic recovery or any subsequent economic slowdown worldwide, in the United States, or in our industry.
Any future litigation against us could be costly and time-consuming to defend.
We have in the past and may in the future become subject, from time to time, to legal proceedings and claims that arise in the ordinary course of business such as claims brought by our customers in connection with commercial disputes or employment claims made by our current or former employees. Litigation might result in substantial costs and may divert management’s attention and resources, which might seriously harm our business, overall financial condition and operating results. Insurance might not cover such claims, might not provide sufficient payments to cover all the costs to resolve one or more such claims and might not continue to be available on terms acceptable to us. A claim brought against us that is uninsured or underinsured could result in unanticipated costs, thereby reducing our operating results and leading analysts or potential investors to reduce their expectations of our performance, which could reduce the trading price of our stock.
Because our long-term growth strategy involves further expansion of our sales to customers outside the United States, our business will be susceptible to risks associated with international operations.
A component of our growth strategy involves the further expansion of our operations and customer base internationally. We opened our first international office in Beijing, China in April 2012 and subsequently opened an office in Windsor, United Kingdom in September 2012 as part of our geographic expansion. In March 2014, we acquired Vocal Limited, a mass notification company based in Colchester, United Kingdom. In December 2016, we acquired Svensk Krisledning AB, a SaaS mobile crisis management company based in Norsburg, Sweden. For the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, approximately 10% and 14% of our revenue was derived from customers located outside of the United States. We intend to further expand our local presence in regions such as Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Our current international operations and future initiatives will involve a variety of risks, including:
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currency exchange rate fluctuations and the resulting effect on our revenue and expenses, and the cost and risk of entering into hedging transactions if we chose to do so in the future; |
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economic or political instability in foreign markets; |
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greater difficulty in enforcing contracts, accounts receivable collection and longer collection periods; |
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more stringent regulations relating to technology, including with respect to privacy, data security and the unauthorized use of, access to, or deletion of commercial and personal information, particularly in the European Union; |
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difficulties in maintaining our company culture with a dispersed and distant workforce; |
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unexpected changes in regulatory requirements, taxes or trade laws; |
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differing labor regulations, especially in the European Union, where labor laws are generally more advantageous to employees as compared to the United States, including deemed hourly wage and overtime regulations in these locations; |
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challenges inherent in efficiently managing an increased number of employees over large geographic distances, including the need to implement appropriate systems, policies, benefits and compliance programs; |
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difficulties in managing a business in new markets with diverse cultures, languages, customs, legal systems, alternative dispute systems and regulatory systems; |
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limitations on our ability to reinvest earnings from operations in one country to fund the capital needs of our operations in other countries; |
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limited or insufficient intellectual property protection; |
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political instability or terrorist activities; |
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likelihood of potential or actual violations of domestic and international anticorruption laws, such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Bribery Act, or of U.S. and international export control and sanctions regulations, which likelihood may increase with an increase of sales or operations in foreign jurisdictions and operations in certain industries; and |
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adverse tax burdens and foreign exchange controls that could make it difficult to repatriate earnings and cash. |
Our limited experience in operating our business internationally increases the risk that any potential future expansion efforts that we may undertake will not be successful. If we invest substantial time and resources to expand our international operations and are unable to do so successfully and in a timely manner, our business and operating results will suffer. We continue to implement policies and procedures to facilitate our compliance with U.S. laws and regulations applicable to or arising from our international business. Inadequacies in our past or current compliance practices may increase the risk of inadvertent violations of such laws and regulations, which could lead to financial and other penalties that could damage our reputation and impose costs on us.
If we cannot maintain our company culture as we grow, our success and our business may be harmed.
We believe our culture has been a key contributor to our success to-date and that the critical nature of the solutions that we provide promotes a sense of greater purpose and fulfillment in our employees. We have invested in building a strong corporate culture and believe it is one of our most important and sustainable sources of competitive advantage. Any failure to preserve our culture could negatively affect our ability to retain and recruit personnel and to effectively focus on and pursue our corporate objectives. As we grow and develop the infrastructure of a public company, we may find it difficult to maintain these important aspects of our company culture. If we fail to maintain our company culture, our business may be adversely impacted.
We may be subject to additional obligations to collect and remit sales tax and other taxes, and we may be subject to tax liability for past sales, which could harm our business.
State, local and foreign jurisdictions have differing rules and regulations governing sales, use, value added and other taxes, and these rules and regulations are subject to varying interpretations that may change over time. Further, these jurisdictions’ rules regarding tax nexus are complex and vary significantly. If one or more jurisdictions were to
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assert that we have failed to collect taxes for sales of applications that leverage our platform, we could face the possibility of tax assessments and audits. A successful assertion that we should be collecting additional sales, use, value added or other taxes in those jurisdictions where we have not historically done so and do not accrue for such taxes could result in substantial tax liabilities and related penalties for past sales or otherwise harm our business and operating results.
We face exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations.
As our international operations expand, our exposure to the effects of fluctuations in currency exchange rates grows. While we have primarily transacted with customers and vendors in U.S. dollars historically, we expect to continue to expand the number of transactions with our customers that are denominated in foreign currencies in the future. Fluctuations in the value of the U.S. dollar and foreign currencies may make our subscriptions more expensive for international customers, which could harm our business. Additionally, we incur expenses for employee compensation and other operating expenses at our non-U.S. locations in the local currency for such locations. Fluctuations in the exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and other currencies could result in an increase to the U.S. dollar equivalent of such expenses. These fluctuations could cause our results of operations to differ from our expectations or the expectations of our investors. Additionally, such foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations could make it more difficult to detect underlying trends in our business and results of operations.
We do not currently maintain a program to hedge transactional exposures in foreign currencies. However, in the future, we may use derivative instruments, such as foreign currency forward and option contracts, to hedge certain exposures to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. The use of such hedging activities may not offset any or more than a portion of the adverse financial effects of unfavorable movements in foreign exchange rates over the limited time the hedges are in place. Moreover, the use of hedging instruments may introduce additional risks if we are unable to structure effective hedges with such instruments.
Our ability to raise capital in the future may be limited, and our failure to raise capital when needed could prevent us from growing.
Our business and operations may consume resources faster than we anticipate. In the future, we may need to raise additional funds to invest in future growth opportunities. Additional financing may not be available on favorable terms, if at all. If adequate funds are not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to invest in future growth opportunities, which could seriously harm our business and operating results. If we incur debt, the debt holders would have rights senior to common stockholders to make claims on our assets, and the terms of any debt could restrict our operations, including our ability to pay dividends on our common stock. Furthermore, if we issue equity securities, stockholders will experience dilution, and the new equity securities could have rights senior to those of our common stock. Because our decision to issue securities in any future offering will depend on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing or nature of our future offerings. As a result, our stockholders bear the risk of our future securities offerings reducing the market price of our common stock and diluting their interest.
Our sales cycle can be unpredictable, time-consuming and costly, which could harm our business and operating results.
Our sales process involves educating prospective customers and existing customers about the use, technical capabilities and benefits of our platform and applications. Prospective customers, especially larger organizations, often undertake a prolonged evaluation process, which typically involves not only our solutions, but also those of our competitors and lasts from four to nine months or longer. We may spend substantial time, effort and money on our sales and marketing efforts without any assurance that our efforts will produce any sales.
Events affecting our customers’ businesses may occur during the sales cycle that could affect the size or timing of a purchase, contributing to more unpredictability in our business and operating results. As a result of these factors, we may face greater costs, longer sales cycles and less predictability in the future.
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Our ability to use our net operating losses to offset future taxable income may be subject to certain limitations.
As of December 31, 2016, we had federal and state net operating loss carryforwards, or NOLs, of $46.2 million and $40.5 million, respectively, due to prior period losses, which expire in various years beginning in 2028 if not utilized. In general, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its NOLs to offset future taxable income. Our existing NOLs may be subject to limitations arising from previous ownership changes. Future changes in our stock ownership, some of which are outside of our control, could result in an ownership change. There is also a risk that due to regulatory changes, such as suspensions on the use of NOLs, or other unforeseen reasons, our existing NOLs could expire or otherwise be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities. Additionally, state NOLs generated in one state cannot be used to offset income generated in another state. For these reasons, we may not be able to realize a tax benefit from the use of our NOLs, whether or not we attain profitability.
Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fires, floods and other natural catastrophic events and to interruption by man-made problems such as cyber incidents or terrorism.
Our business and operations are vulnerable to damage or interruption from earthquakes, fires, floods, power losses, telecommunications failures, terrorist attacks, acts of war, human errors, break-ins and similar events affecting us or third-party vendors we rely on, any of which could have a material adverse impact on our business, operating results and financial condition. Acts of terrorism, which may be targeted at metropolitan areas that have higher population density than rural areas, could cause disruptions in our or our customers’ businesses or the economy as a whole. Our servers and those of our third-party vendors may also be vulnerable to cyber incidents, break-ins and similar disruptions from unauthorized tampering with our computer systems, which could lead to interruptions, delays, loss of critical data or the unauthorized disclosure of confidential customer data. We or our customers may not have sufficient protection or recovery plans in place, and our business interruption insurance may be insufficient to compensate us for losses that may occur. As we rely heavily on our servers, computer and communications systems, that of third parties and the Internet to conduct our business and provide high quality customer service, such disruptions could have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.
Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in accounting principles generally accepted in the United States.
Generally accepted accounting principles in the United States are subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, the SEC and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. A change in these principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported financial results, and could affect the reporting of transactions completed before the announcement of a change.
Impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets would result in a decrease in our earnings.
Current accounting rules provide that goodwill and other intangible assets with indefinite useful lives may not be amortized but instead must be tested for impairment at least annually. These rules also require that intangible assets with definite useful lives be amortized over their respective estimated useful lives to their estimated residual values, and reviewed for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of such assets may not be recoverable. We have substantial goodwill and other intangible assets, and we would be required to record a significant charge to earnings in our consolidated financial statements during the period in which any impairment of our goodwill or intangible assets is determined. Any impairment charges or changes to the estimated amortization periods would result in a decrease in our earnings.
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Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
If we fail to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights adequately, our business could be harmed.
Our future success and competitive position depend in part on our ability to protect our intellectual property and proprietary technologies. To safeguard these rights, we rely on a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws and contractual protections in the United States and other jurisdictions, some of which afford only limited protection.
As of December 31, 2016, we had 14 issued patents and four patent applications pending in the United States. We also had one issued patent in Canada. We cannot assure you that any patents will issue from any patent applications, that patents that issue from such applications will give us the protection that we seek or that any such patents will not be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented. Any patents that may issue in the future from our pending or future patent applications may not provide sufficiently broad protection and may not be enforceable in actions against alleged infringers. In addition, we have registered the “Everbridge” and “Nixle” names in the United States, and have registered the “Everbridge” name in the European Union. We have registrations and/or pending applications for additional marks in the United States; however, we cannot assure you that any future trademark registrations will be issued for pending or future applications or that any registered trademarks will be enforceable or provide adequate protection of our proprietary rights.
In order to protect our unpatented proprietary technologies and processes, we rely on trade secret laws and confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, vendors and others. Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary technology and trade secrets, unauthorized parties may attempt to misappropriate, reverse engineer or otherwise obtain and use them. In addition, others may independently discover our trade secrets, in which case we would not be able to assert trade secret rights, or develop similar technologies and processes. Further, the contractual provisions that we enter into may not prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual property rights and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual property rights. Effective trade secret protection may not be available in every country in which our services are available or where we have employees or independent contractors. The loss of trade secret protection could make it easier for third parties to compete with our solutions by copying functionality. In addition, any changes in, or unexpected interpretations of, the trade secret and employment laws in any country in which we operate may compromise our ability to enforce our trade secret and intellectual property rights. Costly and time-consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our proprietary rights, and failure to obtain or maintain trade secret protection could adversely affect our competitive business position.
In addition, to protect our intellectual property rights, we may be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect these rights. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time-consuming and distracting to management and could result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property. Failure to adequately enforce our intellectual property rights could also result in the impairment or loss of those rights. Furthermore, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property rights. Patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws offer us only limited protection and the laws of many of the countries in which we sell our services do not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as the United States and Europe. Accordingly, defense of our trademarks and proprietary technology may become an increasingly important issue as we continue to expand our operations and solution development into countries that provide a lower level of intellectual property protection than the United States or Europe. Policing unauthorized use of our intellectual property and technology is difficult and the steps we take may not prevent misappropriation of the intellectual property or technology on which we rely. For example, in the event of inadvertent or malicious disclosure of our proprietary technology, trade secret laws may no longer afford protection to our intellectual property rights in the areas not otherwise covered by patents or copyrights. Accordingly, we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property.
We may elect to initiate litigation in the future to enforce or protect our proprietary rights or to determine the validity and scope of the rights of others. That litigation may not be ultimately successful and could result in substantial costs to us, the reduction or loss in intellectual property protection for our technology, the diversion of our management’s attention and harm to our reputation, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.
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Our failure or inability to adequately protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
An assertion by a third party that we are infringing its intellectual property could subject us to costly and time-consuming litigation or expensive licenses that could harm our business and results of operations.
Patent and other intellectual property disputes are common in our industry and we have been involved in such disputes from time to time in the ordinary course of our business. Some companies, including some of our competitors, own large numbers of patents, copyrights and trademarks, which they may use to assert claims against us. Third parties may in the future assert claims of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property rights against us. They may also assert such claims against our customers whom we typically indemnify against claims that our solution infringes, misappropriates or otherwise violates the intellectual property rights of third parties. As the numbers of products and competitors in our market increase and overlaps occur, claims of infringement, misappropriation and other violations of intellectual property rights may increase. Any claim of infringement, misappropriation or other violation of intellectual property rights by a third party, even those without merit, could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against the claim and could distract our management from our business.
As we seek to extend our platform and applications, we could be constrained by the intellectual property rights of others and it may also be more likely that competitors or other third parties will claim that our solutions infringe their proprietary rights. We might not prevail in any intellectual property infringement litigation given the complex technical issues and inherent uncertainties in such litigation. Defending such claims, regardless of their merit, could be time-consuming and distracting to management, result in costly litigation or settlement, cause development delays or require us to enter into royalty or licensing agreements. In addition, we currently have a limited portfolio of issued patents compared to our larger competitors, and therefore may not be able to effectively utilize our intellectual property portfolio to assert defenses or counterclaims in response to patent infringement claims or litigation brought against us by third parties. Further, litigation may involve patent holding companies or other adverse patent owners who have no relevant applications or revenue and against which our potential patents provide no deterrence, and many other potential litigants have the capability to dedicate substantially greater resources to enforce their intellectual property rights and to defend claims that may be brought against them. If our platform or any of our applications exceed the scope of in-bound licenses or violate any third-party proprietary rights, we could be required to withdraw those applications from the market, re-develop those applications or seek to obtain licenses from third parties, which might not be available on reasonable terms or at all. Any efforts to re-develop our platform and our applications, obtain licenses from third parties on favorable terms or license a substitute technology might not be successful and, in any case, might substantially increase our costs and harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. If we were compelled to withdraw any of our applications from the market, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be harmed.
We have indemnity obligations to our customers and certain of our channel partners for certain expenses and liabilities resulting from intellectual property infringement claims regarding our platform and our applications, which could force us to incur substantial costs.
We have indemnity obligations to our customers and certain of our channel partners for intellectual property infringement claims regarding our platform and our applications. As a result, in the case of infringement claims against these customers and channel partners, we could be required to indemnify them for losses resulting from such claims or to refund amounts they have paid to us. We also expect that some of our channel partners with whom we do not have express contractual obligations to indemnify for intellectual property infringement claims may seek indemnification from us in connection with infringement claims brought against them. We may elect to indemnify these channel partners where we have no contractual obligation to indemnify them and we will evaluate each such request on a case-by-case basis. If a channel partner elects to invest resources in enforcing a claim for indemnification against us, we could incur significant costs disputing it. If we do not succeed in disputing it, we could face substantial liability.
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We may be subject to damages resulting from claims that our employees or contractors have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of their former employers or other parties.
We have in the past and may in the future be subject to claims that employees or contractors, or we, have inadvertently or otherwise used or disclosed trade secrets or other proprietary information of our competitors or other parties. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. If we fail in defending against such claims, a court could order us to pay substantial damages and prohibit us from using technologies or features that are essential to our solutions, if such technologies or features are found to incorporate or be derived from the trade secrets or other proprietary information of these parties. In addition, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. A loss of key personnel or their work product could hamper or prevent our ability to develop, market and support potential solutions or enhancements, which could severely harm our business. Even if we are successful in defending against these claims, such litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management.
The use of open source software in our platform and applications may expose us to additional risks and harm our intellectual property.
Our platform and some of our applications use or incorporate software that is subject to one or more open source licenses and we may incorporate open source software in the future. Open source software is typically freely accessible, usable and modifiable; however, certain open source software licenses require a user who intends to distribute the open source software as a component of the user’s software to disclose publicly part or all of the source code to the user’s software. In addition, certain open source software licenses require the user of such software to make any modifications or derivative works of the open source code available to others on potentially unfavorable terms or at no cost. Use and distribution of open source software may entail greater risks than use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code.
The terms of many open source licenses to which we are subject have not been interpreted by U.S. or foreign courts, and accordingly there is a risk that those licenses could be construed in a manner that imposes unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our platform and applications. In that event, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our platform and applications, to re-develop our platform and applications, to discontinue sales of our platform and applications or to release our proprietary software code in source code form under the terms of an open source license, any of which could harm our business. Further, given the nature of open source software, it may be more likely that third parties might assert copyright and other intellectual property infringement claims against us based on our use of these open source software programs. Litigation could be costly for us to defend, have a negative effect on our operating results and financial condition or require us to devote additional research and development resources to change our applications.
Although we are not aware of any use of open source software in our platform and applications that would require us to disclose all or a portion of the source code underlying our core applications, it is possible that such use may have inadvertently occurred in deploying our platform and applications, or that persons or entities may claim such disclosure to be required. Disclosing our proprietary source code could allow our competitors to create similar products with lower development effort and time and ultimately could result in a loss of sales for us. Disclosing the source code of our proprietary software could also make it easier for cyber attackers and other third parties to discover vulnerabilities in or to defeat the protections of our products, which could result in our products failing to provide our customers with the security they expect. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. Additionally, if a third-party software provider has incorporated certain types of open source software into software we license from such third party for our platform and applications without our knowledge, we could, under certain circumstances, be required to disclose the source code to our platform and applications. This could harm our intellectual property position and our business, results of operations and financial condition.
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Risks Related to Government Regulation
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 governments. For example, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, or TCPA, restricts telemarketing and the use of automatic text messages without proper consent. The scope and interpretation of the laws that are or may be applicable to the delivery of text messages are continuously evolving and developing. If we do not comply with these laws or regulations or if we become liable under these laws or regulations due to the failure of our customers to comply with these laws by obtaining proper consent, we could face direct liability. In certain jurisdictions, these regulatory requirements may be more stringent than those in the United States. Noncompliance with applicable regulations or requirements could subject us to investigations, sanctions, enforcement actions, disgorgement of profits, fines, damages, civil and criminal penalties, injunctions or other collateral consequences. If any governmental sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal litigation, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. 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, reputation, results of operations and financial condition.
A portion of our revenue is generated by subscriptions sold to governmental entities and heavily regulated organizations, which are subject to a number of challenges and risks.
A portion of our revenue is generated by subscriptions sold to government entities. Additionally, many of our current and prospective customers, such as those in the financial services, and healthcare and life sciences industries, are highly regulated and may be required to comply with more stringent regulations in connection with subscribing to and implementing our applications. Selling subscriptions to these entities can be highly competitive, expensive and time consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that we will successfully complete a sale.
Furthermore, engaging in sales activities to foreign governments introduces additional compliance risks specific to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the U.K. Bribery Act and other similar statutory requirements prohibiting bribery and corruption in the jurisdictions in which we operate. Governmental and highly regulated entities often require contract terms that differ from our standard arrangements. For example, the federal government provides grants to certain state and local governments for our applications and if such governmental entities do not continue to receive these grants, they have the ability to terminate their contracts without penalty. Governmental and highly regulated entities impose compliance requirements that are complicated, require preferential pricing or “most favored nation” terms and conditions, or are otherwise time consuming and expensive to satisfy. If we undertake to meet special standards or requirements and do not meet them, we could be subject to increased liability from our customers or regulators. Even if we do meet these special standards or requirements, the additional costs associated with providing our applications to government and highly regulated customers could harm our margins. Moreover, changes in the underlying regulatory conditions that affect these types of customers could harm our ability to efficiently provide our applications to them and to grow or maintain our customer base.
Governmental demand and payment for our applications may also be impacted by public sector budgetary cycles and funding authorizations, with funding reductions or delays adversely affecting public sector demand for our solutions.
We are subject to governmental regulation and other legal obligations, particularly related to privacy, data protection and information security, and our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could harm our business. Compliance with such laws could also impair our efforts to maintain and expand our customer base, and thereby decrease our revenue.
Our handling and storage of data is subject to a variety of laws and regulations, including regulation by various government agencies, including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, and various state, local and foreign agencies. We collect personally identifiable information and other data directly from our customers and through our channel partners. We also process or otherwise handle personally identifiable information about our customers’ employees, customers and constituents in certain circumstances. We use this information to provide applications to our customers and to support, expand and improve our business. We may also share customers’ personally identifiable information with third parties as described in our privacy policy and/or as otherwise authorized by our customers.
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The U.S. federal and various state and foreign governments have adopted or proposed legislation that regulates the collection, distribution, use and storage of personal information of individuals and that mandates security requirements with respect to certain personally identifiable information. In the United States, the FTC and numerous state attorneys general are imposing standards for the online collection, distribution, use and storage of data by applying federal and state consumer protection laws. The lack of a clear and universal standard for protecting such information means, however, that these obligations may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another and may conflict with other requirements or our practices. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with privacy or security laws, policies, legal obligations or industry standards or any security incident that results in the unauthorized release or transfer of sensitive corporate information, personally identifiable information or other customer data may result in governmental enforcement actions, litigation, fines and penalties and/or adverse publicity, and could cause our customers to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business.
Some proposed laws or regulations concerning privacy, data protection and information security are in their early stages, and we cannot yet determine how these laws and regulations may be interpreted nor can we determine the impact these proposed laws and regulations, may have on our business. Such proposed laws and regulations may require companies to implement privacy and security policies, permit users to access, correct and delete personal information stored or maintained by such companies, inform individuals of security breaches that affect their personal information, and, in some cases, obtain individuals’ consent to use personal information for certain purposes. In addition, a foreign government could require that any personal information collected in a country not be disseminated outside of that country, and we may not be currently equipped to comply with such a requirement. Our failure to comply with federal, state and international data privacy laws and regulators could harm our ability to successfully operate our business and pursue our business goals.
In addition, several foreign countries and governmental bodies, including the European Union and Canada, have regulations governing the collection and use of personal information obtained from their residents, which are often more restrictive than those in the United States. Laws and regulations in these jurisdictions apply broadly to the collection, use, storage, disclosure and security of personal information that identifies or may be used to identify an individual, such as names, email addresses and in some jurisdictions, Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses. Such regulations and laws may be modified and new laws may be enacted in the future. Within the European Union, legislators recently adopted the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which, when effective in May 2018 will replace the 1995 European Union Data Protection Directive and supersede applicable European Union member state legislation. The GDPR includes more stringent operational requirements for processors and controllers of personal data and imposes significant penalties for non-compliance. If our privacy or data security measures fail to comply with current or future laws and regulations, we may be subject to litigation, regulatory investigations, fines or other liabilities, as well as negative publicity and a potential loss of business. Moreover, if future laws and regulations limit our customers’ ability to use and share personal information or our ability to store, process and share personal information, demand for our applications could decrease, our costs could increase, and our business, results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.
New interpretations of existing laws, regulations or standards could require us to incur additional compliance costs and could restrict our business operations, and any failure by us to comply with applicable requirements may result in governmental enforcement actions, litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business.
Potential regulatory requirements placed on our applications and content could impose increased costs on us, delay or prevent our introduction of new applications, and impair the function or value of our existing applications.
Certain of our existing applications, such as CareConverge, a tailored version of our Secure Messaging application that is designed to comply with HIPAA, are and are likely to continue to be subject to increasing regulatory requirements in a number of ways and as we continue to introduce new applications, we may be subject to additional regulatory requirements and other risks that could be costly and difficult to comply with or that could harm our business. In addition, we market our applications and professional services in certain countries outside of the United States and plan to expand our local presence in regions such as Europe, the Middle East and Asia. If additional legal and/or regulatory requirements are implemented in the foreign countries in which we provide our services, the cost
40
of developing or selling our applications may increase. As these requirements proliferate and as existing legal requirements become subject to new interpretations, we must change or adapt our applications and professional services to comply. Changing regulatory requirements might render certain of our applications obsolete or might block us from accomplishing our work or from developing new applications. This might in turn impose additional costs upon us to comply or to further develop our applications. It might also make introduction of new applications or service types more costly or more time-consuming than we currently anticipate. It might even prevent introduction by us of new applications or cause the continuation of our existing applications or professional services to become unprofitable or impossible.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
Our stock price may be volatile and you may lose some or all of your investment.
The market price of our common stock may be highly volatile and may fluctuate substantially as a result of a variety of factors, some of which are related in complex ways. Since shares of our common stock were sold in our initial public offering, or IPO, in September 2016 at a price of $12.00 per share, our stock price has ranged from an intraday low of $11.76 to an intraday high of $20.66 through December 31, 2016. Factors that may affect the market price of our common stock include:
|
• |
actual or anticipated fluctuations in our financial condition and operating results; |
|
• |
variance in our financial performance from expectations of securities analysts; |
|
• |
changes in the prices of our applications; |
|
• |
changes in our projected operating and financial results; |
|
• |
changes in laws or regulations applicable to our platform and applications; |
|
• |
announcements by us or our competitors of significant business developments, acquisitions or new applications; |
|
• |
our involvement in any litigation; |
|
• |
our sale of our common stock or other securities in the future; |
|
• |
changes in senior management or key personnel; |
|
• |
trading volume of our common stock; |
|
• |
changes in the anticipated future size and growth rate of our market; and |
|
• |
general economic, regulatory and market conditions. |
Recently, the stock markets have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. These fluctuations have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. Broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political, regulatory and market conditions, may negatively impact the market price of our common stock. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their securities have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future, which could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention.
An active public trading market for our common stock may not be sustained.
Prior to the completion of our IPO in September 2016, no public market for our common stock existed. Although our common stock is listed on the NASDAQ Global Market, we cannot assure you that an active public trading market for our common stock will continue to develop or be sustained. If an active market for our common stock does not continue to develop or is not sustained, it may be difficult for investors in our common stock to sell shares without depressing the market price for the shares or to sell the shares at all. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital to continue to fund operations by selling shares and may impair our ability to acquire other companies or technologies by using our shares as consideration.
41
We are an emerging growth company, and we cannot be certain if the reduced reporting requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our common stock less attractive to investors.
We are an emerging growth company, as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, or the JOBS Act, enacted in April 2012. For as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, we may take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies, including not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as amended, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements and exemptions from the requirements of holding nonbinding advisory votes on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. We will remain an emerging growth company until the earlier of (1) the last day of the fiscal year (a) following the fifth anniversary of the completion of the IPO, (b) in which we have total annual gross revenue of at least $1 billion or (c) in which we are deemed to be a large accelerated filer, which requires the market value of our common stock that is held by non-affiliates to exceed $700 million as of the prior June 30th, and (2) the date on which we have issued more than $1 billion in non-convertible debt during the prior three-year period. We cannot predict if investors will find our common stock less attractive because we may rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may be more volatile.
As a result of becoming a public company, we are obligated to develop and maintain a system of effective internal control over financial reporting. We may not complete our analysis of our internal control over financial reporting in a timely manner, or these internal controls may not be determined to be effective, which may harm investor confidence in our company and, as a result, the value of our common stock.
We will be required, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in the second annual report we file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. This assessment will need to include disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting. However, our auditors will not be required to formally attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404 until we are no longer an “emerging growth company” as defined in the JOBS Act if we take advantage of the exemptions available to us through the JOBS Act.
We are in the very early stages of the costly and challenging process of compiling the system and process documentation necessary to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404. In this regard, we will need to continue to dedicate internal resources, engage outside consultants and adopt a detailed work plan to assess and document the adequacy of internal control over financial reporting, continue steps to improve control processes as appropriate, validate through testing that controls are functioning as documented and implement a continuous reporting and improvement process for internal control over financial reporting. As we transition to the requirements of reporting as a public company, we may need to add additional finance staff. We may not be able to remediate any future material weaknesses, or to complete our evaluation, testing and any required remediation in a timely fashion. During the evaluation and testing process, if we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, we will be unable to assert that our internal controls are effective. If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our auditors are unable to express an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal controls when they are required to issue such opinion, investors could lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, the market price of our common stock could decline, and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the NASDAQ Stock Market, the SEC or other regulatory authorities. Failure to remedy any material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, or to implement or maintain other effective control systems required of public companies, could also restrict our future access to the capital markets.
42
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or if they issue an adverse or misleading opinion regarding our stock, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If any of the analysts who cover us issue an adverse or misleading opinion regarding us, our business model, our intellectual property or our stock performance, or if operating results fail to meet the expectations of analysts, our stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of us or fail to publish reports on us regularly, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.
We will incur increased costs as a result of operating as a public company and our management will be required to devote substantial time to new compliance initiatives and corporate governance practices.
As a public company, and particularly after we are no longer an “emerging growth company,” we will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the listing requirements of the NASDAQ Stock Market and other applicable securities rules and regulations impose various requirements on public companies. Our management and other personnel will need to devote a substantial amount of time to compliance with these requirements. Moreover, these rules and regulations will increase our legal and financial compliance costs and will make some activities more time-consuming and costly. We cannot predict or estimate the amount of additional costs we will incur as a public company or the timing of such costs. Such additional costs going forward could negatively affect our financial results.
We do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future, and accordingly, stockholders must rely on stock appreciation for any return on their investment.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends to holders of our common stock in the foreseeable future. In addition, our ability to pay cash dividends is currently prohibited by the terms of our existing credit agreement and may be prohibited by future credit agreements. As a result, capital appreciation, if any, of our common stock will be your sole source of gain for the foreseeable future.
Our executive officers, directors and principal stockholders own a significant percentage of our stock and will be able to exert significant control over matters subject to stockholder approval.
Our directors, executive officers and holders of more than 5% of our common stock, some of whom are represented on our board of directors, together with their affiliates beneficially own approximately 47% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock. As a result, these stockholders will be able to exert significant control over the outcome of matters submitted to our stockholders for approval. This ownership could affect the value of your shares of common stock by, for example, these stockholders electing to delay, defer or prevent a change in corporate control, merger, consolidation, takeover or other business combination. This concentration of ownership may also adversely affect the market price of our common stock.
We may invest or spend the proceeds of the IPO in ways with which you may not agree or in ways which may not yield a return.
We anticipate that the remaining net proceeds from our IPO will be used for general corporate purposes, including working capital. We may also use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, applications, services or technologies. However, we do not have any agreements or commitments for any acquisitions at this time. Our management will have considerable discretion in the application of the net proceeds, and you will not have the opportunity to assess whether the proceeds are being used appropriately. The net proceeds may be invested with a view towards long-term benefits for our stockholders and this may not increase our operating results or market value. The failure by our management to apply these funds effectively may adversely affect the return on your investment.
43
Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management and limit the market price of our common stock.
Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control or changes in our management. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws include provisions that:
|
• |
authorize our board of directors to issue preferred stock, without further stockholder action and with voting liquidation, dividend and other rights superior to our common stock; |
|
• |
require that any action to be taken by our stockholders be effected at a duly called annual or special meeting and not by written consent, and limit the ability of our stockholders to call special meetings; |
|
• |
establish an advance notice procedure for stockholder proposals to be brought before an annual meeting, including proposed nominations of persons for director nominees; |
|
• |
establish that our board of directors is divided into three classes, with directors in each class serving three-year staggered terms; |
|
• |
require the approval of holders of two-thirds of the shares entitled to vote at an election of directors to adopt, amend or repeal our bylaws or amend or repeal the provisions of our certificate of incorporation regarding the election and removal of directors and the ability of stockholders to take action by written consent or call a special meeting; |
|
• |
prohibit cumulative voting in the election of directors; and |
|
• |
provide that vacancies on our board of directors may be filled only by the vote of a majority of directors then in office, even though less than a quorum. |
These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware, 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. Any of the foregoing provisions could limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock, and they could deter potential acquirers of our company, thereby reducing the likelihood that you would receive a premium for your common stock in an acquisition.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation designates the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for certain litigation that may be initiated by our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us.
Pursuant to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the sole and exclusive forum for (1) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, (2) any action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our directors, officers or other employees to us or our stockholders, (3) any action asserting a claim arising pursuant to any provision of the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws or (4) any action asserting a claim governed by the internal affairs doctrine. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation further provides that any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in shares of our common stock is deemed to have notice of and consented to the foregoing provision. The forum selection clause in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation may limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us.
44
Future sales of our common stock in the public market could cause our share price to decline.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that these sales might occur, could depress the market price of our common stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. We are unable to predict the effect that sales, particularly sales by our directors, executive officers and significant stockholders, may have on the prevailing market price of our common stock. Additionally, the shares of common stock subject to outstanding options under our equity incentive plans and the shares reserved for future issuance under our equity incentive plans, as well as shares issuable upon vesting of restricted stock awards, will become eligible for sale in the public market in the future, subject to certain legal and contractual limitations.
Additionally, certain holders of our common stock have the right, subject to various conditions and limitations, to request we include their shares of our common stock in registration statements we may file relating to our securities.
In addition, in the future, we may issue common stock or other securities if we need to raise additional capital. The number of new shares of our common stock issued in connection with raising additional capital could constitute a material portion of our then-outstanding shares of our common stock.
Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments.
None
Our principal executive offices are located in Burlington, Massachusetts, where we occupy an approximately 45,000 square-foot facility under a lease expiring on May 31, 2022, and in Pasadena, California, where we occupy an approximately 19,000 square-foot facility under a lease expiring on June 30, 2018. We also have offices in San Francisco, California; Windsor, United Kingdom; Colchester, United Kingdom; Beijing, China; and Norsburg, Sweden.
We believe that our current facilities are suitable and adequate to meet our current needs. We intend to add new facilities or expand existing facilities as we add employees, and we believe that suitable additional or substitute space will be available as needed to accommodate any such expansion of our operations.
From time to time we may become involved in legal proceedings or be subject to claims arising in the ordinary course of our business. We are not presently a party to any legal proceedings that, if determined adversely to us, would individually or taken together have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition or cash flows. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources and other factors.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.
Not applicable
45
Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.
Market Information
Our common stock, has been listed on The NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol “EVBG” since September 16, 2016. Prior to that date, there was no public trading market for our common stock.
The following table sets forth the reported high and low sales prices of our common stock for the periods indicated, as quoted on The NASDAQ Global Market:
|
|
High |
|
|
Low |
|
||
Third Quarter (from September 16, 2016 to September 30, 2016) |
|
$ |
18.73 |
|
|
$ |
11.76 |
|
Fourth Quarter |
|
$ |
20.66 |
|
|
$ |
12.92 |
|
As of December 31, 2016, there were 525 holders of record of our common stock. Because many of our shares are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of stockholders represented by these record holders.
Dividends
We have never declared or paid, and do not anticipate declaring or paying in the foreseeable future, any cash dividends on our common stock. Any future determination as to the declaration and payment of dividends, if any, will be at the discretion of our board of directors, subject to applicable laws, and will depend on then existing conditions, including our financial condition, operating results, contractual restrictions, capital requirements, business prospects, and other factors our board of directors may deem relevant.
Stock Performance Graph
The following shall not be deemed incorporated by reference into any of our other filings under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, except to the extent we specifically incorporate it by reference into such filings.
The following graph shows a comparison from September 16, 2016 (the date our common stock commenced trading on The NASDAQ Global Market) through December 31, 2016 of the cumulative total return for an investment of $100 in our common stock, the S&P 500 Stock Index and the S&P 500 Information Technology Index. Data for the S&P 500 Stock Index and the S&P 500 Information Technology Index assume reinvestment of dividends.
46
The comparisons in the graph below are based upon historical data and are not indicative of, nor intended to forecast, future performance of our common stock.
|
|
September 16, 2016 |
|
|
September 30, 2016 |
|
|
October 31, 2016 |
|
|
November 30, 2016 |
|
|
December 31, 2016 |
|
|||||
Everbridge, Inc. |
|
$ |
100.00 |
|
|
$ |
111.00 |
|
|
$ |
97.00 |
|
|
$ |
104.00 |
|
|
$ |
121.00 |
|
S&P 500 Stock Index |
|
$ |
100.00 |
|
|
$ |
101.00 |
|
|
$ |
99.00 |
|
|
$ |
103.00 |
|
|
$ |
105.00 |
|
S&P 500 Information Technology Index |
|
$ |
100.00 |
|
|
$ |
101.00 |
|
|
$ |
101.00 |
|
|
$ |
101.00 |
|
|
$ |
102.00 |
|
Recent Sale of Unregistered Securities
Not applicable
Use of Proceeds from Public Offering of Common Stock
Our initial public offering of common stock was effected through the filing of a Registration Statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-213217), which was declared or became effective on September 16, 2016. There has been no material change in the planned use of proceeds from our initial public offering from those disclosed in the final prospectus for our initial public offering filed with the SEC pursuant to Rule 424(b)(4) and our periodic report previously filed with the SEC; provided, that we used $23.6 million in cash to acquire Svensk Krisledning AB and IDV Solutions LLC.
As of December 31, 2016, $0.3 million of expenses incurred in connection with our initial public offering had not yet been paid.
Purchase of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers
None.
Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans
Information about securities authorized for issuance under our equity compensation plan is incorporated herein by reference to Item 12 of Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
47
Item 6. Selected Financial Data.
SELECTED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL DATA
The following selected historical financial data should be read in conjunction with Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and our consolidated financial statements and the related notes appearing in Item 8, “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data,” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K to fully understand the factors that may affect the comparability of the information presented below.
The selected consolidated financial data in this section are not intended to replace the consolidated financial statements and are qualified in their entirety by the consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
The following selected consolidated statements of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, and the consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, have been derived from our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The consolidated statements of operations data for the year ended December 31, 2013 and 2012 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2014, 2013 and 2012 have been derived from our audited consolidated financial statements not included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
|
|
Year Ended December 31, |
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
2016 |
|
|
2015 |
|
|
2014 |
|
|
2013 |
|
|
2012 |
|
|||||
|
|
(in thousands, except shares and per share data) |
|
|||||||||||||||||
Revenue |
|
$ |
76,846 |
|
|
$ |
58,720 |
|
|
$ |
42,421 |
|
|
$ |
30,040 |
|
|
$ |
23,361 |
|
Cost of revenue(1) |
|
|
23,767 |
|
|
|
19,789 |
|
|
|
12,089 |
|
|
|
8,699 |
|
|
|
7,570 |
|
Gross profit |
|
|
53,079 |
|
|
|
38,931 |
|
|
|
30,332 |
|
|
|
21,341 |
|
|
|
15,791 |
|
Operating expenses: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sales and marketing(1) |
|
$ |
34,847 |
|
|
$ |
25,925 |
|
|
$ |
15,818 |
|
|
$ |
11,695 |
|
|
$ |
7,998 |
|
Research and development(1) |
|
|
14,765 |
|
|
|
11,521 |
|
|
|
7,365 |
|
|
|
5,697 |
|
|
|
5,057 |
|
General and administrative(1) |
|
|
14,293 |
|
|
|
12,272 |
|
|
|
7,435 |
|
|
|
4,352 |
|
|
|
7,371 |
|
Total operating expenses |
|
|
63,905 |
|
|
|
49,718 |
|
|
|
30,618 |
|
|
|
21,744 |
|
|
|
20,426 |
|
Operating loss |
|
|
(10,826 |
) |
|
|
(10,787 |
) |
|
|
(286 |
) |
|
|
(403 |
) |
|
|
(4,635 |
) |
Other expenses, net |
|
|
(484 |
) |
|
|
(599 |
) |
|
|
(426 |
) |
|
|
(368 |
) |
|
|
(399 |
) |
Loss before income taxes |
|
|
(11,310 |
) |
|
|
(11,386 |
) |
|
|
(712 |
) |
|
|
(771 |
) |
|
|
(5,034 |
) |
(Provision for) benefit from income taxes |
|
|
24 |
|
|
|
562 |
|
|
|
89 |
|
|
|
(118 |
) |
|
|
(57 |
) |
Net loss |
|
$ |
(11,286 |
) |
|
$ |
(10,824 |
) |
|
$ |
(623 |
) |
|
$ |
(889 |
) |
|
$ |
(5,091 |
) |
Net loss attributable to common shareholders |
|
$ |
(11,286 |
) |
|
$ |
(10,824 |
) |
|
$ |
(623 |
) |
|
$ |
(889 |
) |
|
$ |
(5,091 |
) |
Net loss per share attributable to common shareholders - basic |
|
$ |
(0.68 |
) |
|
$ |
(0.88 |
) |
|
$ |
(0.05 |
) |
|
$ |
(0.08 |
) |
|
$ |
(0.52 |
) |
Net loss per share attributable to common shareholders - diluted |
|
$ |
(0.68 |
) |
|
$ |
(0.88 |
) |
|
$ |
(0.05 |
) |
|
$ |
(0.08 |
) |
|
$ |
(0.52 |
) |
Weighted average shares outstanding - basic |
|
|
16,659,561 |
|
|
|
12,257,413 |
|
|
|
11,788,883 |
|
|
|
11,040,428 |
|
|
|
9,873,715 |
|
Weighted average shares outstanding - diluted |
|
|
16,659,561 |
|
|
|
12,257,413 |
|
|
|
11,788,883 |
|
|
|
11,040,428 |
|
|
|
9,873,715 |
|
48
|
|
Year Ended December 31, |
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
2016 |
|
|
2015 |
|
|
2014 |
|
|
2013 |
|
|
2012 |
|
|||||
|
|
(in thousands) |
|
|||||||||||||||||
Stock-based compensation expense: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cost of revenue |
|
$ |
180 |
|
|
$ |
150 |
|
|
$ |
82 |
|
|
$ |
48 |
|
|
$ |
3 |
|
Sales and marketing |
|
|
725 |
|
|
|
315 |
|
|
|
120 |
|
|
|
82 |
|
|
|
10 |
|
Research and development |
|
|
348 |
|
|
|
297 |
|
|
|
147 |
|
|
|
28 |
|
|
|
424 |
|
General and administrative |
|
|
1,848 |
|
|
|
760 |
|
|
|
27 |
|
|
|
18 |
|
|
|
1,859 |
|
Total |
|
$ |
3,101 |
|
|
$ |
1,522 |
|
|
$ |
376 |
|
|
$ |
176 |
|
|
$ |
2,296 |
|
|
|
Year Ended December 31, |
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
2016 |
|
|
2015 |
|
|
2014 |
|
|
2013 |
|
|
2012 |
|
|||||
|
|
(in thousands) |
|
|||||||||||||||||
Depreciation and amortization expense: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cost of revenue |
|
$ |
6,247 |
|
|
$ |
4,457 |
|
|
$ |
1,615 |
|
|
$ |
2,374 |
|
|
$ |
2,481 |
|
Sales and marketing |
|
|
208 |
|
|
|
227 |
|
|
|
101 |
|
|
|
46 |
|
|
|
23 |
|
Research and development |
|
|
265 |
|
|
|
134 |
|
|
|
31 |
|
|
|
16 |
|
|
|
19 |
|
General and administrative |
|
|
1,022 |
|
|
|
1,158 |
|
|
|
765 |
|
|
|
19 |
|
|
|
9 |
|
Total |
|
$ |
7,742 |
|
|
$ |
5,976 |
|
|
$ |
2,512 |
|
|
$ |
2,455 |
|
|
$ |
2,532 |
|
(2) |
See notes (2) and (14) to our consolidated financial statements for further details on the calculation of basic and diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders. |
|
|
As of December 31, |
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
2016 |
|
|
2015 |
|
|
2014 |
|
|
2013 |
|
|
2012 |
|
|||||
|
|
(in thousands) |
|
|||||||||||||||||
Consolidated Balance Sheet Data: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cash and cash equivalents |
|
$ |
60,765 |
|
|
$ |
8,578 |
|
|
$ |
4,412 |
|
|
$ |
3,040 |
|
|
$ |
1,711 |
|
Working capital, excluding deferred revenue |
|
|
70,488 |
|
|
|
15,160 |
|
|
|
1,760 |
|
|
|
3,317 |
|
|
|
(275 |
) |
Total assets |
|
|
108,322 |
|
|
|
53,509 |
|
|
|
40,066 |
|
|
|
18,101 |
|
|
|
15,143 |
|
Total deferred revenue |
|
|
52,634 |
|
|
|
40,467 |
|
|
|
28,844 |
|
|
|
20,614 |
|
|
|
17,566 |
|
Total debt |
|
|
— |
|
|
|
16,970 |
|
|
|
6,863 |
|
|
|
3,366 |
|
|
|
4,748 |
|
Total liabilities |
|
|
65,970 |
|
|
|
69,560 |
|
|
|
45,393 |
|
|
|
30,189 |
|
|
|
27,077 |
|
Total stockholders’ equity (deficit) |
|
|
42,352 |
|
|
|
(16,051 |
) |
|
|
(5,327 |
) |
|
|
(12,088 |
) |
|
|
(11,934 |
) |
49
Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition to historical financial information, the following discussion contains forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, estimates and beliefs. Our actual results could differ materially from those contained in or implied by any forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to these differences include those under “Risk Factors” included in Part I, Item 1A or in other parts of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Overview
Everbridge is a global software company that provides enterprise software applications that automate and accelerate organizations’ operational response to critical events in order to keep people safe and businesses running. During public safety threats such as active shooter situations, terrorist attacks or severe weather conditions, as well as critical business events such as IT outages, cyber-attacks or other incidents such as product recalls or supply-chain interruptions, our SaaS-based platform enables our customers to quickly and reliably aggregate and assess threat data, locate people at risk and responders able to assist, automate the execution of pre-defined communications processes and track progress on executing response plans. Our customers use our platform to identify and assess hundreds of different types of threats to their organizations, people, assets or brand. Our solutions enable organizations to deliver intelligent, contextual messages to, and receive verification of delivery from, hundreds or millions of recipients, across multiple communications modalities such as voice, SMS and e-mail. Our applications enable the delivery of messages in near real-time to more than 100 different communication devices, in over 200 countries and territories, in 15 languages and dialects – all simultaneously. We delivered 1.5 billion communications in 2016. We automate the process of sending contextual notifications to multiple constituencies and receiving return information on a person’s or operation’s status so that organizations can act quickly and precisely. Our Critical Event Management platform is comprised of a comprehensive set of software applications that address the full spectrum of tasks an organization has to perform to manage a critical event, including Mass Notification, Incident Management, Safety Connection, IT Alerting, Visual Command Center, Crisis Commander, Community Engagement and Secure Messaging. We believe that our broad suite of integrated, enterprise applications delivered via a single global platform is a significant competitive advantage in the market for Critical Event Management solutions, which we refer to generally as CEM.
Our customer base has grown from 867 customers at the end of 2011 to more than 3,200 customers as of December 31, 2016. As of December 31, 2016, our customers were based in 28 countries and included eight of the 10 largest U.S. cities, eight of the 10 largest U.S.-based investment banks, 24 of the 25 busiest North American airports, six of the 10 largest global consulting firms, six of the 10 largest global auto makers, all four of the largest global accounting firms, four of the 10 largest U.S.-based health care providers and four of the 10 largest U.S.-based health insurers. We provide our applications to customers of varying sizes, including enterprises, small businesses, non-profit organizations, educational institutions and governmental agencies. Our customers span a wide variety of industries including technology, energy, financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, media and entertainment, retail, higher education and professional services.
We sell all of our critical communications applications on a subscription basis. We generally enter into contracts that range from one to three years in length, with an average contract duration of 2.0 years as of December 31, 2016, and generally bill and collect payment annually in advance. We derive most of our revenue from subscriptions to applications. Over 90% of the revenue that we recognized in each of the eight most recently completed quarters was generated from contracts entered into in prior quarters or renewals of those contracts; the balance of the revenue that we recognized in each such quarter was generated from contracts entered into with new customers or new contracts, other than renewals, entered into with existing customers in such quarter. Historically, we derived more than 86% of our revenue in each of the last three fiscal years from sales of our Mass Notification application. Our pricing model is based on the number of applications subscribed to and, per application, the number of people, locations and things connected to our platform as well as the volume of communications. We also offer premium services including data feeds for social media, threat intelligence and weather. We generate additional revenue by expanding the number of applications that our customers subscribe to and the number of contacts and devices connected to our platform.
50
We generated revenue of $76.8 million in 2016, $58.7 million in 2015, $42.4 million in 2014 and $30.0 million in 2013, representing year-over-year increases of 41% in 2014, 38% in 2015 and 31% in 2016. We had net losses of $11.3 million, $10.8 million, $0.6 million and $0.9 million in 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013, respectively.
As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, 14% and 17% of our customers, respectively, were located outside of the United States and these customers generated 10% and 14% of our total revenue for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.
We have focused on rapidly growing our business and believe that the future growth of our business is dependent on many factors, including our ability to increase the functionality of our platform and applications, expand our customer base, accelerate adoption of our applications beyond Mass Notification within our existing customer base and expand our international presence. Our future growth will also depend on the growth in the market for critical communications solutions and our ability to effectively compete. In order to further penetrate the market for critical communications solutions and capitalize on what we believe to be a significant opportunity, we intend to continue to invest in research and development, build-out our data center infrastructure and services capabilities and hire additional sales representatives, both domestically and internationally, to drive sales to new customers and incremental sales of new applications to existing customers. Nevertheless, we expect to continue to incur losses in the near term and, if we are unable to achieve our growth objectives, we may not be able to achieve profitability.
Recent Developments
In September 2016, we closed our initial public offering, or IPO, at which time we sold a total of 6,250,000 shares of our common stock. We received net cash proceeds of $66.1 million, net of underwriting discounts and commissions and other costs associated with the offering paid or payable by us.
In December 2016, we acquired 100% of the shares of Svensk Krisledning AB, or Crisis Commander. We acquired Crisis Commander for cash consideration of approximately $2.3 million with additional time and performance-based milestones that could result in additional payments of $0.4 million. Crisis Commander is a SaaS mobile crisis management company operating out of Sweden.
In January 2017, we acquired 100% of the shares of IDV Solutions, LLC, or IDV. We acquired IDV for cash consideration of approximately $21.3 million, with additional time and performance-based milestones that could result in additional payments of $6.2 million. IDV is a provider of threat assessment and operational visualization software located in Lansing, Michigan.
Presentation of Financial Statements
Our consolidated financial statements include the accounts of our wholly-owned subsidiaries. Business acquisitions are included in our consolidated financial statements from the date of the acquisition. Our purchase accounting resulted in all assets and liabilities of acquired businesses being recorded at their estimated fair values on the acquisition dates. All intercompany balances and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation.
We report our financial results as one operating segment. Our operating results are regularly reviewed on a consolidated basis by our chief executive officer, who is our chief operating decision maker, principally to make strategic decisions regarding how we allocate our resources and to assess our consolidated operating performance.
51
We regularly monitor a number of financial and operating metrics in order to measure our current performance and estimate our future performance. Our other business metrics may be calculated in a manner different than similar other business metrics used by other companies.
|
|
Year Ended December 31, |
|
|||||||||
|
|
2016 |
|
|
2015 |
|
|
2014 |
|
|||
|
|
(dollars in thousands) |
|
|||||||||
Revenue retention rate |
|
|
116 |
% |
|
|
112 |
% |
|
|
111 |
% |
Adjusted EBITDA |
|
$ |
5 |
|
|
$ |
(3,351 |
) |
|
$ |
2,524 |
|
Adjusted gross margin |
|
$ |
55,577 |
|
|
$ |
41,084 |
|
|
$ |
30,663 |
|
Free cash flow |
|
$ |