PROSPECTUS	Filed Pursuant to Rule 424(b)(3)
	Registration No. 333-258109

 

 

 

Up to 130,532,274 Shares of Common Stock
Up to 17,905,000 Shares of Common Stock Issuable Upon Exercise of Warrants

Up to 405,000 Warrants to Purchase Common Stock

 

 

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This Prospectus relates to the issuance by us of an aggregate of up to 17,905,000 shares of our Common Stock, $0.0001 par value per share (the “Common Stock”), which consists of (i) up to 405,000 shares of Common Stock that are issuable upon the exercise of 405,000 warrants (the “Private Warrants”) originally issued in a private placement to Apex Technology Sponsor LLC (the "Sponsor") in connection with the initial public offering of Apex Technology Acquisition Corporation ("Apex") and (ii) up to 17,500,000 shares of Common Stock that are issuable upon the exercise of 17,500,000 warrants (the "Public Warrants" and, together with the Private Warrants, the "Warrants") originally issued in the initial public offering of Apex. We will receive the proceeds from any exercise of any Warrants for cash.

 

This Prospectus also relates to the offer and sale from time to time by the selling securityholders named in this Prospectus or their permitted transferees (the “selling securityholders”) of (i) up to 130,532,274 shares of Common Stock consisting of (a) up to 14,000,000 shares of Common Stock issued in a private placement pursuant to subscription agreements (the “Subscription Agreements”) entered into on November 23, 2020, as amended, (b) up to 3,252,796 shares of Common Stock (which includes 2,916,700 Sponsor Earn-Out Shares (as defined below)) issued in a private placement to Sponsor and Cantor Fitzgerald & Co in connection with the initial public offering of Apex (the “Sponsor Shares”), (c) up to 810,000 shares of Common Stock that were issued in connection with the separation of the Private Units (as defined herein), (d) up to 405,000 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of the Private Warrants and (e) up to 112,064,478 shares of Common Stock (including up to 13,329,196 shares of Common Stock issuable pursuant to outstanding options and up to 1,912,155 shares of Common Stock issuable as Earnout Shares (as defined below)) pursuant to that certain Amended and Restated Registration Rights Agreement, dated July 1, 2021, between us and the selling securityholders granting such holders registration rights with respect to such shares and (ii) up to 405,000 Private Warrants. We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of Common Stock or Warrants by the selling securityholders pursuant to this Prospectus.

 

 

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The selling securityholders may offer, sell or distribute all or a portion of the securities hereby registered publicly or through private transactions at prevailing market prices or at negotiated prices. We will not receive any of the proceeds from such sales of the shares of Common Stock or Warrants, except with respect to amounts received by us upon exercise of the Warrants. We will bear all costs, expenses and fees in connection with the registration of these securities, including with regard to compliance with state securities or “blue sky” laws. The selling securityholders will bear all commissions and discounts, if any, attributable to their sale of shares of Common Stock or Warrants. See the section titled “Plan of Distribution.”

 

Our Common Stock and Warrants are listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbols “AVPT” and “AVPTW,” respectively. On July 6, 2023, the last reported sales price of our Common Stock was $5.56 per share and the last reported sales price of our Warrants was $0.8374 per warrant.

 

We are an “emerging growth company” as defined under U.S. federal securities laws and, as such, have elected to comply with reduced public company reporting requirements. This Prospectus complies with the requirements that apply to an issuer that is an emerging growth company.

 

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Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risks. You should carefully review the risks and uncertainties described in the section titled “Risk Factors” beginning on page 14 of this Prospectus, and under similar headings in any amendments or supplements to this Prospectus.

 

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Neither the Securities and Exchange Commission nor any state securities commission has approved or disapproved of these securities, or passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of this Prospectus. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.

 

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Prospectus dated July 7, 2023

 

 

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ABOUT THIS PROSPECTUS

 

This Prospectus is part of a Registration Statement on Form S-1 that we filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) using the “shelf” registration process. Under this shelf registration process, the selling securityholders may, from time to time, sell the securities offered by them described in this Prospectus. We will not receive any proceeds from the sale by such selling securityholders of the securities offered by them described in this Prospectus. This Prospectus also relates to the issuance by us of the shares of Common Stock issuable upon the exercise of any Warrants. We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of Common Stock underlying the Warrants pursuant to this Prospectus, except with respect to amounts received by us upon the exercise of the Warrants for cash.

 

Neither we nor the selling securityholders have authorized anyone to provide you with any information or to make any representations other than those contained in this Prospectus or any applicable Prospectus supplement or any free writing Prospectuses prepared by or on behalf of us or to which we have referred you. Neither we nor the selling securityholders take responsibility for, and can provide no assurance as to the reliability of, any other information that others may give you. Neither we nor the selling securityholders will make an offer to sell these securities in any jurisdiction where the offer or sale is not permitted.

 

We may also provide a Prospectus supplement or post-effective amendment to the Registration Statement to add information to, or update or change information contained in, this Prospectus. You should read both this Prospectus and any applicable Prospectus supplement or post-effective amendment to the Registration Statement together with the additional information to which we refer you in the sections of this Prospectus titled “Where You Can Find More Information.”

 

On July 1, 2021, Legacy AvePoint, Apex, and the Merger Subs (as such terms are defined below), consummated the closing of the transactions contemplated by the Business Combination Agreement (as defined below). Pursuant to the terms of the Business Combination Agreement, a business combination of Legacy AvePoint and Apex was effected by the merger of Merger Sub 1 (as defined below) with and into Legacy AvePoint, with Legacy AvePoint surviving the First Merger (as defined below) as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apex, and promptly following the First Merger, Legacy AvePoint was merged with and into Merger Sub 2 (as defined below), with Merger Sub 2 surviving the Second Merger (as defined below) as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apex. Following the consummation of the Mergers on the Closing Date (as defined below), the Surviving Entity (as defined below) changed its name to AvePoint US, LLC and Apex changed its name from Apex Technology Acquisition Corporation to AvePoint, Inc. On July 26, 2021, AvePoint US, LLC was merged with and into AvePoint, Inc.

 

Unless the context indicates otherwise, references in this Prospectus to the “AvePoint,” “we,” “us,” “our” and similar terms refer to AvePoint, Inc. (f/k/a Apex Technology Acquisition Corporation) and its consolidated subsidiaries (including, as the context may require, Legacy AvePoint) upon and at all times after the consummation of the Business Combination (as defined below). References to “Legacy AvePoint” refer to the operating company prior to the consummation of the Business Combination. References to “Apex” refer to the predecessor blank check “special purpose acquisition company” prior to the consummation of the Business Combination.

 

Our principal executive offices are located at 525 Washington Blvd, Suite 1400, Jersey City, NJ 07310, and our telephone number is (201) 793-1111. Our principal operating offices are located at Riverfront Plaza, West Tower, 901 E Byrd St, Suite 900, Richmond, VA 23219 and our telephone number for that office is (804) 372-8080. All correspondence should be directed to our principal operating offices in Richmond, Virginia.

 

“AvePoint,” “AvePoint, Inc.©,” and all other names, logos, and icons identifying AvePoint and/or AvePoint’s products and services and our other registered and common law trade names, trademarks, and service marks are property of AvePoint, Inc. This Prospectus 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 Prospectus may appear without the ® or ™ symbols.

 

 

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You should rely only on the information contained in this Prospectus, any supplement to this Prospectus, or in any free writing Prospectus, filed with the SEC. Neither we nor the selling securityholders have authorized anyone to provide you with additional information or information different from that contained in this Prospectus filed with the SEC. We take no responsibility for, and can provide no assurance as to the reliability of, any other information that others may give you. The selling securityholders are offering to sell, and seeking offers to buy, our securities only in jurisdictions where offers and sales are permitted. The information contained in this Prospectus is accurate only as of the date of this Prospectus, regardless of the time of delivery of this Prospectus or any sale of our securities. Our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects may have changed since that date.

For investors outside of the United States: Neither we nor the selling securityholders have done anything that would permit this offering or possession or distribution of this Prospectus in any jurisdiction where action for that purpose is required, other than in the United States. Persons outside the United States who come into possession of this Prospectus must inform themselves about, and observe any restrictions relating to, the offering of our securities and the distribution of this Prospectus outside the United States.

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Prospectus contains “forward-looking statements” that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements are contained principally in the sections titled “Prospectus Summary” “Risk Factors,” “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” “Business” and elsewhere in this Prospectus. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “objective,” “ongoing,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “will” and “would,” or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions intended to identify statements about the future. These statements speak only as of the date of this Prospectus and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements about:

The foregoing list of risks is not exhaustive. Other sections of this Prospectus may include additional factors that could harm our business and financial performance. Moreover, we operate in an evolving environment. New risk factors and uncertainties may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all risk factors and uncertainties. As a result of these factors, we cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements in this Prospectus will prove to be accurate. Except as required by applicable law, we do not plan to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of any new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise, except as required by law.

Because forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified and some of which are beyond our control, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Although we believe that we have a reasonable basis for each forward-looking statement contained in this Prospectus, the events and circumstances reflected in our forward-looking statements may not be achieved or occur and actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. You should refer to the ‘‘Risk Factors’’ section of this Prospectus for a discussion of important factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by our forward-looking statements.

You should read this Prospectus and the documents that we reference in this Prospectus and have filed as exhibits to the Registration Statement, of which this Prospectus is a part, completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.

In addition, statements that “we believe” and similar statements reflect our beliefs and opinions on the relevant subject. These statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this Prospectus and while we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, such information may be limited or incomplete, and such statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all potentially available relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain, and investors are cautioned not to unduly rely upon these statements.

FREQUENTLY USED TERMS

“Apex” means Apex Technology Acquisition Corporation (which was renamed AvePoint, Inc. in connection with the Business Combination).

“Apex IPO” means Apex’s initial public offering of units, consummated on September 19, 2019.

“Apex Initial Stockholders” means the initial stockholders of Apex, including Apex’s officers and Apex’s directors, listed on Schedule C of the Business Combination Agreement.

“Business Combination” means the transactions contemplated by the Business Combination Agreement.

“Business Combination Agreement” means the Business Combination Agreement and Plan of Reorganization, dated as of November 23, 2020, as amended on December 30, 2020, March 8, 2021 and May 18, 2021, and as may be further amended from time to time, by and among Apex, AvePoint and Merger Subs.

“Closing” means the consummation of the Business Combination.

“Closing Date” means July 1, 2021, the date on which the Closing occurred.

“Closing Price” means, for each day that the Common Stock is trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, the closing price (based on such trading day) of shares of Common Stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, as reported on Nasdaq.com.

“Cantor” means Cantor Fitzgerald & Co, representative of the underwriters of the Apex IPO.

“Cantor Shares” means the 152,500 units initially purchased by Cantor and certain of its designees in a private placement in connection with the Apex IPO.

“Common Stock” means shares of AvePoint's common stock, $0.0001 par value per share.

“First Merger” means the merger of Merger Sub I with and into Legacy AvePoint, with Legacy AvePoint surviving the First Merger as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apex.

“Initial Stockholder Shares” means the 657,500 units initially purchased by the Apex Initial Stockholders in a private placement in connection with the Apex IPO.

“Legacy AvePoint” means AvePoint, Inc. a Delaware corporation, doing business as AvePoint, Inc., and, unless the context requires otherwise, its consolidated subsidiaries.

“Mergers” means the First Merger and Second Merger, together.

“Merger Sub 1” means Athena Technology Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and wholly-owned subsidiary of Apex.

“Merger Sub 2” means Athena Technology Merger Sub 2, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apex.

“Merger Subs” means Merger Sub I and Merger Sub 2, together.

“Merger Sub Common Stock” means Merger Sub 1’s common stock, par value $0.00001 per share.

“PIPE” means that certain private placement in the aggregate amount of $140 million, consummated immediately prior to the consummation of the Business Combination, pursuant to those certain Subscription Agreements with Apex, and subject to the conditions set forth therein, pursuant to which the subscribers purchased 14,000,000 shares of our Common Stock at a purchase price of $10.00 per share.

“PIPE Shares” means an aggregate of 14,000,000 shares of Common Stock issued to the subscribers in the PIPE.

"Private Warrants" means the 405,000 warrants to purchase shares of Common Stock purchased in a private placement in connection with the Apex IPO.

"Public Warrants" means the 17,500,000 warrants included as a component of the Apex units sold in the Apex IPO, each of which is exercisable for one share of Common Stock, in accordance with its terms. 

“Private Units” means the 810,000 private units purchased in a private placement in connection with the Apex IPO.

“Registration Rights Agreement” means that certain Amended and Restated Registration Rights Agreement, dated July 1, 2021, between and among AvePoint and certain securityholders who are parties thereto.

“Second Merger” means the merger of Legacy AvePoint with and into Merger Sub 2, with Merger Sub 2 surviving as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apex.

“Sponsor” means the Apex Technology Sponsor LLC.

“Sponsor Earn-Out Shares” means up to 2,916,700 shares of Apex common stock that the Sponsor deposited into escrow subject to the following vesting provisions: a) 100% of the Sponsor Earn-Out Shares shall vest and be released to the Sponsor if at any time from and after the Closing through the seventh anniversary thereof, the Closing Price is greater than or equal to $15.00 (as adjusted for share splits, share capitalization, reorganizations, recapitalizations, and the like) over any 20 trading days within any 30 trading day period; and 100% of the remaining Sponsor Earn-Out Shares that have not previously vested under the Sponsor Support Agreement (as defined herein) shall vest and be released to the Sponsor if at any time from and after the Closing through the seventh anniversary thereof, Apex consummates a Subsequent Transaction.

“Sponsor Shares” means the Initial Stockholder Shares and Cantor Shares.

“Subsequent Transaction” means any transaction or series of related transactions, including any sale, merger, liquidation, exchange offer or other similar transaction, that is consummated after the effective time of the First Merger that results (a) in any person or “group” (within the meaning of Section 13(d)(3) of the Exchange Act) acquiring beneficial ownership of 50% or more of the outstanding voting securities of AvePoint (as successor to Apex), directly or indirectly, immediately following such transaction, provided that any transaction or series of related transactions which results in at least 50% of the combined voting power of the then outstanding shares of Common Stock (or at least 50% of the combined voting power of the then outstanding shares of AvePoint (as successor to Apex) or any parent company of AvePoint issued in exchange for Common Stock) immediately following the closing of such transaction (or series of related transactions) being beneficially owned, directly or indirectly, by individuals and entities who were the beneficial owners of at least 50% of the shares of Common Stock outstanding immediately prior to such transaction (or series of related transactions), shall not be deemed a “Subsequent Transaction” or (b) a sale or disposition of all or substantially all of the assets of AvePoint (as successor to Apex) and its subsidiaries on a consolidated basis.

“Surviving Corporation” means Legacy AvePoint following the consummation of the Mergers.

“Warrants” means the Private Warrants and the Public Warrants, together.

RISK FACTORS

Certain factors may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. You should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, in addition to other information contained in this Prospectus, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes. 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 actually occurs, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and future prospects could be materially and adversely affected. In that event, the trading price of our Common Stock could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Business

Our success depends on our technology partners. In particular, our technical advantages are highly dependent on our partnership with Microsoft, Inc. and other major software providers. Should Microsoft or these other providers acquire competitors that heavily overlap with our capabilities, or develop competing features, we may lose customer acquisition momentum and fail to secure renewals or growth targets.

The significant majority of our customers choose to integrate their products and services with, or as an enhancement of, third-party solutions such as infrastructure, platforms or applications, in particular from Microsoft. The functionality and popularity of our products and services depend largely on our ability to integrate our platform with third-party solutions, in particular Microsoft’s Azure, SharePoint, and Office 365. We are dependent on technology partner solutions for several major categories of our offerings, including data management, migration, governance, protection and backup. As a result, our customers’ satisfaction with our products are highly dependent on their perception of, and satisfaction with, our third-party providers and their respective offerings. We will continue to depend on various third-party relationships to sustain and grow our business. Third-party providers may change the features of their solutions, alter their governing terms, or end the solutions’ availability altogether. They may restrict our ability to add, customize or integrate systems, functionality and customer experiences. Any such changes could limit or terminate our ability to use these third-party solutions and provide our customers with the full range of our products and services. Our business would be negatively impacted if we fail to retain these relationships for any reason, including due to third parties’ failure to support or secure their technology or integrations; errors, bugs, or defects in their technology; or changes in our products and services. Any such failure, as well as a prolonged disruption, a cybersecurity event or any other negative event affecting our third-party providers and leading to customer dissatisfaction, could harm our relationship with our customers, our reputation and brand, our revenue, our business, and our results of operations.

Strategic technology partners and third parties may not be successful in building integrations, co-marketing our products and services to provide significant volume and quality of lead referrals or continue to work with us as their respective products evolve. Identifying, negotiating and documenting relationships with additional strategic technology partners require significant resources. Integrating third-party technology can be complex, costly and time-consuming. Third parties may be unwilling to build integrations. We may be required to devote additional resources to develop integrations for our own products. Strategic technology partners or providers of solutions with which we have integrations may decide to compete with us or enter into arrangements with our competitors, resulting in such partners or providers withdrawing support for our integrations. Our agreements with our partners are generally non-exclusive, meaning our partners may offer products from several different companies to their customers. Specifically, Microsoft and other major platform providers could end partnerships, cease marketing our offerings, with limited or no notice and with little or no penalty, or decide to purchase strong competition, or incorporate our capabilities into native solutions. Any of these developments would negatively impact our business.

Microsoft and other cloud platform providers may furthermore introduce functionality that competes with our products and services, as a result of an acquisition, or their own development. Additionally, we rely heavily on our early access to preview Microsoft technology, which enables our product strategy and development teams to anticipate future opportunities as well as validate our current direction. While Microsoft introduces competitive features as a premium option, some customers will choose a simpler first-party solution to their problem, even at a greater cost to them. Microsoft and other cloud providers may also choose to make it difficult for third party providers like us to continue making the necessary application programming interface (“API”) calls to provide their solutions, as illustrated by an increase in API “throttling” in recent years or API quotas provided by Salesforce.

Although we typically receive significant advance notice of new product releases from Microsoft, Microsoft does not always preview our technology with us or other partners and, as a result, it is possible that we may not receive advance notice of changes in features and functionality of new technologies with which our products will need to interoperate. If this was to happen, there could be an increased risk of product incompatibility. Any failure of our products and services to operate effectively with solutions could result in customer dissatisfaction and harm to our business, and could reduce the demand for our products and services. If we are unable to respond to these changes or failures in a cost-effective manner, our products and services may become less marketable, less competitive, or obsolete, and the results of our operations may be negatively impacted.

We have a strategic technology partnership with Microsoft for the collaboration to co-sell and co-market our products and services to new customers. If our relationships with our strategic technology partners, such as Microsoft, are disrupted or if the co-sell and co-market program was ended for any reason, we may receive less revenue and incur costs to form other revenue-generating strategic technology partnerships.

We have experienced strong growth in recent periods, and our recent growth rates may not be indicative of our future growth.

We have experienced strong growth in recent periods. In future periods, we may not be able to sustain revenue growth consistent with recent history, or at all. We believe our revenue growth and our ability to manage such growth depend on several factors, including, but not limited to, our ability to do the following:

We may not accomplish any of these objectives and, as a result, it is difficult for us to forecast our future revenue or revenue growth. If our assumptions are incorrect or change in reaction to changes in our market, or if we are unable to maintain consistent revenue or revenue growth, we may not be able to maintain similar growth rates in the future. You should not rely on our revenue for any prior periods as any indication of our future revenue or revenue growth.

Furthermore, these activities will require significant investments and allocation of valuable management and employee resources, and our growth will continue to place significant demands on our management and our operational and financial infrastructure. There are no guarantees we will be able to grow our business in an efficient or timely manner, or at all. Moreover, if we do not effectively manage the growth of our business and operations, the quality of our software could suffer, which could negatively affect the AvePoint brand, results of operations and overall business.

Our future revenue and operating results will be harmed if we are unable to acquire new customers, expand sales to our existing customers, or develop new functionality for our products and services that achieves market acceptance.

To continue to grow our business, it is important that we continue to acquire new customers to purchase and use our products and services. Our success in adding new customers depends on numerous factors, including our ability to: (1) offer compelling products and services, (2) execute our sales and marketing strategy, (3) attract, effectively train and retain new sales, marketing, professional services, and support personnel in the markets we pursue, (4) develop or expand relationships with partners, IT consultants, systems integrators resellers and other third parties, strengthening our network, (5) expand into new geographies, including internationally, and market segments, (6) efficiently onboard new customers on to our product offerings, and (7) provide additional paid services that fulfill the needs and complement the capabilities of our customers and their partners.

Our future success also depends, in part, on our ability to sell additional products, more functionality and/or adjacent services to our current customers, and the success rate of such endeavors is difficult to predict and, especially with regard to any new products or lines of business that we may introduce from time to time. Our ability to increase sales to existing customers depends on several factors, including their experience with implementing and using our products and services, their ability to integrate our products and services with other technologies, and our pricing model. Sales to existing customers may require increasingly costly marketing and sales efforts that are targeted at senior management, and if these efforts are not successful, our business and operating results may suffer.

In addition, as an increasing amount of our business may move to our cloud-based products and services and the use of consumption-based pricing models may represent a greater share of our revenue, our revenue may be less predictable or more variable than our historical revenue from perpetual or time period-based subscription pricing models. Moreover, a consumption-based subscription pricing model may ultimately result in lower total cost to our customers over time or may cause our customers to limit usage in order to stay within the limits of their existing subscriptions, reducing overall revenue or making it more difficult for us to compete in our markets.

Our ability to predict the rate of customer renewals and the impact these renewals will have on our revenue or operating results is limited.

Our ability to maintain or increase revenue depends in part on our ability to retain existing customers, in particular that our customers renew their subscriptions with us on the same or more favorable terms. Our customers have no obligation to renew their contracts for AvePoint products after the expiration of either the initial or renewed subscription period, and in the normal course of business, some customers elect not to renew. Our customers may renew for fewer elements of our products, for shorter renewal terms or on different pricing terms, including lower-cost offerings of our products. Our customers’ renewal rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including their level of satisfaction with our pricing or our products and their ability to continue their operations and spending levels, mix of customer base, decreases in the number of users at our customers, competition, pricing increases or changes, and deteriorating general economic conditions, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic or the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. If our customers do not renew their subscriptions for our products on similar pricing terms, our revenue may decline and our business could suffer. In addition, over time the average term of our contracts could change based on renewal rates or for other reasons. Further, acquisitions of our customers may lead to the cancellation of our contracts with such customers or by the acquiring companies, thereby reducing the number of our existing and potential customers.

If we fail to adapt and respond effectively to rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards, and changing customer needs or preferences, our products and services may become less competitive.

The market in which we operate is characterized by the exponential growth in data generated and managed by enterprises, rapid technological advances, changes in customer requirements, including customer requirements driven by changes to legal, regulatory and self-regulatory compliance mandates, frequent new product introductions and enhancements and evolving industry standards in computer hardware and software technology. As a result, we must continually change and improve our products in response to changes in operating systems, application software, computer and communications hardware, networking software, data center architectures, programming tools and computer language technology. Moreover, the technology in our products is especially complex because it needs to effectively identify and respond to a user’s data retention, security and governance needs, while minimizing the impact on database and file system performance. If we are unable to develop and sell new technology, features, and functionality for our products and services that satisfy our customers and that keep pace with rapid technological and industry change, our revenue and operating results could be harmed. If new technologies emerge that deliver competitive solutions at lower prices, more efficiently, more conveniently, or more securely, they could adversely impact our ability to compete. Our products and services must also integrate with a variety of network, hardware, mobile, and software platforms and technologies. We need to continuously modify and enhance our platform to adapt to changes and innovation in these technologies. If businesses widely adopt new technologies in areas covered by our products and services, we would have to develop new functionality for our products and services to work with such new technologies. This development effort may require significant engineering, marketing and sales resources, all of which would affect our business and operating results.

Any failure of our products and services to operate effectively with future technologies could reduce the demand for our products and services. We cannot guarantee that it will be able to anticipate future market needs and opportunities, extend our technological expertise and develop new products or expand the functionality of our current products in a timely and cost-effective manner, or at all. Even if we can anticipate, develop and introduce new products and expand the functionality of our current products, there can be no assurance that enhancements or new products will achieve widespread market acceptance. If we fail to anticipate market requirements or stay abreast of technological changes, we may be unable to successfully introduce new products, expand the functionality of our current products or convince our existing and potential customers of the value of our products in light of new technologies. Accordingly, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.

Our success with SMB customers depends in part on our resale and distribution partnerships. Our business would be harmed if we fail to maintain or expand partner relationships.

We leverage the sales and referral resources of resale and referral partners through a variety of programs, and we rely on distribution partners especially for our SMB market acquisition. We expect that sales to partners will account for a substantial portion of our revenue for the foreseeable future. Our ability to achieve revenue growth and expand our SMB acquisition in the future will depend in part on our success in maintaining successful relationships with our partners. Our agreements with our partners are generally non-exclusive, meaning our partners may offer customers the products of several different companies. If our partners do not effectively market and sell our software, choose to use greater efforts to market and sell their own products or those of others, or fail to meet the needs of our customers, our ability to grow our business, sell our software and maintain our reputation may be harmed. Our contracts with our partners generally allow us to terminate our agreements for any reason. The loss of a substantial number of our partners, the possible inability to replace them, the failure to recruit additional partners or the removal of our products and services from several major distribution partner’s resale platforms could harm our results of operations. If we are unable to effectively utilize, maintain and expand these relationships, our revenue growth would slow, we would need to devote additional resources to the development, sales, and marketing of our products and services, and our financial results and future growth prospects would be harmed.

Unfavorable conditions in our industry or the global economy, or reductions in IT spending, could limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our results of operations.

Our results of operations may vary based on the impact of changes in our industry or the global economy on it or our customers. The revenue growth and potential profitability of our business depend on our current and prospective customers’ ability and willingness to invest money in information technology services, which in turn is dependent upon their overall economic health. Current or future economic uncertainties or downturns could harm our business and results of operations. Negative conditions in the global economy or individual markets, including changes in gross domestic product growth, financial and credit market fluctuations, political turmoil, natural catastrophes, warfare and terrorist attacks on the United States, Europe, Australia, the Asia Pacific region or elsewhere, could cause a decrease in business investments, including spending on IT and negatively affect our business. Continuing uncertainty in the global economy makes it extremely difficult for us and our customers to forecast and plan future business activities accurately, and could cause our customers to reevaluate decisions to purchase our products and services or to delay their purchasing decisions, which could lengthen our sales cycles.

To the extent our products and services are perceived by our existing and potential customers as costly, or too difficult to launch or migrate to, it would negatively affect our growth. Our revenue may be disproportionately affected by delays or reductions in general IT spending. Competitors may respond to market conditions by lowering prices and attempting to lure away our customers. In addition, consolidation in certain industries may result in reduced overall spending on our products and services. We have a significant number of customers in the financial services, the public sector and the pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries. A substantial downturn in any of these industries, or a reduction in public sector spending, may cause enterprises to react to worsening conditions by reducing their capital expenditures in general or by specifically reducing their spending on information technology. Customers may delay or cancel information technology projects, choose to focus on in-house development efforts or seek to lower their costs by renegotiating maintenance and support agreements. To the extent purchases of licenses for our software are perceived by our existing and potential customers to be discretionary, our revenue may be disproportionately affected by delays or reductions in general information technology spending. We cannot predict the timing, strength, or duration of any economic slowdown, instability or recovery, generally or within any particular industry. If the economic conditions of the general economy or markets in which we operate worsen from present levels, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.

Failure to effectively develop and expand our marketing and sales capabilities could harm our ability to increase our customer base and achieve broader market acceptance of our products and services. If we are not able to generate traffic to our website through digital marketing, our ability to attract new customers may be impaired.

Our ability to increase our customer base and achieve broader market acceptance of our products and services will depend on our ability to expand our marketing and sales operations. We plan to continue expanding our sales force and strategic partners, both domestically and internationally. We also have dedicated, and plans to further dedicate, significant resources to sales and marketing programs, including search engine and other online advertising. The effectiveness of our online advertising may continue to vary due to competition for key search terms, changes in search engine use, and changes in search algorithms used by major search engines and other digital marketing platforms. Another major investment is in marketing technology to better connect our systems and data among sales, product, and marketing, in order to create a more seamless user experience. Our business and operating results will be harmed if our sales and marketing efforts do not generate a corresponding increase in revenue. We may not achieve anticipated revenue growth from expanding our sales force 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.

If the cost of marketing our products and services over search engines or other digital marketing platforms increases, our business and operating results could be harmed. Competitors also may bid on the search terms that we use to drive traffic to our website. Such actions could increase our marketing costs and result in decreased traffic to our website. Furthermore, search engines and digital marketing platforms may change their advertising policies from time to time. If these policies delay or prevent us from advertising through these channels, it could result in reduced traffic to our website and subscriptions to our products and services. New search engines and other digital marketing platforms may develop, particularly in certain jurisdictions, that reduce traffic on existing search engines and digital marketing platforms. If we are not able to achieve prominence through advertising or otherwise, it may not achieve significant traffic to our website through these new platforms and our business and operating results could be harmed.

We depend on third-party data hosting and transmission services. Increases in cost, interruptions in service, latency, or poor service from our third-party data center providers could impair the delivery of our platform. This could result in customer dissatisfaction, damage to our reputation, loss of customers, limited growth, and reduction in revenue.

We currently serve the majority of our SaaS offerings from third-party data center hosting facilities in different geographical locations that are operated by Microsoft. Our products and services, in particular SaaS offerings, are deployed to multiple data centers within these geographies, with additional geographies available for disaster recovery. Our operations depend, in part, on our third-party providers’ protection of these facilities from natural disasters, power or telecommunications failures, criminal acts, or similar events. If any third-party facility’s arrangement is terminated, or our service lapses, we could experience interruptions in our platform, latency, as well as delays and additional expenses in arranging new facilities and services.

A significant portion of our operating costs are from our third-party data hosting and transmission services. If the costs for such services increase due to vendor consolidation, regulation, contract renegotiation or otherwise, we may not be able to increase the fees for our products and services to cover the changes. As a result, our operating results may be significantly worse than forecasted. Our failure to achieve or maintain sufficient and performant data transmission capacity could significantly reduce demand for our products and services.

Seasonal or singular events may significantly increase the traffic on our own and the used third-party’s servers and the usage volume of our products. Despite precautions taken at the used data centers, spikes in usage volume, a natural disaster, an act of terrorism, vandalism or sabotage, closure of a facility without adequate notice, or other unanticipated problems (such as the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine) could result in lengthy interruptions or performance degradation of our platform. Our own and third party data centers may also be subject to national or local administrative actions, changes in government regulations, including, for example, the impact of global economic and other sanctions like those levied in response to the Russia-Ukraine crisis, changes to legal or permitting requirements and litigation to stop, limit or delay operations. Any damage to, or failure of, the systems of our third-party providers could result in interruptions to our products and services. Even with current and planned disaster recovery arrangements, our business could be harmed. If we experience damage or interruption, our insurance policies may not adequately compensate us for any losses that we may incur. These factors in turn could further reduce our revenue, subject us to liability, cause us to issue credits, or cause customers to terminate their subscriptions, any of which could harm our business. If we incur such losses or liabilities, we might be unable to recover significant amounts from our third-party providers (even if they were primarily or solely responsible) because of restrictive liability and indemnification terms.

If there are interruptions or performance problems associated with our technology or infrastructure, our existing customers may experience service outages, and our new customers may experience delays in using our products and services.

Our continued growth depends, in part, on the ability of our existing and potential customers to access our products and services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without interruption or performance degradation. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, disruptions, outages, and other performance problems with our infrastructure. These can be due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, introductions of new functionality, human or software errors, capacity constraints, denial-of-service attacks, or other security-related incidents, any of which may be recurring. As we continue to add customers, expand geographically, and enhance our products’ and/or services’ functionality, the additional scale may increase complexity and our average uptime for future periods may decrease. We may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance problems promptly. If our products and services are unavailable or if our customers are unable to access our products and services within a reasonable amount of time, our business would be harmed. Any outage of our products and services would impair the ability of our customers to engage in their own business operations, which would negatively impact our brand, reputation and customer satisfaction. We provide service credits to our customers for downtime they experience using our SaaS products. Any downtime or malfunction could require us to issue a significant amount of service credits to customers. Issuing a significant amount of service credits would negatively impact our financial position.

We depend on services from various third parties to maintain our infrastructure and any disruptions to these services, including from causes outside our control, would significantly impact our products and services. In the future, these services may not be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Loss of any of these services could decrease our products’ and/or services’ functionality until we develop equivalent technology or, if equivalent technology is available from another party, we identify, obtain and integrate it into our infrastructure. If we do not accurately predict our infrastructure capacity requirements, our customers could experience service shortfalls. We may also be unable to address capacity constraints, upgrade our systems, and develop our technology and network architecture to accommodate actual and anticipated technology changes.

Any of the above circumstances or events may harm our reputation, cause customers to terminate their agreements with us, impair our ability to grow our customer base, subject us to financial liabilities, and otherwise harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Risks Related to Our Operations and Financial Condition

Our operations will continue to increase in complexity as we grow, which will create management challenges.

Our business has experienced strong growth and is complex. This growth is expected to continue, and our operations will be increasingly complex. To manage this growth, we will make substantial investments to improve our operational, financial, and management controls as well as our reporting systems and procedures. We may not be able to implement and scale improvements to our systems and processes in a timely or efficient manner or in a manner that does not negatively affect our operating results. For example, we may not be able to effectively monitor certain extraordinary contract requirements or individually negotiated provisions as the number of customers continues to grow. Our systems and processes may not prevent or detect all errors, omissions, or fraud. We may have difficulty managing improvements to our systems, processes and controls or in connection with third-party software. This could impair our ability to provide our products and services to our customers, causing us to lose customers, limiting products and services to less significant updates, or increasing technical support costs. If we are unable to manage this complexity, our business, operations, operating results and financial condition may suffer.

As our customer base continues to grow, we will need to expand our services and other personnel and maintain and enhance our partnerships to provide a high level of customer service. Extended stay-at-home, business closure, and other restrictive orders may impact our ability to identify, hire, and train new personnel.

We will also need to manage our sales processes as our sales personnel and partner network continue to grow and become more complex, and as we continue to expand into new geographies and market segments. If we do not effectively manage this increasing complexity, the quality of our platform and customer service could suffer, and we may not be able to adequately address competitive challenges. These factors could impair the ability to attract and retain customers and expand customers’ use of our products and services.

If we fail to maintain or grow our brand recognition, our ability to expand our customer base will be impaired and our financial condition may suffer.

We believe enhancing the AvePoint brand and maintaining our reputation in the information technology industry will be critical for the continued acceptance of our existing and future products and services, attracting new customers to our products and services, and retaining existing customers. The importance of brand recognition will increase as competition in our market increases. Successfully maintaining our brand will depend largely on the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, the ability to provide high-quality, innovative, reliable and useful products and services to meet the needs of our customers at competitive prices, the ability to be responsive to customer concerns and provide high quality customer support, training and professional services, the ability to maintain our customers’ trust, the ability to continue to develop new functionality and products, and the ability to successfully differentiate our products and services.

Additionally, partners’ performance may affect the AvePoint brand and reputation if customers do not have a positive experience. Brand promotion activities may not generate customer awareness or yield increased revenue. Even if they do, any increased revenue may not offset the expenses incurred in building our brand. Furthermore, independent industry analysts may provide reviews of our products and services, as well as other products available in the market, and perception of our products and services in the marketplace may be significantly influenced by these reviews. If these reviews are negative, or less positive than reviews about other products available in the market, the AvePoint brand may be harmed. Furthermore, negative publicity relating to events or activities attributed to employees, partners or others associated with any of these parties, may tarnish our reputation and reduce the value of our brand. Damage to reputation and loss of brand equity may reduce demand for our products and harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Any attempts to rebuild our reputation and restore the value of our brand may be costly and time consuming, and such efforts may not ultimately be successful. If we fail to successfully promote and maintain our brand, we may fail to attract enough new customers or retain existing customers to realize a sufficient return on our brand-building efforts, and our business could suffer.

If we fail to offer high quality support, our business and reputation could suffer.

Our customers have historically relied on our personnel for support related to our products, in particular SaaS products. High-quality support will continue to be important for the renewal and expansion of agreements with our existing customers. The importance of high-quality support will increase as we expand our business and pursue new customers. If we do not help our customers quickly resolve issues and provide effective ongoing support, our ability to sell new products and services to existing and new customers could suffer and our reputation with existing or potential customers could be harmed.

If our products and services do not effectively interoperate with our customers’ existing or future IT infrastructures or do not operate as effectively when accessed through mobile devices, customers may not be satisfied, which could harm our business.

Our success will depend in part on the interoperability of our products and services with third-party operating systems, applications, data, web browsers and devices that hawse have not developed and does not control. Due to the continuing rapid growth of the use of mobile devices in business operations, this also includes third-party mobile devices and mobile operating systems. Any changes in such operating systems, applications, data, web browsers or devices that degrade the functionality of our products and services or give preferential treatment to competitive services could harm the adoption and usage of our products and services. We may not be successful in adapting our products and services to operate effectively with these operating systems, applications, data or devices. Effective mobile functionality is a part of our long-term development and growth strategy. If customers have difficulty accessing and using our products and services (including on mobile devices) or if our products and services cannot connect a broadening range of applications, data and devices, then customer growth and retention may be harmed and our business and operating results could be harmed.

Being a global company may create a variety of operational challenges.

Our international operations will involve a variety of risks, including:

In addition, certain of our customer or resellers may operate in, or have dealings with, countries subject to sanctions or embargos imposed by the U.S. government, foreign governments, or the United Nations or other international organizations. In particular, on February 24, 2022, Russian troops began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and, as of the date hereof, the countries remain in active armed conflict. Around the same time, the U.S., the U.K., the E.U., and several other nations announced a broad array of new or expanded sanctions, export controls, and other measures against Russia, Russian-backed separatist regions in Ukraine, and certain banks, companies, government officials, and other individuals in Russia and Belarus, as well as a number of Russian Oligarchs. The U.S. or other countries could also institute broader sanctions on Russia and others supporting Russia’s economy or military efforts. The ongoing conflict and the rapidly evolving measures in response could be expected to have a negative impact on the economy and business activity globally (including in the countries in which the Company invests), and therefore are expected to result in adverse consequences to the Russian economy and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations. The severity and duration of the conflict and its impact on global economic and market conditions are impossible to predict, and as a result, present material uncertainty and risk with respect to our operations, and our ability to achieve our objectives. Similar risks will exist to the extent that any service providers, vendors or certain other parties have material operations or assets in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, or the immediate surrounding areas. Sanctions could also result in Russia taking counter measures or retaliatory actions which could adversely impact our business or the business of our partners, including, but not limited to, cyberattacks targeting private companies, individuals or other infrastructure upon which our business and the business of our partners may rely.

Any of these risks could harm our international operations, reduce our revenue from outside the United States or increase our operating costs, harming our business, results of operations and financial condition and growth prospects. There can be no assurance that all of our employees, independent contractors and partners will comply with the formal policies we will implement, or applicable laws and regulations. Violations of laws or key control policies by employees, independent contractors and partners could result in delays in revenue recognition, financial reporting misstatements, fines, penalties or the prohibition of the importation or exportation of our software and services and could harm our business and results of operations. If we invest substantial time and resources to expand our international operations and is unable to do so successfully, our business and operating results will suffer.

We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates, which could negatively our revenue and earnings.

We conduct a significant number of transactions and hold cash in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar. Changes in the values of major foreign currencies relative to the U.S. Dollar may significantly affect our total assets, revenue, operating results and cash flows, which are reported in U.S. Dollars.

We may acquire or invest in companies, which may divert management’s attention and result in additional dilution to stockholders. We may be unable to integrate acquired businesses and technologies successfully or achieve the expected benefits of such acquisitions.

We may evaluate and consider potential strategic transactions, including acquisitions of, or investments in, businesses, technologies, services, products, and other assets in the future. An acquisition, investment or business relationship may result in unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. In particular, we may encounter difficulties assimilating or integrating the businesses, technologies, products, personnel, or operations of the acquired companies. Key personnel of the acquired companies may choose not to work for us, their software may not be easily adapted, or we may have difficulty retaining the customers of any acquired business due to changes in ownership, management, or otherwise. We may also experience difficulties integrating personnel of the acquired company into our business and culture. Acquisitions may also disrupt our business, divert our resources and require significant management attention that would otherwise be available for development of our existing business. The anticipated benefits of any acquisition, investment, or business relationship may not be realized or we may be exposed to unknown risks or liabilities.

We intend to continue investing in research and development, and to the extent such research and development investments do not translate into new products or material enhancements to our products, or if we do not use those investments efficiently, our business and results of operations would be harmed.

A key element of our strategy will be to invest significantly in our research and development efforts to develop new products and enhance our existing products to address additional applications and markets. If we do not spend our research and development budget efficiently or effectively on compelling innovation and technologies, our business may be harmed and we may not realize the expected benefits of our strategy. Moreover, research and development projects can be technically challenging and expensive. The nature of these research and development cycles may cause us to experience delays between the time we incur expenses associated with research and development and the time we are able to offer compelling products and generate revenue, if any, from such investment. Additionally, anticipated customer demand for a product or service being developed could decrease after the development cycle has commenced, and we would nonetheless be unable to avoid substantial costs associated with the development of any such product or service. If we expend a significant amount of resources on research and development and our efforts do not lead to the successful introduction or improvement of products that are competitive in our current or future markets, it would harm our business and results of operations.

If our products and services fail to perform properly, or if we fail to develop enhancements to resolve performance issues, we could lose customers, become subject to performance or warranty claims, or incur significant costs.

Our operations will be dependent upon our ability to prevent system interruption. The applications underlying our products and services are inherently complex and may contain material defects or errors, which may cause disruptions in availability or other performance problems. Also, our software will be installed and used in a variety of computing environments with different operating system management software, and equipment and networking configurations, which may cause errors or failures of our software or other aspects of the computing environment into which it is deployed. In addition, deployment of our software into computing environments may expose undetected errors, compatibility issues, failures or bugs in our software. While we have not historically experienced any defects, errors, disruptions in service, cyber-attacks, or other performance problems with our software that materially influenced our sales performance, there is no assurance that such defects, problems or events will not occur in the future, whether in connection with the day-to-day operation, upgrades or otherwise. Any of these occurrences could result in loss of customers, lost or delayed market acceptance and sales of our products and services, delays in payment by customers, injury to our reputation and brand, legal claims, including warranty and service claims, diversion of resources, including through increased service and warranty expenses or financial concessions, and increased insurance costs.

We may discover defects in our products and services that could result in data unavailability, unauthorized access, loss, corruption, or other harm to our customers’ data. Despite testing we may not be able to detect and correct defects or errors before release. Consequently, we or our customers may discover defects or errors after our products and services have been deployed. We expect to implement bug fixes and upgrades as part of our regularly scheduled system maintenance. If we do not complete this maintenance according to schedule or if customers are otherwise dissatisfied with the frequency and/or duration of our maintenance services and related system outages, customers could terminate their contracts, delay or withhold payment, or cause us to issue credits, make refunds, or pay penalties. The costs incurred or delays resulting from the correction of defects or errors in our software or other performance problems may be substantial and could harm our operating results. Moreover, customers could incorrectly implement or inadvertently misuse our software, which could result in customer dissatisfaction and adversely impact the perceived utility of our products as well as our brand. Any of these real or perceived errors, compatibility issues, failures or bugs in our software could result in negative publicity, reputational harm, loss of or delay in market acceptance, loss of competitive position or claims by customers for losses sustained by them. In such an event, we may be required, or may choose, for customer relations or other reasons, to expend additional resources in order to help correct the problem.

Our ability to timely raise capital in the future may be limited, or may be unavailable on acceptable terms, if at all. The failure to raise capital when needed could harm our business, operating results and financial condition. Debt or equity issued to raise additional capital may reduce the value of our Common Stock.

We cannot be certain when or if the operations of our business will generate sufficient cash to fund our ongoing operations or the growth of our business. We intend to make investments to support our current business and may require additional funds to respond to business challenges, including the need to develop new features or enhance our software, improve our operating infrastructure or acquire complementary businesses and technologies. 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 harm our business, operating results and financial condition. If we incur debt, the debt holders could have rights senior to holders of our Common Stock to make claims on our assets. The terms of any debt could restrict our operations, including our ability to pay dividends on our Common Stock. If we issue additional equity securities, stockholders will experience dilution, and the new equity securities could have rights senior to those of our Common Stock. Because the decision to issue securities in the future offering will depend on numerous considerations, including factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing or nature of any future issuances of debt or equity securities. As a result, stockholders will bear the risk of future issuances of debt or equity securities reducing the value of their Common Stock and diluting their interest.

Risks Related to Data Privacy and Cybersecurity

To the extent our security measures are compromised, our products and services may be perceived as not being secure. This may result in customers curtailing or ceasing their use of our products and services, our reputation being harmed, the incurrence of significant liabilities, and harm to our results of operations and growth prospects.

Our operations may, in some cases, involve the storage, transmission and other processing of customer data or information. Cyberattacks and other malicious internet-based activity continue to increase, and cloud-based platform providers of services are expected to continue to be targeted. Threats include traditional computer “hackers,” malicious code (such as viruses and worms), phishing attacks, employee theft or misuse and denial-of-service attacks. Sophisticated nation-states and nation-state supported actors now engage in such attacks, including advanced persistent threat intrusions. The growth in state sponsored cyber activity, including the increased rate of cyberattacks arising from the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the risk that these cyberattacks could spread globally, showcases the increasing sophistication of cyber threats and could dramatically expand the global threat landscape. While no single company can thwart a nation state attack, we work to implement and continuously improve security-aware software development, operational management, and threat-mitigation practices that are essential to the strong protection of services and data. AvePoint has decades-long experience building enterprise software and running online services around the world. We implement a robust defense-in-depth security strategy based on the principle of “assume breach.” We work to continuously strengthen threat detection, response, and defense, conduct continuous security monitoring, and practice security incident response to validate and improve the security of our software and services. Rigorous third-party audits verify that we adhere to strict security controls such as the ones contained in the ISO/IEC 27001 standard mandate. We are audited once a year for ISO/IEC 27001 compliance by a third-party accredited certification body, which provides independent validation that security controls are in place and operating effectively.

We have security measures in place designed to protect us and our customers’ confidential and sensitive information and prevent data loss, but such measures cannot provide absolute security and may not be effective to prevent a security breach, including as a result of employee error, theft, misuse or malfeasance, third-party actions, unintentional events or deliberate attacks by cyber criminals, any of which may result in someone obtaining unauthorized access to our customers’ data, our data, our intellectual property and/or other confidential or sensitive business information. Importantly, the scope of our internal information controls and security measures is limited to the scope of our information security management system (“ISMS”). All of the legal entities (and each of their respective employees) within our global corporate structure are contractually bound to the ISMS, but failure by any of our subsidiaries or affiliates (or employees thereof) to abide by the terms and conditions imposed by our ISMS could result in increased vulnerabilities, decreased integrity of our assets, and ultimately, liability, loss of business, and loss of customer confidence.

The ISMS applies to the use of information, network resources, and electronic and computing devices to conduct business or interact with internal networks and business systems, whether owned or leased by us, our employees, or a third party. All employees, contractors, consultants, as well as our affiliates and subsidiaries are responsible for exercising good judgment regarding appropriate use of information, electronic devices, and network resources in accordance with the ISMS, as well as local laws and regulation. While we have policies and procedures to address global compliance with the ISMS, our employees and agents could violate these policies and applicable law, for which we may be ultimately held responsible. We are taking further steps to assess globally managed departmental systems to ensure ISMS standards are maintained. Based on the results of that analysis, if, as, and when necessary, we will subsequently implement a remediation plan that will include tools, training, and education to ensure (A) repeatable procedures are being implemented that protect the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of assets from threats and vulnerabilities in accordance with the ISMA standards and protocols, and (B) that vulnerability testing is being performed, measured, and documented across our global operations landscape.

Outside of the ISMS and the internal security measures and data protections we have developed (and continue to improve), third parties may attempt to fraudulently induce employees, contractors or users to disclose information, including user names and passwords, to gain access to our customers’ data, our data or other confidential or sensitive information, and we may be the target of email scams that attempt to acquire personal information or our assets. Because techniques used to sabotage or obtain unauthorized access to systems change frequently and generally are not recognized until successfully launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques, react in a timely manner or implement adequate preventative measures. We devote significant financial and personnel resources to implement and maintain security measures; however, such resources may not be sufficient, and as cyber-security threats develop, evolve and grow more complex over time, it may be necessary to make significant further investments to protect our data and infrastructure. If our security measures are compromised as a result of third-party action, employee or customer error, malfeasance, stolen or fraudulently obtained log-in credentials, or otherwise, our reputation and business could be damaged and we could incur significant liability. As we rely on third-party and public-cloud infrastructure, it depends in part on third-party security measures to protect against unauthorized access, cyberattacks, and the mishandling of customer data. A cybersecurity event could have significant costs, including regulatory enforcement actions, litigation, litigation indemnity obligations, remediation costs, network downtime, increases in insurance premiums, and reputational damage. Many companies that provide cloud-based services have reported a significant increase in cyberattack activity since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. These risks, as well as the number and frequency of cybersecurity events globally, may also be heightened during times of geopolitical tension or instability between countries, including, for example, the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, from which a number of recent cybersecurity events have been alleged to have originated.

We store confidential company information and sensitive data, including personal information of our customers and employees, which may in turn contain third-party personal or other confidential information. If the security of this information is compromised or is otherwise accessed without authorization, our reputation may be harmed, and we may be exposed to liability and loss of business.

We may in some cases transmit or store personal and other confidential information of our partners, customers, and third parties (e.g. if the customer uses our products to create backups of their information) on storage space owned or provided by us. While we have in the past taken, and intend to take, steps to protect personal information and other confidential information that we have access to, including information we may obtain through our customer support services or customer usage of our products, we will not proactively monitor (or may not even be able to access) the content that our customers upload or process otherwise or the information provided to us through the use of our products and services. Therefore, we will not control the substance of the content on our storage space owned or provided by us, which may include personal or other confidential information.

We will also use third-party service providers and sub-processors to help us deliver services to our customers. Such service providers and sub-processors may store personal information and/or other confidential information. Such information may be the target of unauthorized access or subject to security breaches as a result of third-party action, employee error, malfeasance or otherwise. Many companies that provide these services have reported a significant increase in cyberattack activity since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Any of these could result in the loss of information, litigation, indemnity obligations, damage to our reputation and other liability or harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not identified until they are launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. Even if such a data breach did not arise out of our action or inaction, or if it were to affect one or more of our competitors or customers’ competitors, rather than us, the resulting concern could negatively affect our customers and our business. Concerns regarding data privacy and security may cause some customers to stop using our products and services and fail to renew their subscriptions. In addition, failures to meet our customers’ expectations with respect to security and confidentiality of their data and information could damage our reputation and affect our ability to retain customers, attract new customers, and grow our business.

Our potential failure to comply with legal or contractual requirements around the security of personal information could lead to significant fines and penalties, as well as claims by customers, affected data subjects, or other stakeholders. These proceedings or violations could force us to spend money in defense or settlement of these proceedings, result in the imposition of monetary liability or injunctive relief, divert management’s time and attention, increase our costs of doing business, and harm our reputation and the demand for our platform. If credit card information is stored in our systems or transmitted, stored or otherwise processed via our products and services and our security measures fail to protect credit card information adequately, we could be liable to our partners, the payment card associations, our customers or affected credit card holders. We could be subject to fines and face regulatory or other legal action, and our customers could end their relationships with us. The limitations of liability in our contracts may not be enforceable or adequate or would otherwise protect us from any such liabilities or damages with respect to any particular claim.

Insurers could deny coverage as to any future claim. We seek to cap the liability to which we are exposed in the event of losses or harm to our customers, including those resulting from security incidents, but we cannot be certain that we will obtain these caps or that these caps, if obtained, will be enforced in all instances. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us, or changes in insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Furthermore, the cybersecurity insurance we maintain may be inadequate or may not be available in the future on acceptable terms, or at all. In addition, our policy may not cover our remediation expenses or any claim against us for loss of data or other indirect or consequential damages. Defending any suit based on or related to any data loss or system disruption, regardless of its merit and available insurance coverage, could be costly and divert management’s attention.

We will also be subject to federal, state, and foreign laws regarding cybersecurity and the protection of data. Many jurisdictions have enacted laws requiring companies to notify individuals of security breaches involving certain types of personal information. Our agreements with certain customers and partners will require us to notify them of certain security incidents. Some jurisdictions and customers require us to safeguard personal information or confidential information using specific measures. If we fail to observe these requirements, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be harmed.

Successful cyberattacks or data breaches at other technology companies, service providers, retailers, and other participants within our industry, whether or not we are impacted, could lead to a general loss of customer confidence that could negatively affect us, including harming the market perception of the effectiveness of our security measures, which could result in reduced use of our products and services.

Our industry is prone to cyber-attacks by third parties seeking unauthorized access to our data or users’ data or to disrupt our and our counterparts’ within the industry respective ability to provide service. Our products and services (and those of our partners and competitors within the industry) involve the collection, storage, processing, and transmission of a large amount of data. Any failure by those institutions and participants in our industry to prevent or mitigate security breaches and improper access to or disclosure of data or user data, including personal information, content, or payment information from users, or information from marketers, could result in the loss, modification, disclosure, destruction, or other misuse of such data, which could indirectly harm our business and reputation and diminish our competitive position within the market generally. In addition, computer malware, viruses, social engineering (such as spear phishing attacks), scraping, and general hacking continue to be prevalent in our industry, and while we anticipate that such events may occur on our systems in the future, the impact on those within our industry has already adversely impacted the market’s perception of the effectiveness of our and our partners’ security measures and countermeasures. Such breaches and attacks on our counterparts within the industry and within our market may cause, among other things, interruptions to the provision of service, degradation of the user experience, the loss of user confidence and trust in our products, or result in financial harm to us.

Risks Related to Intellectual Property

We will rely on third-party proprietary and open source software for our products and services. The inability to obtain third-party licenses for such software, obtain them on favorable terms, or adhere to the license terms for such software or any errors or failures caused by such software could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Some of our offerings will include software or other intellectual property licensed from third parties. It may be necessary in the future to renew licenses relating to various aspects of these applications or to seek new licenses for existing or new applications. Necessary licenses may not be available on acceptable terms or under open source licenses permitting redistribution in commercial offerings, if at all. The inability to obtain certain licenses or other rights or to obtain such licenses or rights on favorable terms could result in delays in product releases until equivalent technology can be identified, licensed or developed, if at all, and integrated into our products and services, which could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Third parties may allege that additional licenses are required for our use of their software or intellectual property, which it may be unable to obtain on commercially reasonable terms or at all. The inclusion in our offerings of software or other intellectual property licensed from third parties on a non-exclusive basis could limit our ability to differentiate our offerings from those of our competitors. Failure to properly adhere to the license terms for software or other intellectual property might have negative effects, such as revocation of the license grant, penalties, added license fees or other liabilities. To the extent that our products and services depend upon the successful operation of third-party software, any undetected errors or defects in such third-party software could impair the functionality of our products and services, delay new feature introductions, result in a failure of products and services, and injure our reputation.

A significant portion of our products will incorporate open source software, and we expect to incorporate open source software into other offerings or products in the future. Such open source software is generally licensed by its authors or other third parties under open source licenses. Little legal precedent governs the interpretation of these licenses; therefore, the potential impact of these terms on our business is unknown and may result in unanticipated obligations regarding our technologies. If a distributor of open source software were to allege that we had not complied with our license, we could be required to incur significant legal expenses. In addition, if the license terms for the open source code change we may be forced to re-engineer our software or incur additional costs. If we combine our proprietary software with open source software or utilizes open source software in a certain manner, under some open source licenses, we could be in breach of the license if we did not release the source code of our proprietary software. Releasing the source code could substantially help competitors develop products that are similar to or better than ours and could help malevolent actors detect security weaknesses to develop and deploy attacks, including malware, against our products and systems.

If we are unable to protect our intellectual property, the value of our brands and other intangible assets may be diminished, and our business may be adversely affected.

We rely and expect to continue to rely on a combination of confidentiality, assignment, and license agreements with our employees, consultants, and third parties with whom we have relationships, as well as trademark, copyright, patent, trade secret, and domain name protection laws, to protect our proprietary rights. Third parties may knowingly or unknowingly infringe our proprietary rights, third parties may challenge proprietary rights held by us, and pending and future trademark and patent applications may not be approved. In addition, effective intellectual property protection may not be available in every country in which we operate or intend to operate our business. In any or all of these cases, we may be required to expend significant time and expense in order to prevent infringement or to enforce our rights. Although we have generally taken measures to protect our proprietary rights, there can be no assurance that others will not offer products or concepts that are substantially similar to ours and compete with our business.

Risks Related to Our Common Stock and Investment in Our Securities.

The market price of shares of our Common Stock may be volatile, which could cause the value of your investment to decline.

The market price of our Common Stock may be highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations. Securities markets worldwide experience significant price and volume fluctuations. For example, the securities markets experienced significant volatility as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Market volatility, as well as general economic, market, or political conditions, could reduce the market price of shares of our Common Stock regardless of our operating performance. Our operating results could be below the expectations of public market analysts and investors due to a number of potential factors, including: (1) variations in quarterly operating results or dividends, if any, to stockholders, (2) additions or departures of key management personnel, (3) publication of research reports about our industry, (4) litigation and government investigations, (5) changes or proposed changes in laws or regulations or differing interpretations or enforcement of laws or regulations affecting our business, (6) adverse market reaction to any indebtedness incurred or securities issued in the future, (7) changes in market valuations of similar companies, (8) adverse publicity or speculation in the press or investment community, (9) announcements by competitors of significant contracts, acquisitions, dispositions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures, or capital commitments and (10) the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our management, employees, partners, customers, and operating results. In response, the market price of shares of our Common Stock could decrease significantly. You may be unable to resell your shares of our Common Stock at or above your purchase price. Following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against such company. Such litigation, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs and a diversion of management’s attention and resources.

A small number of stockholders have substantial control over us, which may limit other stockholders’ ability to influence corporate matters and delay or prevent a third party from acquiring control over us.

Our directors and executive officers and their respective affiliates beneficially own, in the aggregate, approximately 26% of our outstanding Common Stock. This significant concentration of ownership may have a negative impact on the trading price for our Common Stock because investors often perceive disadvantages in owning stock in companies with controlling stockholders. In addition, these stockholders will be able to exercise influence over all matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors and approval of corporate transactions, such as a merger or other sale of us or our assets. This concentration of ownership could limit stockholders’ ability to influence corporate matters and may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control, including a merger, consolidation or other business combination, or discouraging a potential acquirer from making a tender offer or otherwise attempting to obtain control, even if that change in control would benefit the other stockholders.

If our operating and financial performance in any given period does not meet the guidance provided to the public or the expectations of investment analysts, the market price of our Common Stock may decline.

We provide public guidance on our expected operating and financial results for future periods. This guidance consists of forward-looking statements, subject to the risks and uncertainties described in this Prospectus and in our other public filings and public statements. Our actual results may not always be in line with or exceed any guidance we have provided, especially in times of economic uncertainty. If, in the future, our operating or financial results for a particular period do not meet any guidance provided or the expectations of investment analysts, or if we reduce our guidance for future periods, the market price of our Common Stock may decline as well. Even if we do issue public guidance, there can be no assurance that we will continue to do so in the future.

We have incurred (and will continue to incur) significant increased expenses and administrative burdens as a public company, which could negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“Sarbanes-Oxley”), including the requirements of Section 404, as well as rules and regulations subsequently implemented by the SEC, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and the rules and regulations promulgated and to be promulgated thereunder, the PCAOB and the securities exchanges, impose additional reporting and other obligations on public companies. Compliance with public company requirements has, and will continue to, increase costs and make certain activities more time-consuming. A number of those requirements will require us to carry out activities in which we did not engage as a private company.

For example, we have created new board committees and adopted new internal controls and disclosure controls and procedures. In addition, expenses associated with SEC reporting requirements have been and will continue to be incurred. Furthermore, if any issues in complying with those requirements are identified (for example, the material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting identified in this Prospectus), we could incur additional costs rectifying those issues, and the existence of those issues could harm our reputation or investor perceptions of us. It may also be more expensive to obtain director and officer liability insurance.

Risks associated with our status as a public company may make it more difficult to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors or as executive officers. The additional reporting and other obligations imposed by these rules and regulations will increase legal and financial compliance costs and the costs of related legal, accounting, and administrative activities. These increased costs will require the us to divert a significant amount of money that could otherwise be used to expand our business and achieve strategic objectives. Advocacy efforts by stockholders and third parties may also prompt additional changes in governance and reporting requirements, which could further increase costs.

Our management has identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting and we may identify additional material weaknesses in the future or otherwise fail to maintain an effective system of internal controls, which may result in material misstatements of our financial statements or cause us to fail to meet our periodic reporting obligations.

As a public company, our management is required to maintain internal control over financial reporting and to report any material weaknesses in such internal control. A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. Based on an evaluation of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of December 31, 2022, we determined that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of that date due to the material weaknesses that were initially identified in fiscal year 2020 and that continued to exist as of March 31, 2023. We determined that we had material weaknesses in internal control because we did not maintain effective controls related to: (i) the completeness and accuracy of financial accounting, reporting and disclosures, (ii) the identification, review and accounting for nonroutine transactions and/or events and (iii) segregation of duties with respect to the processing of financial transactions. With the oversight of senior management and our audit committee, we implemented actions under a remediation plan which include (A) the hiring of personnel with technical accounting and financial reporting experience to further bolster our ability to assess judgmental areas of accounting and provide an appropriate level of oversight of activities related to internal control over financial reporting and (B) the engagement of external consultants in the assistance of the evaluation of complex accounting matters. We are implementing additional actions under a remediation plan which include, but are not limited to, (I) the implementation of improved accounting and financial reporting procedures and controls to improve the completeness and accuracy of our financial accounting, reporting and disclosures and (II) the establishment of formalized internal controls to review and maintain segregation of duties between control operators. We have continued the implementation of this plan and believe the measures described above will remediate the material weaknesses identified and strengthen our internal control over financial reporting. We are committed to continuing to improve our internal control processes and will continue to diligently and vigorously review our financial reporting controls and procedures.

While we continue to implement our plan to remediate the material weaknesses described above, we cannot predict the success of such plan or the outcome of our assessment of these plans at this time. If our steps are insufficient to remediate the material weaknesses successfully and otherwise establish and maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting, the reliability of our financial reporting, investor confidence in us, and the value of our Common Stock could be materially and adversely affected. We can give no assurance that the implementation of this plan will remediate these deficiencies in internal control or that additional material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting will not be identified in the future. Our failure to implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting could result in errors in our financial statements that could result in a restatement of our financial statements, causing us to fail to meet our reporting obligations.

As a public company, we are obligated to develop and maintain proper and effective internal control over financial reporting in order to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We may not complete our analysis of our internal control over financial reporting in a timely manner, these internal controls may not be determined to be effective, and our independent registered public accounting firm may issue an adverse opinion, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and, as a result, the value of our Common Stock.

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting. Internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements in accordance with GAAP. We are in the very early stages of the costly and challenging process of compiling the system and processing documentation necessary to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley. In addition to our remediation efforts described above under the heading “Our management has identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting and we may identify additional material weaknesses in the future or otherwise fail to maintain an effective system of internal controls, which may result in material misstatements of our financial statements or cause us to fail to meet our periodic reporting obligations,” we may need to undertake various costly and time-consuming actions, such as implementing new internal controls and procedures and hiring accounting or internal audit staff, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. We may not be able to complete our evaluation, testing and any required remediation in a timely manner. If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which would cause the price of our Common Stock to decline, and we may be subject to investigation or sanctions by the SEC.

Additionally, the existence of any material weakness, including our existing material weaknesses identified by management previously, or significant deficiency requires management to devote significant time and incur significant expense to remediate any such material weaknesses or significant deficiencies and management may not be able to remediate any such material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in a timely manner. The existence of any material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting could also result in errors in our financial statements that could require us to restate our financial statements, cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations and cause shareholders to lose confidence in our reported financial information, all of which could materially and adversely affect our business and stock price.

We have no current plans to pay cash dividends on our Common Stock; as a result, stockholders may not receive any return on investment unless they sell their Common Stock for a price greater than the purchase price.

We have no current plans to pay dividends on our Common Stock. Any future determination to pay dividends will be made at the discretion of our board of directors, subject to applicable laws. It will depend on a number of factors, including our financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, contractual, legal, tax and regulatory restrictions, general business conditions, and other factors that the board of directors may deem relevant. In addition, the ability to pay cash dividends may be restricted by the terms of debt financing arrangements, as any future debt financing arrangement likely will contain terms restricting or limiting the amount of dividends that may be declared or paid on our Common Stock. As a result, stockholders may not receive any return on an investment in our Common Stock unless they sell their shares for a price greater than that which they paid for them.

We may issue additional shares of Common Stock or other equity securities without your approval, which would dilute your ownership interests and may depress the market price of our Common Stock.

We have warrants outstanding to purchase an aggregate of 17,905,000 shares of Common Stock. Pursuant to the 2021 Plan, we may issue an aggregate of up to 30,273,164 shares of Common Stock, which amount may be subject to increase from time to time. We may also issue additional shares of Common Stock or other equity securities of equal or senior rank in the future in connection with, among other things, future acquisitions or repayment of outstanding indebtedness, without stockholder approval, in a number of circumstances.

The issuance of additional shares or other equity securities of equal or senior rank would have the following effects:

Provisions in our organizational documents and certain rules imposed by regulatory authorities may delay or prevent an acquisition by a third party that could otherwise be in the interests of stockholders.

Our certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain several provisions that may make it more difficult or expensive for a third party to acquire control of us without the approval of the board of directors. These provisions, which may delay, prevent or deter a merger, acquisition, tender offer, proxy contest, or other transaction that stockholders may consider favorable, include the following:

These provisions of our certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws could discourage potential takeover attempts and reduce the price that investors might be willing to pay for shares of our Common Stock in the future, which could reduce the market price of our Common Stock.

The provision of our certificate of incorporation requiring exclusive venue in the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware and the federal district courts of the United States for certain types of lawsuits may have the effect of discouraging lawsuits against directors and officers.

Our certificate of incorporation provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware shall be the sole and exclusive forum for: (1) any derivative action or proceeding brought on behalf of us, (2) any action asserting a claim of breach of fiduciary duty owed by any director, officer, agent or other employee or stockholder to us or our stockholders, (3) any action asserting a claim arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL, the Certificate of Incorporation or the amended and restated bylaws or as to which the DGCL confers jurisdiction on the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, (4) any claim or cause of action seeking to interpret, apply, enforce or determine the validity of the Certificate of Incorporation or the amended and restated bylaws or (5) any action asserting a claim governed by the internal affairs doctrine, in each case subject to such Court of Chancery having personal jurisdiction over the indispensable parties named as defendants therein. It further provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the federal district courts of the United States of America shall, to the fullest extent permitted by law, be the sole and exclusive forum for the resolutions of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act. The exclusive forum clauses described above shall not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Exchange Act, or any other claim for which the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction. Although these provisions are expected to benefit us by providing increased consistency in the application of applicable law in the types of lawsuits to which they apply, the provisions may have the effect of discouraging lawsuits against directors and officers. The enforceability of similar choice of forum provisions in other companies’ certificates of incorporation have been challenged in legal proceedings and there is uncertainty as to whether a court would enforce such provisions. In addition, investors cannot waive compliance with the federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder. It is possible that, in connection with any applicable action brought against us, a court could find the choice of forum provisions contained in our certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in such action. If so, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our business, financial condition or results of operations.

MARKET AND INDUSTRY DATA

Certain industry data and market data included in this Prospectus were obtained from independent third-party surveys, market research, publicly available information, reports of governmental agencies and industry publications and surveys. All of management’s estimates presented herein are based upon management’s review of independent third-party surveys and industry publications prepared by a number of sources and other publicly available information. All of the market data used in this Prospectus involves a number of assumptions and limitations, and you are cautioned not to give undue weight to such estimates. We believe that the information from these industry publications and surveys included in this Prospectus is reliable. The industry in which we operate is subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to a variety of factors, including those described in the section titled “Risk Factors.” These and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates made by the independent parties and by us.

USE OF PROCEEDS

All of the shares of Common Stock and Warrants offered by the selling securityholders pursuant to this Prospectus will be sold by the selling securityholders for their respective accounts. We will not receive any of the proceeds from these sales.

We will receive up to an aggregate of approximately $205.9 million from the exercise of the Warrants, assuming the exercise in full of all of the Warrants for cash. We expect to use the net proceeds from the exercise of the Warrants for general corporate purposes, including to fund potential future investments and acquisitions of companies that we believe are complementary to our business and consistent with our growth strategy. We will have broad discretion over the use of proceeds from the exercise of the Warrants. There is no assurance that the holders of the Warrants will elect to exercise any or all of such Warrants. To the extent that the Warrants are exercised on a “cashless basis,” the amount of cash we would receive from the exercise of the Warrants will decrease.

DETERMINATION OF OFFERING PRICE

The offering price of the shares of Common Stock underlying the Warrants offered hereby is determined by reference to the exercise price of the Warrants of $11.50 per share. The Public Warrants are listed on Nasdaq under the symbol “AVPTW.”

We cannot currently determine the price or prices at which shares of Common Stock or Warrants may be sold by the selling securityholders under this Prospectus.

MARKET INFORMATION FOR SECURITIES AND DIVIDEND POLICY

Market Information

Our Common Stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (the “Nasdaq”) under the symbol “AVPT,” and our Public Warrants began trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol “AVPTW” on July 2, 2021. Prior to the consummation of the Business Combination on July 1, 2021, Apex Units, Apex Public Shares, and Apex Public Warrants were each traded on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbols “APXTU,” “APXT,” and “APXTW,” respectively. Apex Units commenced public trading on September 17, 2019, and Apex’s Public Shares and Apex's Public Warrants commenced separate public trading on November 5, 2019. In connection with the closing of the Business Combination, each Apex Unit was separated into its components, which consisted of one share of Class A Common Stock and one-half of one Warrant, and such Units no longer exist. 

Current Stockholder and Common Stock Information

On May 31, 2023, there were 192,268,859 shares of Common Stock issued and outstanding held of record by 21 holders, and 17,905,000 Warrants outstanding held of record by two holders. This figure does not include a substantially greater number of beneficial holders of our Common Stock and Public Warrants whose shares (or Warrants to purchase shares) are held by banks, brokers, and other financial institutions.

Dividend Policy

We have never declared or paid any dividends on shares of our Common Stock. We currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings to fund the development and growth of our business and, therefore, we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Any future determination to pay dividends is at the discretion of our Board, subject to compliance with covenants in current and future agreements governing our and our subsidiaries’ indebtedness, and will depend on our results of operations, financial condition, capital requirements, and other factors that our Board may deem relevant. Except as noted in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” below, there are currently no contractual restrictions on our ability to pay dividends in cash or shares.

Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans

See “Equity Compensation Plan Information” for more information.

MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

The following Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations (“MD&A”) summarizes the significant factors affecting the consolidated operating results, financial condition, liquidity and cash flows of our Company as of and for the periods presented below. The MD&A should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this Prospectus. Additionally, refer to “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, for Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations for the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the year ended December 31, 2020, which we filed with the SEC on March 31, 2022.

First Quarter 2023 Business Highlights

Full Year 2022 Business Highlights

Overview

AvePoint provides a cloud-native platform that organizations rely on to optimize IT operations, manage critical data and secure the digital workplace. As companies around the world embrace the new normal of hybrid work, they must build and deliver a new, seamless workplace experience for knowledge workers, centered around an extensive portfolio of SaaS solutions and productivity applications aimed at improving collaboration across the organization.

The adoption of this portfolio of solutions – what has been generally described as the “digital transformation” – is a substantial and ongoing challenge for most organizations, which for decades had previously relied upon only a small number of multi-purpose on-premises applications to drive business outcomes. However, to build and deliver an efficient digital workplace today, companies must address this abundance of applications and the associated explosive growth and sprawl of data with a platform offering that is well governed, fit for purpose, easy to use and built on automation.

AvePoint’s Confidence Platform empowers organizations – of all sizes, in all regions, and across all industries – to optimize and secure the solutions that most commonly establish and underpin the digital workplace. As our customers seek to rapidly reduce costs, improve productivity and make more informed business decisions, they depend on our platform for data-driven insights, critical business intelligence and ongoing operational value through automation.

The 2021 Business Combination

On November 23, 2020, Legacy AvePoint and the members of the Apex Group entered into the Business Combination Agreement, and following a series of subsequent mergers, on July 26, 2021, we became the successor to an SEC-registered and Nasdaq-listed company. See “Prospectus Summary — Background” for more information.

Key Business Metrics

Our management reviews the following key business metrics to measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate business plans, make strategic decisions, and effectively allocate resources. We disclose key business metrics within this MD&A section and elsewhere in this Prospectus to enable investors to evaluate progress against our growth strategies, provide transparency into performance trends, and reflect the continued evolution of our products and services. Our key business metrics are fundamentally interconnected and indicative of how customers use our products and services. However, increases or decreases in our key business metrics may not correspond with increases or decreases in our revenue. Our key business metrics are further discussed in the section titled “Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.”

Comparison of Three Months Ended March 31, 2023 and March 31, 2022

The following chart illustrates certain of our key business metrics for the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022:

Annual Recurring Revenue

We calculate our ARR at the end of a particular period as the annualized sum of contractually obligated Annual Contract Value (“ACV”) from SaaS, term license and support, and maintenance revenue sources from all active customers.

For the three months ended March 31, 2023 and March 31, 2022, total ARR was $222.4 million and $177.2 million, respectively, representing growth of 26%. Growth in ARR is driven by both new business and the expansion of existing business.

We believe ARR is indicative of growth in recurring revenue streams, leading to higher revenue growth in future periods. ARR should be viewed independently of revenue and deferred revenue and is not intended to be combined with, or to replace, either of those items. ARR is not a forecast and the active contracts at the end of a reporting period used in calculating ARR may or may not be extended or renewed by our customers.

Beginning in 2023, the Company is including its migration products in the calculation of ARR. Prior periods have also been restated to include migration products.

Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021

The following chart illustrates certain of our key business metrics for the years ended December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021:

(1) For 2022 and 2021, ARR from the migration products was excluded and totaled $13.0 million and $8.0 million, respectively.

(2) On an FX adjusted basis, Core TTM Dollar-Based Net Retention Rate (as defined below) was 108% and 109% for 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Annual Recurring Revenue

As of December 31, 2022, and December 31, 2021, total ARR was $201.7 million and $159.2 million, respectively, representing growth of 27%. Growth in ARR is driven by both new business and the expansion of existing business.

Core TTM Dollar-Based Net Retention Rate

We use a trailing twelve months ("TTM") dollar-based net retention rate to evaluate our ability to expand our revenue with our Core customer base, which are those with a contract duration exceeding three months.

“Core TTM Dollar-Based Net Retention Rate” as of a period end is calculated by starting with the ARR from the cohort of all Core customers as of 12 months prior to such period end (the “Prior Period ARR”). We then calculate the ARR from these same Core customers as of the current period end (the “Current Period ARR”). Current Period ARR includes any expansion and is net of contraction or attrition over the last 12 months but excludes ARR from new customers in the current period. We then divide the total Current Period ARR by the total Prior Period ARR to arrive at the Core TTM Dollar-Based Net Retention Rate.

Beginning in 2023, the Company started reporting this metric for its entire base of customers. For 2022 and 2021, this metric was 103% and 110%, respectively.

Components of Results of Operations

Results of Operations

Comparison of Three Months Ended March 31, 2023 and March 31, 2022

The following table summarizes our historical consolidated statement of operations data for the three months period ended March 31, 2023 and 2022. The period-to-period comparison of operating results is not necessarily of results for future periods. 

(1)         Stock-based compensation for the periods was included in the following line items:

Revenue

The components of AvePoint's revenue during the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

Total revenue increased 18.5% to $59.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023, primarily as a result of an increase in SaaS revenue. For the three months ended March 31, 2023, SaaS revenue increased 33.7% to $35.5 million, as we saw strong customer demand for this offering. For the three months ended March, 31, 2023, SaaS revenues represented 60% of total revenue, up from 53% of total revenue in the prior year.

These increases were partially offset by a decrease in maintenance revenue, which decreased 26.1% to $3.4 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023. 

Services revenue is expected to fluctuate as the offerings are not inherently recurring in nature. Additionally, maintenance revenue is expected to continue declining as we have shifted away from the sale of perpetual licenses and towards SaaS and term licenses. Without perpetual license sales, there will be limited opportunities to sell maintenance contracts to new customers. Existing customers have and will continue to transition to SaaS and term licenses, which will continue the decline in maintenance revenue. Term license revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022 includes $5.9 million and $6.2 million of revenue recognized at a point of time, respectively.

For the three months ended March 31, 2023, total revenue increased 23% year over year on a constant currency basis. Within total revenue, SaaS revenue increased 39% year over year on a constant currency basis.

Revenue by geographic region for the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022 was as follows:

From the three months ended March 31, 2023, North America revenue increased 12.6% to $24.4 million, driven by a 32%, or $3.9 million increase in SaaS revenue, partially offset by a $1.2 million combined decrease in term license and support, services, and maintenance revenues. EMEA revenues increased 27.0% to $19.5 million, driven by a combined 36%, or $4.4 million increase in SaaS and term license and support revenue, partially offset by a $0.4 million decrease in maintenance revenue. APAC revenues increased 18.2% to $15.6 million, driven by a 42%, or $2.0 million increase in SaaS revenue and an $0.8 million increase in services revenue, partially offset by a $0.4 million combined decrease in term license and support and maintenance revenue.

For the three months ended March 31, 2023, North America revenue increased 13% with little to no impact when viewed on a constant currency basis. Revenue for EMEA increased 35% and revenue for APAC increased 25% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. For the three months ended March 31, 2023, North America SaaS revenue increased 33% on a constant currency basis, EMEA SaaS revenue increased 39% on a constant currency basis, and APAC SaaS revenue increased 53% on a constant currency basis.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to our financial results determined in accordance with GAAP, we disclosed non-GAAP cost of revenue, non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP sales and marketing expense, non-GAAP general and administrative expense and non-GAAP research and development expense.

We believe these non-GAAP measures aid investors by providing additional insight into our operational performance and help clarify trends affecting our business. Management uses these non-GAAP financial measures to understand and compare operating results across accounting periods, for internal budgeting and forecasting purposes, and to evaluate financial performance.

Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as an alternative to performance measures derived in accordance with GAAP as measures of performance. Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP.

Cost of Revenue, Gross Profit, and Gross Margin

Cost of revenue, gross profit, and gross margin during the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

Cost of revenue increased 21.1% to $17.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023, primarily driven by a $2.0 million increase from higher aggregate hosting costs resulting from increased SaaS revenue, and $0.9 million related to higher personnel costs.

Operating Expenses

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses during the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

Sales and marketing expenses decreased 1.3% to $26.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023. The decrease was driven by a $0.6 million decrease in third party marketing spend, partially offset by higher commissions related to increased bookings throughout the prior year.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses during the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

General and administrative expenses decreased 6.1% to $14.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023. The decrease was attributed to a $0.5 million decrease in professional service costs mainly related to the prior year’s acquisitions, and a decrease in recruiting costs mainly due to less reliance on outside agencies for hiring.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses during the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

Research and development expenses increased 37.5% to $9.0 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023, primarily driven by an increase in employee compensation related costs. The increase in headcount further supports the Company's continued effort to invest in developing new offerings and improve its existing offerings. 

Income Tax Provision

Income tax benefit during the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022 was as follows:

AvePoint's income tax expense for the three months ended March 31, 2023 was $2.0 million, as compared to a tax expense of $0.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2022. The effective tax rate was (27.46)% for the three months ended March 31, 2023, compared to (2.88)% for the three months ended March 31, 2022. The change in effective tax rates for the three-month period ended March 31, 2023, as compared to the three-month period ended March 31, 2022, was primarily due to the mix of pre-tax income (loss) results by jurisdictions taxed at different rates, certain jurisdictions with separate tax expense calculated, and tax losses for which no benefit can be taken.

In assessing the need for a valuation allowance, the Company has considered all available positive and negative evidence including its historical levels of income, expectations of future taxable income, future reversals of existing taxable temporary differences and ongoing tax planning strategies. If in the future, the Company determines it is more likely than not that deferred tax assets will not be realized, the Company may set up valuation allowance, which may result in income tax expense in the Company’s condensed consolidated statements of operations and condensed consolidated statements of comprehensive loss.

Non-GAAP Operating Income (loss) and Non-GAAP Operating Margin

We believe that, in addition to our financial results determined in accordance with GAAP, non-GAAP operating income (loss) and non-GAAP operating margin are useful in evaluating our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Non-GAAP operating income (loss) and non-GAAP operating margin should not be considered as an alternative to operating income, operating margin or any other performance measures derived in accordance with GAAP as measures of performance. Non-GAAP operating income (loss) and non-GAAP operating margin should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP.

Non-GAAP operating income (loss) and non-GAAP operating margin are non-GAAP financial measures that our management uses to assess our overall performance. We define non-GAAP operating income (loss) as GAAP operating income (loss) plus stock-based compensation and the amortization of acquired intangible assets. We define non-GAAP operating margin as non-GAAP operating income divided by revenue. We believe non-GAAP operating income (loss) and non-GAAP operating margin provide our management and investors consistency and comparability with our past financial performance and facilitate period-to-period comparisons of operations, as these metrics eliminate the effects of stock-based compensation which has had historical volatility from period to period due to marked-to-market securities, and of acquired intangible assets, which are unrelated to current operations and are neither comparable to the prior period nor predictive of future results. The elimination of the effect of variability caused by stock-based compensation expense and the amortization of acquired assets, both of which are non-cash expenses, provides a better representation as to the overall operating performance of the Company. We use non-GAAP financial measures (a) to evaluate our historical and prospective financial performance and trends as well as our performance relative to our peers, (b) to set and approve spending budgets, (c) to allocate resources, (d) to measure operational profitability and the accuracy of forecasting, and (e) to assess financial discipline over operational expenditures.

The following table presents a reconciliation of non-GAAP operating income (loss) from the most comparable GAAP measure, operating income, for the three months ended March 31, 2023 and the comparable period in 2022:

Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021

The following table summarizes our historical consolidated statement of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021. The period-to-period comparison of operating results is not necessarily indicative of results for future periods.

(1)         Stock-based compensation for the periods was included in the following line items:

Revenue

The components of AvePoint’s revenue during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 were as follows:

Total revenue increased 21.1% to $232.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, primarily as a result of an increase in SaaS revenue. SaaS revenue growth comprised approximately 78% of the net increase year over year. For the year ended December 31, 2022, SaaS revenue increased 36.9% to $117.2 million, as we continued to see strong customer demand for these and our term license and services offerings.

The increases were partially offset by a decrease in maintenance revenue, which decreased 24.5% to $15.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2022.

Our revenue from perpetual license and maintenance offerings is expected to continue declining as we shift away from the sale of perpetual licenses and towards SaaS licenses. Without material perpetual license sales, there will be limited opportunities to sell maintenance contracts to new customers. Existing maintenance customers have transitioned and will continue to transition to SaaS and term licenses, which will continue the decline in maintenance revenue.

For the year ended December 31, 2022, total revenue increased 29% year over year on a constant currency basis. Within total revenue, SaaS revenue increased 46% year over year on a constant currency basis.

Revenue by geographic area during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 was as follows:

From the year ended December 31, 2021 to the year ended December 31, 2022, North America revenues increased by $19.0 million, driven by a $21.1 million increase in SaaS, term license and support, and services revenues, partially offset by a $2.1 million decrease in maintenance and perpetual license revenue. EMEA revenues increased by $13.4 million, driven by an $15.6 million increase in SaaS, term license and support, and services revenue, partially offset by a $2.2 million decrease in maintenance and perpetual license revenue. APAC revenues increased by $8.1 million, driven by a $10.6 million increase in SaaS, term license and support, and services revenue, partially offset by a $2.5 million decrease in maintenance and perpetual license revenue.

For the year ended December 31, 2022, North America total revenue increased 23% on a constant currency basis, EMEA total revenue increased 38% on a constant currency basis, and APAC total revenue increased 28% on a constant currency basis. For the year ended December 31, 2022, North America SaaS revenue increased 39% on a constant currency basis, EMEA SaaS revenue increased 48% on a constant currency basis, and APAC SaaS revenue increased 57% on a constant currency basis.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

As noted above, in addition to our financial results determined in accordance with GAAP, we disclosed non-GAAP cost of revenue, non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP sales and marketing expense, non-GAAP general and administrative expense and non-GAAP research and development expense. For additional information on our use of non-GAAP financial measures, see "Non-GAAP Financial Measures" above.

Cost of Revenue, Gross Profit, and Gross Margin

Cost of revenue, gross profit, and gross margin during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 were as follows:

Cost of revenue expenses increased 23.7% to $65.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, driven by an $8.8 million increase from higher aggregated hosting costs resulting from increased SaaS revenue and a $4.9 million increase in personnel costs primarily due to higher headcount. Within personnel costs, a one-time expense of $0.2 million was associated with the Company’s reduction in workforce announced in December of 2022, primarily related to severance and compensation benefits.

Operating Expenses

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 were as follows:

Sales and marketing expenses increased 9.2% to $109.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, primarily due to an increase of $10.0 million in personnel costs from higher headcount as well as increasing employee compensation which includes commissions, and also from a $1.2 million increase in travel costs, which have risen as business shifts to a more normalized pre-pandemic state. Within personnel costs, a one-time expense of $1.9 million was associated with the Company’s reduction in workforce announced in December of 2022, primarily related to severance and compensation benefits.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 were as follows:

General and administrative expenses increased 9.5% to $64.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2022.

The year over year increase was partially due to an increase of $4.8 million in personnel costs as a result of increased headcount and overall costs to support the growth in our business. Within personnel costs, a one-time expense of $0.5 million was associated with the Company’s reduction in workforce announced in December of 2022, primarily related to severance and compensation benefits. Of the remaining increase, professional services increased $1.4 million primarily due to increased legal fees relating to acquisitions.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 were as follows:

Research and development expenses decreased 3.9% to $30.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. Stock-based compensation contributed a decrease of $12.3 million year over year, primarily as a result of a one-time compensation expense related to existing stock-based compensation awards to a group of AvePoint’s international employees. The primary driver of the offsetting increase resulted from $8.9 million higher compensation costs for research and development personnel as the Company seeks to expand development of new offerings and improvements to existing offerings. Within personnel costs, a one-time expense of $0.5 million was associated with the Company’s reduction in workforce announced in December of 2022, primarily related to severance and compensation benefits.

Income Tax Provision

Income tax provision during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 was as follows:

Our income tax expense for the year ended December 31, 2022 was $5.0 million as compared to $0.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2021. The effective tax rate, which equals the income tax provision divided by income from continuing operations, was (15.0)% for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to (1.4)% for the year ended December 31, 2021. The change in effective tax rates for the year ended December 31, 2022, as compared to the year ended December 31, 2021, was primarily due to the mix of pre-tax income (loss) results by jurisdictions taxed at different rates than 21%, a permanent item recorded for the executive compensation limitation and changes in the valuation allowance in the U.S. and certain foreign jurisdictions.

Non-GAAP Operating Income and Non-GAAP Operating Margin

As noted above, in addition to our financial results determined in accordance with GAAP, non-GAAP operating income (loss) and non-GAAP operating margin are useful in evaluating our business, results of operations, and financial condition. For additional information on our use of non-GAAP operating income (loss) and non-GAAP operating margin, see "Non-GAAP Operating Income (loss) and Non-GAAP Operating Margin" above.

GAAP operating margin for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, was (17.7)% and (27.9)% respectively. Non-GAAP operating margin for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, was (1.2)% and 3.1%, respectively. The reduction in non-GAAP operating margin was primarily attributable to higher personnel costs across the organization, increased Azure costs to support the growth in SaaS revenue, returning to a more normalized post-COVID travel routine and the full-year inclusion of expenses related to becoming a publicly traded company.

The following table presents a reconciliation of non-GAAP operating income from the most comparable GAAP measure, operating income, for the periods presented:

Liquidity and Capital Resources

As of March 31, 2023, we had $228.8 million in cash and cash equivalents and $2.9 million in short-term investments.

Our short-term liquidity needs primarily include working capital for sales and marketing, research and development, and continued innovation. Our long-term capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our growth rate, levels of revenue, the expansion of sales and marketing activities, market acceptance of our platform, the results of business initiatives, and the timing of new product introductions. 

We also maintain a loan and security agreement with HSBC Venture Bank USA, Inc. (“HSBC”) as lender for a revolving line of credit of up to $30.0 million. The line currently bears interest at a rate equal to SOFR plus 0.1%. The line carries an unused fee of 0.5%. The line will mature on July 7, 2023. We are required to maintain a specified adjusted quick ratio and a minimum annual recurring revenue tested by HSBC each quarter. We pledged, assigned and granted to HSBC a security interest in all shares, future proceeds and assets (except for excluded assets, including material intellectual property) as a security for the performance of the loan and security agreement obligations. As of March 31, 2023, we are compliant with all covenants under the line and had no borrowings outstanding under the line of credit.

We believe that our existing cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, our cash flows from operating activities, and our borrowing capacity under our credit facility with HSBC are sufficient to meet our working capital and capital expenditure needs for at least the next twelve months. In the future, we may attempt to raise additional capital through the sale of additional equity or debt financing. The sale of additional equity would be dilutive to our stockholders. Additional debt financing could result in increased debt service obligations and more restrictive financial and operational covenants.

Cash Flows

Comparison of Three Months Ended March 31, 2023 and March 31, 2022

The following table sets forth a summary of our cash flows for the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022:

Operating Activities

Net cash provided by operating activities for the three months ended March 31, 2023 was $1.3 million, reflecting AvePoint’s net loss of $9.2 million, adjusted for non-cash items of $9.3 million and net cash inflows of $1.2 million from changes in its operating assets and liabilities. The primary drivers of non-cash items were stock-based compensation which reflects ongoing compensation partially offset by a decrease in the mark to market value of earn-out and warranty liabilities. The drivers of changes in operating assets and liabilities are seasonal in nature. These drivers are related to a decrease in accounts receivable due primarily to timing of customer invoices and decrease in prepaid expenses and other current assets primarily related to prepaid insurance and a decrease in accrued expenses primarily due to accrued bonuses, commissions and VAT/sales tax payable.

Net cash used in operating activities for the three months ended March 31, 2022 was $6.1 million, reflecting AvePoint’s net loss of $11.1 million, adjusted for non-cash items of $6.8 million and net cash outflows of $1.9 million from changes in its operating assets and liabilities. The primary drivers of non-cash items were stock-based compensation which reflects ongoing compensation partially offset by a decrease in the mark to market value of earn-out and warranty liabilities. The drivers of changes in operating assets and liabilities are seasonal in nature. These drivers are related to a decrease in accounts receivable due primarily to timing of customer invoices and decrease in prepaid expenses and other current assets primarily related to prepaid insurance and offset by a decrease in accrued expenses primarily due to the payment of accrued bonuses and commissions.

Investing Activities

Net cash provided by investing activities for the three months ended March 31, 2023 was $0.9 million. It primarily consisted of $1.6 million due to the maturity of short-term investments, partially offset by $0.3 million from the capitalization of internal use software and $0.2 million of purchases of property and equipment.

Net cash used in investing activities for the three months ended March 31, 2022 was $181.5 million. It primarily consisted of $179.9 million of purchases of short-term investments, $1.4 million as a result of the acquisition of I-Access, and $1.0 million of purchases of property and equipment, partially offset by $0.9 million in the maturity of short-term investments.

Financing Activities

Net cash used in financing activities for the three months ended March 31, 2023 was $0.7 million. The primary driver of cash flows from financing activities was due to $1.8 million in purchases of common stock, partially offset by $1.1 million of proceeds from the exercising of stock options.

Net cash provided by financing activities for the three months ended March 31, 2022 was $0.3 million. The primary driver of cash flows from financing activities was due to $1.0 million of proceeds from the exercising of stock options, partially offset by $0.7 million in purchases of common stock.

Indebtedness

Credit Facility

We maintain a line of credit under a Loan Agreement, as amended (the “Amended Loan Agreement”) with HSBC, as the lender. See “Note 7 - Line of Credit” to the unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements included in this Prospectus.

The Amended Loan Agreement provides for a revolving line of credit of up to $30.0 million and an additional $20.0 million accordion feature for additional capital we may draw at our request. Borrowings under the line currently bear interest at a rate equal to SOFR plus 0.1%. The line carries an unused fee of 0.5% per year. Any proceeds of borrowings under the Amended Loan Agreement will be used for general corporate purposes.

On a consolidated basis with our subsidiaries, we are required to maintain a specified adjusted quick ratio and minimum annual recurring revenue, tested by HSBC each quarter. Pursuant to the Amended Loan Agreement, we pledged, assigned, and granted HSBC a security interest in all shares of our subsidiaries, future proceeds, and certain assets as security for our obligations under the Amended Loan Agreement. Our line of credit under the Amended Loan Agreement will mature on July 7, 2023.

To date, we are in compliance with all covenants under the Amended Loan Agreement. We have not at any time, including as of and for the three months ended March 31, 2023, borrowed under the Amended Loan Agreement. The description of the Amended Loan Agreement is qualified in its entirety by the full text of the form of such agreement, a copy of which is attached as an exhibit to our Prospectus.

Leasing Activities

We are obligated under various non-cancelable operating leases for office space. The initial terms of the leases expire on various dates through 2030. As of March 31, 2023, the commitments related to these operating leases is $19.8 million, of which $6.7 million is due in the next twelve months.

Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021

The following table sets forth a summary of our cash flows for the years ended December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021.

Operating Activities

Net cash used in operating activities for the year ended December 31, 2022, was $0.8 million, reflecting our net loss of $38.7 million, adjusted for non-cash items of $46.2 million and net cash outflows of $8.3 million from changes in our operating assets and liabilities. The main considerations for non-cash items were stock-based compensation, which reflects ongoing compensation charges for the entity’s equity- and pre-merger liability-classified awards, operating lease right-of-use asset expense and mark to market adjustments on earnout and warrant liabilities. The main considerations of changes in operating assets and liabilities that resulted in cash outflows related to an increase in deferred contract costs and operating lease liabilities. This was partially offset by cash inflows related to an increase in deferred revenue that is partially offset by an increase in accounts receivable as a result of the business growth, and an increase in accrued expenses primarily due to personnel related expenses.

Net cash provided by operating activities for the year ended December 31, 2021, was $5.0 million, reflecting our net loss of $33.2 million, adjusted for non-cash items of $39.9 million and net cash outflows of $1.6 million from changes in our operating assets and liabilities. The primary drivers for non-cash items were stock-based compensation, which reflects ongoing compensation charges for the entity’s equity- and pre-merger liability-classified awards, mark to market adjustments on earnout and warrant liabilities and changes in deferred tax assets as a result of timing differences in tax related to stock option awards. The primary drivers of changes in operating assets and liabilities related to an increase in accounts receivable due primarily to timing of payments from customers and an increase in prepaid expenses and other current assets primarily related to prepaid insurance in Q3 2021 and an estimated tax payment in Q2 2021, partially offset by an increase in accounts payable and accrued expenses primarily due to billings related to professional services and an increase in deferred revenue due to continued increases in sales of our SaaS offerings which result in increased up-front payments.

Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2022, was $21.5 million, consisting of $18.6 million in acquisitions and $3.9 million of purchases of property and equipment, as well as $183.5 million in maturities of short-term investments and $180.9 million in the purchase of investments.

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2021, was $3.4 million, consisting of $2.5 million of purchases of property and equipment and $1.4 million of purchases of short-term investments.

Financing Activities

Net cash used in financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2022, was $17.1 million. The primary driver of cash flows from financing activities was due to $19.9 million in purchases of Common Stock, partially offset by $2.8 million of proceeds from the exercising of stock options.

Net cash provided by financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2021, was $198.6 million. The primary driver of cash flows from financing activities was a result of the Business Combination, which resulted in a $441.6 million cash inflow, net of issuance costs paid immediately prior to the merger, partially offset by $130.9 million of cash outflows to Legacy AvePoint’s preferred stockholders and $106.2 million of cash outflows to Legacy AvePoint’s common stockholders. Other cash flows from financing activities included $7.5 million of cash outflows to holders of Legacy AvePoint options, $3.0 million of cash outflows for Business Combination transaction costs paid directly by us, and $1.6 million of cash outflows related to Legacy AvePoint’s purchase of pre-Business Combination Apex shares, which are now recorded as treasury stock. These cash outflows were partially offset by $5.6 million of cash inflows from the proceeds collected upon exercise of stock options.

Indebtedness

Credit Facility

We maintain a line of credit under the Amended Loan Agreement with HSBC, as the lender. See “Note 10 – Line of Credit” to the audited consolidated financial statements included in this Prospectus.

The Amended Loan Agreement provides for a revolving line of credit of up to $30.0 million, with an additional $20.0 million accordion feature for additional capital we may draw at our request. Borrowings under the line currently bear interest at a rate equal to SOFR plus 0.1%. The line carries an unused fee of 0.5% per year. Any proceeds of borrowings under the Amended Loan Agreement will be used for general corporate purposes.

On a consolidated basis with our subsidiaries, we are required to maintain a specified adjusted quick ratio, tested by HSBC each quarter. Pursuant to the Amended Loan Agreement, we pledged, assigned, and granted HSBC a security interest in all shares of our subsidiaries, future proceeds, and certain assets as security for our obligations under the Amended Loan Agreement. Our line of credit under the Amended Loan Agreement will mature on July 7, 2023.

We have not at any time, including as of and for the fiscal year ending as of December 31, 2022, borrowed under the Amended Loan Agreement. The description of the Amended Loan Agreement is qualified in its entirety by the full text of such agreement, a copy of which is attached as an exhibit to our Prospectus.

Leasing Obligations

We are obligated under various non-cancelable operating leases for office space. The initial terms of the leases expire on various dates through 2030. During the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, total rent expense for facilities amounted to $6.8 million and $6.4 million, respectively. As of December 31, 2022, letters of credit have been issued in the amount of $0.9 million as security for operating leases. The letters of credit are secured by certificates of deposit.

Operating Segment Information

We operate in one segment. Our products and services are sold throughout the world, through direct and indirect sales channels. Our chief operating decision maker (the “CODM”) is our Chief Executive Officer. The CODM makes operating performance assessment and resource allocation decisions on a global basis. The CODM does not receive discrete financial information about asset allocation, expense allocation, or profitability by product or geography. See “Note 18 – Segment Information” to the audited consolidated financial statements included in this Prospectus for more information.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Preparation of these financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. We also make estimates and assumptions on the reported revenue generated and reported expenses incurred during the reporting periods. Our estimates are based on our historical experience and on various other factors that our management believes are reasonable under the circumstances. The results of these estimates form the basis for making judgments about the carrying value of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates.

While our significant accounting policies are described in more detail in the section titled “Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements” included in this Prospectus, we believe the following critical accounting policies are most important to understanding and evaluating our reported financial results.

Revenue Recognition

We derive revenue from four primary sources: SaaS, term license and support, services, and maintenance. Many of our contracts with customers include multiple performance obligations. Judgment is required in determining whether each performance obligation is distinct. Our products and services generally do not require a significant amount of integration or interdependency; therefore, our products and services are generally not combined. We allocate the transaction price for each contract to each performance obligation based on the relative standalone selling price (“SSP”) for each performance obligation within each contract.

We use judgment in determining the SSP for products and services. For substantially all performance obligations except term licenses, we are able to establish the SSP based on the observable prices of products or services sold separately in comparable circumstances to similar customers. We typically establish an SSP range for our products and services which is reassessed on a periodic basis or when facts and circumstances change. Term licenses are sold only as a bundled arrangement that includes the rights to a term license and support. In determining the SSP of license and support in a term license arrangement, we apply observable inputs using the value relationship between support and term license, the value relationship between support and perpetual licenses, the average economic life of our products, software renewals rates and the price of the bundled arrangement in relation to the perpetual licensing approach. Using a combination of the relative fair value method or the residual value method, the SSP of the performance obligations in an arrangement is allocated to each performance obligation within a sales arrangement.

Company Earn-Out Shares

In evaluation of the Company Earn-Out Shares and Company Earn-Out RSUs, management determined that the Company Earn-Out Shares represent derivatives to be marked to market at each reporting period, while the Company Earn-Out RSUs represent equity under ASC 718. Refer to “Note 16 — Stock-Based Compensation” to the audited consolidated financial statements included in this Prospectus for more information regarding the Company Earn-Out RSUs.

In order to capture the market conditions associated with the Company Earn-Out Shares, the Company applied an approach that incorporated a Monte Carlo simulation, which involved random iterations that took different future price paths over the Sponsor Earn-Out Shares’ contractual life based on the appropriate probability distributions. The fair value was determined by taking the average of the fair values under each Monte Carlo simulation trial. The Monte Carlo model requires highly subjective assumptions including the expected volatility of the price of our Common Stock, and the expected term of the earn-out shares.

Economic Conditions, Challenges, and Risks

The markets for software and cloud-based services are dynamic and highly competitive. Our competitors are developing new software while also deploying competing cloud-based services for consumers and businesses. Customer preferences evolve rapidly, and choices in hardware, products, and devices can and do influence how users access services in the cloud, and in some cases, the user’s choice of which suite of cloud-based services to use. We must continue to evolve and adapt to keep pace with this changing environment. The investments we are making in infrastructure, research and development, marketing, and geographic expansion will continue to increase our operating costs and may decrease our operating margins.

Our success is highly dependent on our ability to attract and retain qualified employees. We hire a mix of university and industry talent worldwide. We compete for talented individuals globally by offering an exceptional working environment, broad customer reach, scale in resources, the ability to grow one’s career across many different products and businesses, and competitive compensation and benefits. Aggregate demand for our software, services, and devices is correlated to global macroeconomic and geopolitical factors, which remain dynamic. In 2022, Russia initiated significant military action against Ukraine. In response, the U.S. and certain other countries imposed significant sanctions and export controls against Russia, Belarus and certain individuals and entities connected to Russian or Belarusian political, business, and financial organizations, and the U.S. and certain other countries could impose further sanctions, trade restrictions, and other retaliatory actions should the conflict continue or worsen. It is not possible to predict the broader consequences of the conflict, including related geopolitical tensions, and the measures and retaliatory actions taken by the U.S. and other countries in respect thereof as well as any counter measures or retaliatory actions by Russia or Belarus in response, including, for example, potential cyberattacks or the disruption of energy exports, is likely to cause regional instability, geopolitical shifts, and could materially adversely affect global trade, currency exchange rates, regional economies and the global economy. The situation remains uncertain, and while it is difficult to predict the impact of any of the foregoing, the conflict and actions taken in response to the conflict could increase our costs, disrupt our supply chain, reduce our sales and earnings, impair our ability to raise additional capital when needed on acceptable terms, if at all, or otherwise adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our international operations provide a significant portion of our total revenue and expenses. Many of these revenue and expenses are denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. As a result, changes in foreign exchange rates may significantly affect revenue and expenses. Refer to the section titled “Risk Factors” for a discussion of these factors and other risks.

Seasonality

Our quarterly revenue fluctuates and does not necessarily grow sequentially when measuring any one fiscal quarter’s revenue with another (e.g. comparing the fourth fiscal quarter of fiscal year 2022 with the first fiscal quarter of fiscal year 2023). Historically, our third and fourth quarters have been our highest revenue quarters, however those results are not necessarily indicative of future quarterly revenue or full year results. Higher third and fourth quarter revenue is driven primarily by increased sales resulting from our customers’ fiscal year ends. Additionally, new product and service introductions (including the timing of those introductions) can significantly impact revenue. Revenue can also be affected when customers anticipate a product introduction. Our operating expenses have generally increased sequentially due to increases in personnel in connection with the expansion of our business.

Emerging Growth Company Accounting Election

Section 102(b)(1) of the JOBS Act exempts emerging growth companies from being required to comply with new or revised financial accounting standards until private companies are required to comply with the new or revised financial accounting standards. The JOBS Act provides that a company can choose not to take advantage of the extended transition period and comply with the requirements that apply to non-emerging growth companies, and any such election to not take advantage of the extended transition period is irrevocable. We will be an emerging growth company at least until June 30, 2023. As a result, we have elected to avail ourselves of the extended transition period and will take advantage of the benefits of the extended transition period emerging growth company status permits. During the extended transition period, it may be difficult or impossible to compare our financial results with the financial results of another public company that complies with public company effective dates for accounting standard updates because of the potential differences in accounting standards used.

We will remain an emerging growth company under the JOBS Act until the earliest of (a) December 31, 2024, (b) the last date of our fiscal year in which we have total annual gross revenue of at least $1.235 billion, (c) the date on which we are deemed to be a “large accelerated filer” under the rules of the SEC with at least $700.0 million of outstanding securities held by non-affiliates, or (d) the date on which we have issued more than $1.0 billion in non-convertible debt securities during the previous three years. The next determination date as to whether we have satisfied the criteria set forth in the foregoing (b), (c), and (d) is the last day of our second fiscal quarter in 2023.

Recently Issued and Adopted Accounting Pronouncements

For information about recent accounting pronouncements, see Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements of this Prospectus.

QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISKS

Interest Rate Risk

As of March 31, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalents, marketable securities, and short-term deposits of $231.7 million. As of December 31, 2022, we had cash and cash equivalents, marketable securities, and short-term deposits of $229.8 million. Our cash and cash equivalents are held in cash deposits and money market funds. Due to the short-term nature of these instruments, we believe that it does not have any material exposure to changes in the fair value of our investment portfolio due to changes in interest rates. Declines in interest rates, however, would reduce our future interest income. The effect of a hypothetical 10% change in interest rates would not have a material negative impact on our consolidated financial statements. As of March 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, we had no outstanding obligations under our line of credit with HSBC under the Amended Loan Agreement. To the extent we enter into other long-term debt arrangements in the future, we would be subject to fluctuations in interest rates which could have a material impact on our future financial condition and results of operation.

Foreign Currency Exchange Risk

Fluctuations in foreign currencies impact the amount of total assets and liabilities that we report for our foreign subsidiaries upon the translation of these amounts into U.S. Dollars. In particular, the amount of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities that we report in U.S. Dollars for a significant portion of the cash held by these subsidiaries is subject to translation variance caused by changes in foreign currency exchange rates as of the end of each respective reporting period, the offset to which is substantially recorded to accumulated other comprehensive income on our consolidated balance sheets and is also presented as a line item in its consolidated statements of comprehensive income. To date, we have not entered into any hedging arrangements with respect to foreign currency risk or other derivative financial instruments. 

As the U.S. Dollar fluctuated against certain international currencies as of December 31, 2022, the balances that we reported in U.S. Dollars for foreign subsidiaries that hold international currencies as of December 31, 2022, increased relative to what it would have reported using a constant currency rate from December 31, 2021. As reported in our consolidated statements of cash flows, the estimated effects of exchange rate changes on our reported cash and cash equivalents balances in U.S. Dollars was a decrease of $1.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, and a decrease of $1.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2021. If overall foreign currency exchange rates in comparison to the U.S. Dollar uniformly would have been weaker by 10% as of December 31, 2022, and December 31, 2021, the amount of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities AvePoint would have reported in U.S. Dollars would have decreased by approximately $2.7 million and $2.6 million, respectively, assuming constant foreign currency cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balances.

Concentration of Credit Risk

We deposit our cash with financial institutions, and, at times, such balances may exceed federally insured limits. 

BUSINESS

Overview of Our Business

AvePoint provides a cloud-native software platform that organizations rely on to optimize IT operations, manage critical data and secure the digital workplace. As companies globally embrace the new normal of hybrid work, they must build and deliver a new, seamless workplace experience for knowledge workers, centered around an extensive portfolio of Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) solutions and productivity applications aimed at improving collaboration across the organization.

The adoption of this portfolio of solutions – what has been generally described as the “digital transformation” – is a substantial and ongoing challenge for most organizations, which for decades had used only a small number of multi-purpose on-premises applications to drive business outcomes. However, to build and deliver an efficient digital workplace today, companies must manage this range of applications – and the associated explosive growth and sprawl of data – with a platform offering that is well governed, fit for purpose, easy to use and built on automation.

AvePoint’s Confidence Platform empowers organizations – of all sizes, in all regions, and across all industries – to optimize and secure the solutions that most commonly establish and underpin the digital workplace. As our customers seek to rapidly reduce costs, improve productivity and make more informed business decisions, they depend on our platform for data-driven insights, critical business intelligence and ongoing operational value through automation.

Platform Overview

The AvePoint Confidence Platform delivers a comprehensive set of SaaS solutions, empowering users in a variety of technology roles – including IT operations, development operations and cybersecurity – to monitor and secure the digital workplace.

Built on top of Platform-as-a-Service (“PaaS”) architecture, the AvePoint Confidence Platform offers modularity and combines cloud services architecture with tailored, industry-specific functionality to address critical operational challenges and the ongoing management of data, as organizations leverage a variety of third-party cloud vendors, including Microsoft, Salesforce, Google, AWS, Box, DropBox and others. To drive modernization efforts, the platform also provides extensions to the functionality of existing cloud services as well as new applications, all while leveraging the common underlying SaaS services for data, process, user experience and integration.

The AvePoint Confidence Platform, and the applications that it powers, is organized into three interconnected “suites” of functionality—each targeting a core set of business drivers and customer needs. Those suites are:

Built with security and scale in mind, AvePoint’s cloud-native platform is available across 14 global data centers. Our multi-tenant architecture is designed to immediately provide customers the latest enhancements and upgrades, and the platform is ISO 27001:2013 and ISO 27017:2015 certified and has received SOC 2 Type II accreditation and FedRAMP (Moderate) Authorization.

Within each suite are a number of products addressing critical customer needs. Our products are typically licensed according to the number of users, while some include a consumption-based component. Lastly, because our platform is built upon a common data engine and common data layer, the purchase of products from multiple suites provides an incremental benefit to customers in the form of more intelligent and relevant data insights and automation.

Our Growth Strategy

Our aggressive pursuit of the large market opportunity we see includes the following growth strategies:

Sales, Marketing and Customers

Sales

Our global go-to-market strategy allows us to efficiently sell to and serve the needs of organizations across market segments and geographies. This strategy, which combines the expertise of our highly-trained direct sales force with the leverage of valuable indirect routes to the market, including our strong partner ecosystem, has created a powerful and differentiated go-to-market approach. In addition, our increased investments in our customer success program positions us to continue expanding within our existing customer base, which we believe remains a significant growth opportunity.

Our direct sales force is organized by geography and customer size.

In addition, we employ a number of indirect routes to market, which include the following:

These collective efforts are supported by our customer success team, which employs a proactive relationship-focused approach designed to ensure that our valued customers get the care they need to rapidly deploy, and receive value from, their technology investment in us.

Marketing

Our global marketing organization focuses on enhancing the AvePoint brand and building awareness and demand generation through multi-platform campaigns that leverage our expertise, content, technical resources and customer stories. We rely on multiple marketing and sales automation tools to efficiently identify and market to the correct individuals at target companies using product and industry specific criteria.

Customers

We sell to organizations of all sizes, in all regions of the world, and across a broad array of industries. Our customers are located in more than 100 countries and, as of March 31, 2023, numbered more than 17,000.

We classify our customer base by size and geography:

Research And Development

We constantly seek to develop new offerings, drive improvements to our existing offerings, and enhance support of our existing customer deployments. We leverage agile development methodologies and work with the latest technologies, resulting in a dynamic, state of the art, automated software development process that has allowed us to quickly deliver high-quality products and services and adapt to market changes and new requirements. We believe delivering and expanding product functionality is critical to enhancing the success of existing customers while new product development further reinforces our breadth of solutions.

Intellectual Property

We rely on a combination of trade secrets, copyrights, and trademarks to establish and protect our intellectual property rights. We also rely on contractual protections, such as license, assignment, and confidentiality agreements, and technical measures. We pursue the registration of domain names, trademarks, and service marks in the United States and in various jurisdictions outside the United States. We control access to and use of our proprietary technology and other confidential information through the use of internal and external controls, including contractual protections with employees, contractors, customers, and partners, and our software is protected by U.S. and international intellectual property laws. We require our employees, consultants, and other third parties to enter into confidentiality and proprietary rights agreements and control access to software, documentation, and other proprietary information. Our policy is to require employees and independent contractors to sign agreements assigning to us any inventions, trade secrets, works of authorship, developments, and other processes generated by them on our behalf and agreeing to protect our confidential information. In addition, we generally enter into confidentiality agreements with our vendors and customers.

Competition

While certain companies offer products with features similar to those embedded in our individual solutions and with which we compete in certain tactical use cases, we do not believe that any company offers the same breadth of functionalities that we offer in a single integrated platform. Unlike traditional vendors primarily focused on data management, data governance, or migration, we address a spectrum of SaaS solutions and productivity applications for the digital workplace.

The standalone point solutions we frequently encounter often fail to meet the needs of our customers, due to limitations in breadth of functionality, ease of use, scalability, rigor of security protocols, integration with third-party applications and data sources, time to value and total cost of ownership.

Seasonality

Our quarterly revenue fluctuates and does not necessarily grow sequentially when measuring any one fiscal quarter’s revenue against another (e.g. comparing the fourth fiscal quarter of fiscal year 2022 against the first fiscal quarter of fiscal year 2023). Historically, our third and fourth quarters have been our highest revenue quarters, however those results are not necessarily indicative of future quarterly revenue or full year results. Higher third and fourth quarter revenue is driven primarily by increased sales resulting from our customers’ fiscal year ends. Additionally, new product and service introductions (including the timing of those introductions) can significantly impact revenue. Revenue can also be affected when customers anticipate a product introduction. Our operating expenses have generally increased sequentially due to increases in personnel in connection with the expansion of our business.

Human Capital Resources

The success of our people is the success of our Company, making our talent strategy a core focus of our operations. We received accolades from multiple publications around the world designating us as a “best place to work” in 2022. Our key human capital objectives in managing our business includes attracting and developing top talent, engaging our team in an environment where they thrive, and integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into our core operating practices.

Our values are long-held beliefs that guide the behaviors of our global teams and are foundational to our present and future success. These are not ‘statements on a wall’ but a true representation of how we act as a team:

Employees

As of March 31, 2023, we had 2,150 employees globally. A large percentage of our employees have technical and professional backgrounds and undergraduate and/or advanced degrees. Our professional staff includes programmers, data and computer scientists, electrical and mechanical engineers, software and hardware specialists, project managers, sales and marketing professionals, attorneys, and CPAs. None of our employees are represented by a labor union with respect to their employment. We are not aware of any employment circumstances that are likely to disrupt our work efforts. See the section titled “Risk Factors” for a discussion of the risks related to the loss of key personnel or our inability to attract and retain qualified personnel.

Recruitment and Internal Mobility

We want to attract a pool of diverse and exceptional candidates and support their career growth once they join our team. We seek to hire based on talent rather than solely on educational pedigree, and have provided many job openings, including in our local communities, for capable workers from various backgrounds to learn valuable skills in critical operations such as business development, sales, customer support, and customer service. In our evaluation and career development efforts, we also emphasize internal mobility opportunities for employees to drive professional development. Our goal is a long-term, upward-bound career for every employee, which we believe also drives our retention efforts. Our talent acquisition team uses internal and external resources to recruit highly skilled and talented workers, and we encourage and incentivize employee referrals for open positions.

Rewards

We strive to provide globally a competitive suite of pay, comprehensive benefits, and services. We incentivize performance through a combination of competitive base pay, performance-based cash incentives and long-term incentives in the form of equity. We believe this combination fosters a strong sense of ownership, aligns the interests of employees with our stockholders, and increases stockholder value and our overall success.

Environmental, Social and Governance Matters

We recognize the importance of environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) matters and how they impact our stakeholders. We believe appropriately responding to ESG issues is an important component of corporate social responsibility and comprehensive fiscal management. In light of the continued importance surrounding ESG matters, we are active in establishing and improving programs, practices and policies to maximize the benefit to AvePoint, our stockholders, our employees, and the communities we impact. We believe that strong ESG programs and practices are critical to attracting the best talent, executing on our strategies, maintaining a robust supplier and channel partner base, and innovating to meet our consumers’ evolving expectations.

AvePoint’s policies, practices and programs include engagement with external stakeholders to understand their priorities and obtain their feedback, coordination of relevant company projects and initiatives, and alignment with AvePoint’s strategies and implementation. In 2022, in furtherance of its commitment to ESG matters, AvePoint designated the Board’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee to oversee ESG matters, and the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee approved the charter for an ESG committee within AvePoint with the involvement of internal stakeholders.

In 2023, we expect to continue to explore, and report on, our efforts to expand on ESG opportunities. Our future ESG disclosures will be informed by an internal ESG prioritization assessment to be undertaken in 2023, which will assess topics based on their potential impact to both business value creation and environmental and societal impact more broadly.

To that end, AvePoint is committed to transparent reporting on ESG matters and, therefore, has provided additional disclosure below related to the goals and relevant metrics of our ESG program to allow our stakeholders to be informed about our progress.

Workplace Practices

Across our twenty-five offices, we strive to reduce our environmental footprint, operate more efficiently, and engage our personnel in social initiatives that directly impact their lives. To fulfill our aim of integrating environmental sustainability into everything we do, we have implemented numerous projects across our operations, including a company-wide paperless campaign and a computer recycling project, to reduce energy consumption and the use of non-renewable resources in our workplaces. Our Jersey City headquarters and our Arlington and Chicago offices are LEED certified, and our Singapore office is a Green Mark Platinum building. In addition, our Japan office takes many steps to maximize its energy efficiency, including:

Cloud Computing for the Good of All

AvePoint was an early mover to transition from traditional on-premises software solutions to software-as-a-service and hybrid deployments. Not only does cloud computing help meet the business needs of our customers, but it also has tremendous benefits to the environment, including greater energy efficiency, lower carbon emissions, and reduced carbon footprints.

In addition to many of AvePoint’s own workers saving resources by working remotely, our software supports customers in offering remote opportunities to their workforces, which helps them to reduce the environmental impacts of commuting and energy usage and waste production at physical worksites.

Looking forward, AvePoint is actively researching additional methods to reduce its carbon footprint and create a more sustainable future for the company and the communities we serve.

As a global company, we have a tremendous opportunity – and responsibility – to do good. We strive to exemplify our core values of agility, passion and teamwork every day to ensure the success of our customers, partners, and stakeholders as well as make a positive impact in the communities where we live and work. To do this, we are committed to creating and empowering access to a variety of opportunities:

Philanthropy

As a global organization, AvePoint strives to create pathways to success for individuals and communities through education. At the heart of our work—volunteering, partnerships, donations, and advocacy—is the vision of a world where everyone, no matter where they live, which resources they have, or what challenging circumstances they face, has a path to self-reliance and resilience. Our partners range from organizations that advance education for underrepresented minorities across our industry, to those that champion public policies aimed at fostering innovation and growth. AvePoint is proud to support education as not only the great equalizer, but as the single most impactful catalyst to improving one’s trajectory. In 2022, we continued our partnership with Girls Who Code, an organization that is committed to building the largest pipeline of future female engineers and has engaged over 500,000 girls, women, and nonbinary individuals through in-person programming. We also partnered with StepNow, an organization dedicated to equipping young people with the necessary tools to step into adulthood in the United Kingdom, to provide youth with a 1-week internship in our London offices to learn more about working in the technology field.

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Allyship

AvePoint is proud to employ talent from many different backgrounds, experiences, and identities. Diversity and inclusion drive our success and is at the core of how we hire, communicate and collaborate to deliver value and excellence. AvePoint is committed to fostering an environment where people can bring their whole selves to work and feel a sense of belonging. Through our employee resource groups, internal mobility opportunities across the countries in which we operate, and external partnerships with underrepresented minority networks, we continue to work toward creating a workforce that represents the diversity of our customers and communities. Through our IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Allyship) Committee, in 2022 we launched our newest employee resource group dedicated to driving greater awareness and connection with military veterans. Our employee resource groups also led the Company’s support of causes including The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth, and The National Center for Children and Families, a nonprofit child and family welfare agency with a commitment to serving poor, disadvantaged, abused neglected and abandoned children, youth and their families.

Supporting Agents of Change: Our Talent

AvePoint is committed to investing in our people and nurturing a growth mindset across our organization. Our talent development philosophy builds upon the idea that business growth and success come from a culture of collaboration and creativity, and that our people should feel empowered to craft their careers, make an impact, and own their futures. Our portfolio of learning and development programs equips our leaders and managers with the skills and confidence to lead high-performing teams, and supports our individual contributors with the tools and resources to contribute impactfully in their roles from the moment they join AvePoint.

Social Responsibility Support from the Top

At AvePoint, our corporate governance practices support our core values of agility, passion, and teamwork. These practices provide a framework for the proper operation of our company, consistent with our stockholders’ best interests and the requirements of law. 

AvePoint is committed to managing our affairs consistent with the highest principles of business ethics and the corporate governance requirements of both federal law and Nasdaq, including the following:

In 2022, in support of these priorities, AvePoint:

Earning the World’s Trust

As a global company which is responsible to employees, stockholders and customers, our vision for AvePoint is to build an environment in which we earn trust and confidence every day through enabling collaboration and innovation through our commitment to privacy, security, and transparency.

Commitment to powering proactive data security programs

AvePoint understands the importance of security and operational risk management and is committed to providing organizations with relevant metrics which help them make decisions that are proactive rather than reactive. When done in conjunction with policies, education and measurement, organizations can balance collaboration and transparency with data protection and privacy. We seek to earn trust not just with robust security and privacy practices, but with the way we operate and organize our business.

Aligning to clear privacy principles

AvePoint has a policy of transparency regarding our data collection, use, retention and sharing practices. It is our commitment to implement appropriate technical security measures to protect all AvePoint stakeholders and manage third party risk. AvePoint uses this foundation and discipline to develop market-leading privacy and security products and deliver world class customer service. Our software, processes and services have obtained industry-leading security and privacy certifications, including System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2013 – Information Security, ISO 27017:015-Cloud Security, Information Security Registered Assessors (IRAP) Program, FedRAMP, and more. We have also implemented a rigorous program to assess our own vendors and suppliers.

Advancing cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is a central challenge as companies around the world embark on the digital transformation. Ransomware attacks have become one of the top security threats for organizations, especially as increased collaboration can lead to more vulnerabilities. The cost to recover stolen data can be millions of dollars, in addition to substantial reputational damage. AvePoint Ransomware Detection, and its Ransomware Warranty for MSP, which primarily serves small business clients, gives assurance that companies will be protected.

Strengthening our offerings by first strengthening ourselves

AvePoint has built a resilient, scalable and secure IT environment by investing in complementary industry leading technology and security solutions, in addition to utilizing our own software platform. In addition, AvePoint has built a corporate culture in which privacy and security are enablers of productivity, collaboration and trust; we balance the free flow of information with the risk of inappropriate access and/or disclosure; and we implement a risk-based approach to privacy and security that will allow us to maintain not only legal and regulatory compliance in the jurisdictions in which we operate, but also to facilitate business and innovation at AvePoint.

Compliance with Material Government Regulations

We are subject to many U.S. federal and state and foreign laws and regulations that involve matters central to our business, including laws and regulations that involve data privacy and data protection, intellectual property, advertising, marketing, health and safety, competition, consumer protection, taxation, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering and corruption, economic or other trade prohibitions or sanctions, environmental protection regulations, and securities law compliance. Our business may also be affected by the adoption of any new or existing laws or regulations or changes in laws or regulations that adversely affect our business. Many relevant laws and regulations are still evolving and may be interpreted, applied, created or amended in a manner that could harm our business, and new laws and regulations may be enacted, including in connection with the restriction or prohibition of certain content or business activities.

We are subject to certain U.S. federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations regarding data privacy and the collection, storage, sharing, use, processing, disclosure and protection of personal information and other data from users, employees or business partners, including the GDPR, CCPA, and VCDPA. These laws expand the rights of individuals to control how their personal data is processed, collected, used and shared, create new regulatory and operational requirements for processing personal data, increase requirements for security and confidentiality and provide for significant penalties for non-compliance. There are also a number of legislative proposals recently enacted or pending before the U.S. Congress, various state legislatures and foreign governments concerning content regulation and data protection that could affect us. These and other laws and regulations that may be enacted, or new interpretation of existing laws and regulations, may require us to modify our data processing practices and policies and to incur substantial costs in order to comply.

In addition, we are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended (the “FCPA”). The FCPA prohibits corporations and individuals from engaging in improper activities to obtain or retain business or to influence a person working in an official capacity. It prohibits, among other things, providing, directly or indirectly, anything of value to any foreign government official, or any political party or official thereof, or candidate for political influence to improperly influence such person. Similar laws exist in other countries, such as the UK, that restrict improper payments to persons in the public or private sector. Many countries have laws prohibiting these types of payments within the respective country. Historically, technology companies have been the target of FCPA and other anti-corruption investigations and penalties. We are further subject to U.S. and foreign laws and regulations that restrict our activities in certain countries and with certain persons. These include the economic sanctions regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the export control laws administered by the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry.

The foregoing description does not include an exhaustive list of the laws and regulations governing or impacting our business. See the discussion contained in the “Risk Factors” section for information regarding how actions by regulatory authorities or changes in legislation and regulation in the jurisdictions in which we operate may have a material adverse effect on our business.

Legal Proceedings

In the normal course of our business, we may be involved in various claims, negotiations, and legal actions. Except for such claims that arise in the normal course of business, as of March 31, 2023, we are not a party to any material asserted, ongoing, threatened, or pending claims, suits, assessments, proceedings, or other litigation for which a material claim is reasonably possible, probable, or estimable.

Properties

We and our subsidiaries are obligated under various non-cancelable operating leases for office space. The initial terms of the leases expire on various dates through 2030. As of March 31, 2023, we had approximately 244,725 square feet of leased office space across the United States, Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

The table below shows a summary of the square footage of our office and other facilities owned and leased domestically and internationally as of March 31, 2023:

Our Principal Offices

Our principal corporate headquarters are located in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, and consist of approximately 15,467 square feet under a lease that expires in 2030. Our principal operating offices are located in Richmond, Virginia, United States, where we lease approximately 11,965 square feet under a lease that expires in 2027.

Use of Facilities

We use our principal corporate headquarters primarily for our executive management, information technology, human resources, and marketing, as well as for certain of data privacy and security teams. We use our principal operating headquarters for our finance, accounting, legal, general administration, certain information technology, support, data privacy and security, and sales teams. Our other facilities across the globe are used for some or all of the aforementioned operating purposes, as well as for research and development, customer support, data storage, accounts receivable and payable, and other administrative and operational purposes.

Additional Space

We believe that our current facilities are adequate to meet our needs for the immediate future and that suitable additional space will be available to accommodate any expansion of our operations as needed.

2021 Consummation of the Business Combination

Apex and Legacy AvePoint Business Combination

Legacy AvePoint was incorporated as a New Jersey corporation on July 24, 2001, was redomiciled as a Delaware corporation in 2006, and changed its name to “AvePoint Operations, Inc.” in June 2021.

On the Closing Date, Legacy AvePoint and certain members of Apex the parties to the Business Combination Agreement consummated the Business Combination and a number of qualified institutional buyers and accredited investors consummated their respective purchases of shares as contemplated by the Subscription Agreements, with Apex being renamed “AvePoint, Inc.” On July 2, 2021, shares of Common Stock were officially listed under the ticker “AVPT” on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Subsequent to the consummation of the Business Combination, on July 26, 2021, Legacy AvePoint’s successor by merger AvePoint US LLC merged with and into AvePoint, Inc. with AvePoint, Inc. surviving. See “Prospectus Summary – Background” for more information.

MANAGEMENT

Directors and Executive Officers

Our directors and officers as of March 29, 2023 are as follows:

Executive Officers

   Xunkai Gong has served as our Executive Chairman since July of 2021. Prior to that, Mr. Gong served as Legacy AvePoint’s Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer alongside Dr. Jiang since 2008. Before that, Mr. Gong served as Legacy AvePoint’s Chief Executive Officer since Legacy AvePoint’s incorporation in 2001. Mr. Gong holds a master’s degree in computer engineering from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, a master’s degree in computer science from Southern University and Agricultural and Mechanical College at Baton Rouge, and a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Dalian University of Technology.

   Tianyi Jiang serves as our Chief Executive Officer. Prior to that, Dr. Jiang served as Legacy AvePoint’s Co-Chief Executive Officer alongside Mr. Gong from 2008 to 2021 and as a director since 2005. Dr. Jiang has served as a member of our Board since the consummation of the Business Combination. Dr. Jiang holds doctorate and master’s degrees in Data Mining from New York University in addition to a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University.

   Brian Michael Brown serves as AvePoint’s Chief Legal and Compliance Officer and Secretary and was previously Legacy AvePoint’s Chief Operating Officer, General Counsel and Secretary since 2016 and AvePoint’s General Counsel since AvePoint began. Mr. Brown has been a director since 2005. Mr. Brown previously practiced law with the firm of McGuireWoods LLP for many years. Mr. Brown holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a Juris Doctor from Michigan State University.

   James Caci was appointed as our Chief Financial Officer in August of 2021. In this role, Mr. Caci works to improve the AvePoint’s financial capabilities, provide quality insights for informed decision-making, achieve goals for financial transparency and integrity, and help the company scale both organically and through acquisition. Mr. Caci has over 25 years of experience leading the strategic finance operations at both public and privately held SaaS and IT service companies. Prior to AvePoint, Mr. Caci served as CFO of Brand Value Accelerator, where he aligned the company to capitalize on meteoric rise of Shopify, and Conductor, Inc., among others. Mr. Caci has a BS in business administration from Montclair State University.

Non-Employee Directors

   Jeff Epstein was Apex’s Co-Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary from its inception until the consummation of the Business Combination, at which time he became a member of our Board. Since 2011, Mr. Epstein has been an operating partner with Bessemer Venture Partners, a venture capital firm. From 2008 to 2011, Mr. Epstein was executive vice president and chief financial officer of Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL), a global technology company. Prior to joining Oracle, he served as chief financial officer of several public and private companies, including DoubleClick (sold to Google), King World Productions (sold to CBS) and Nielsen’s Media Measurement and Information Group. Earlier in his career, he was an investment banker at The First Boston Corporation. Mr. Epstein is a lecturer at Stanford University. He serves on the boards of directors of Twilio, Okta and Couchbase, as well as the board of directors of Kaiser Permanente, a non-profit healthcare company. Within the last five years he previously served on the boards of directors of Booking Holdings (from 2003 to 2021), Shutterstock (from 2012 to 2021) and Poshmark (from 2018 to 2023). Mr. Epstein holds an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from Yale College.

   John Ho has served as a member of our Board since the consummation of the Business Combination. Since 2009, Mr. Ho has served as founder and chief industrialist investor of Janchor Partners. Since January 2018, Mr. Ho has served as a non-executive director for Vocus Group Limited, a telecommunications company listed on the ASX. From April 2017 to December 2019, he served as chairman of the board of directors of Bellamy’s Organic, an organic infant milk formula and baby food company listed on the ASX. From July 2014 to July 2019, he served as deputy chairman, listing committee for the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited. He serves on the boards of directors of Incitec Pivot limited. Mr. Ho received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and a bachelor of commerce degree in finance from The University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

   Jeff Teper has served as a member of the board of directors of Legacy AvePoint since December 2014 and a member of our Board since the consummation of the Business Consummation. Mr. Teper has worked at Microsoft Corporation since March 1992 and currently holds the title Corporate Vice President. Mr. Teper holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. He also holds a bachelor’s degree from New York University.

   Janet Schijns is CEO and Co-Founder of JS Group, a go to market consultancy dedicated to achieving results in the technology channel. She is the founder of the #digitalnormal movement in the industry driving profitable change in the partner community. She was formerly Executive Vice President and Chief Merchant and Services Officer at Office Depot, where she led a major transformation to drive traction in services, generating recurring revenue from higher margin solutions. Prior to that, she was the Chief Channel Executive, Chief Marketing Technologist and led business products for Verizon Business. Additionally, Ms. Schijns led the channel organization for Motorola Enterprise and Government and is a noted and admired industry expert regularly appearing on the main stage at a variety of events. Additionally, Ms. Schijns currently serves on the board of directors for Ninjio, a security culture enablement provider which is helping to shut down business security breaches through employee empowerment.

Family Relationships

There are no family relationships among any of our directors or executive officers.

Board Composition

Our business and affairs are organized under the direction of our board of directors (the “Board”) which meets on a regular basis and additionally as required. In accordance with our amended and restated bylaws, the Board may establish the authorized number of directors from time to time by resolution. The Board consists of seven members. The Board is divided into three classes with staggered three-year terms. At each annual general meeting of stockholders, the successors to directors whose terms then expire will be elected to serve from the time of election and qualification until the third annual meeting following election, subject to his or her office being vacated sooner pursuant to our amended and restated bylaws.

Our directors are divided among the three classes as follows:

Any additional directorships resulting from an increase in the number of directors will be distributed among the three classes so that, as nearly as possible, each class will consist of one-third of the directors.

The division of the Board into three classes with staggered three-year terms may delay or prevent a change of our management or a change in control.

Board Diversity

The matrix below summarizes certain of the key experiences, qualifications, skills, and attributes that our directors bring to the Board to enable effective oversight. The matrix is intended to provide a summary of our directors’ qualifications and is not meant to be a complete list of each directors’ strengths or contributions to the Board. Additional details on each director’s experiences, qualifications, skills, and attributes are set forth in their respective biographies above.