UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
(Mark One)
☒
OR☐
ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022
For the transition period from to
Commission File Number: 001-38056
YEXT, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
Delaware
(State or other jurisdiction of
incorporation or organization)
20-8059722
(I.R.S. Employer
Identification No.)
61 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)
(212) 994-3900
(Registrant's telephone number, including area code)
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
Title of each class
Common Stock, par value $0.001 per share
Trading Symbol(s)
YEXT
Name of each exchange on which registered
New York Stock Exchange
Securities registered pursuant to section 12(g) of the Act:
Not applicable
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of Act. Yes ☐ No ☒
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the
registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12
months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit files). Yes ☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large
accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
Large accelerated filer
Non-accelerated filer
☒
☐
Accelerated filer
Smaller reporting company
Emerging growth company
☐
☐
☐
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to
Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-
Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No ☒
Based on the closing price of the registrant’s common stock on the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, which was July 31, 2021, the aggregate market value of its shares
(based on a closing price of $13.03 per share) held by non-affiliates was approximately $1.5 billion. Shares of the registrant’s common stock held by each executive officer and director and by certain entities or persons that
owned a certain percentage of the registrant’s outstanding common stock were excluded to the extent that such persons may be deemed to be affiliates. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive
determination for other purposes.
As of March 1, 2022, 131,186,882 shares of the registrant’s common stock, $0.001 par value per share were outstanding.
Portions of the registrant’s definitive proxy statement for its 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the “Proxy Statement”), to be filed within 120 days of the registrant’s fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, are
incorporated by reference in Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Except with respect to information specifically incorporated by reference in this Form 10-K, the Proxy Statement is not deemed to be filed as part of
this Form 10-K.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Business
Risk Factors
Unresolved Staff Comments
Properties
Legal Proceedings
Mine Safety Disclosures
Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
Reserved
Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
Consolidated Financial Statements and Supplementary Data
Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure
Controls and Procedures
Other Information
Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance
Executive Compensation
Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters
Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence
Principal Accountant Fees and Services
Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules
Form 10-K Summary
PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
INDEX TO EXHIBITS
SIGNATURES
Item 1
Item 1A
Item 1B
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5
Item 6
Item 7
Item 7A
Item 8
Item 9
Item 9A
Item 9B
Item 10
Item 11
Item 12
Item 13
Item 14
Item 15
Item 16
PAGE
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SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains, and our officers and representatives may from time to time make, forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended
(the “Securities Act”), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), which statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements contained in this Annual Report
on Form 10-K other than statements of historical fact, including statements regarding our future results of operations and financial position, our business strategy and plans, and our objectives for future operations, are forward-
looking statements. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “potentially,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “intend,” “could,” “would,” “expect” and similar expressions that convey uncertainty of future events or
outcomes are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K include, but are not limited to, statements regarding:
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our future revenue, cost of revenue, operating expenses and cash flows;
anticipated trends, growth rates and challenges in our business and in the markets in which we operate;
the effect of the coronavirus (“COVID-19”) pandemic and its variants, including the effect of governmental restrictions and regulations as well as precautionary measures undertaken by businesses, on our
business, operations, and financial results and the business and operations of our customers and potential customers;
our beliefs, objectives and strategies for future operations, including plans to invest in international expansion, research and development, and our sales and marketing teams, and the impact of such investments
on our operations;
changes in management and anticipated effects thereof;
our ability to increase sales of our products;
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• maintaining and expanding our end-customer base and our relationships with our Knowledge Network; and
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sufficiency of cash to meet cash needs for at least the next 12 months.
We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business
strategy, short-term and long-term business operations and objectives and financial needs. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those described in Part I,
Item 1A. “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time. It is not possible for us to predict all risks, nor
can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements we may
make. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking events and trends discussed in this Annual Report on Form 10-K may not occur and actual results could differ materially and adversely from
those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements.
You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee that the
future results, performance, or events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or occur. We undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these
forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, except as required by law.
In this Annual Report on Form 10-K, the words “we,” “us,” “our” and “Yext” refer to Yext, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries, unless the context requires otherwise.
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Item 1. Business
Overview
PART I
Yext, Inc. (“Yext” or the “Company”) organizes a business’s facts so it can provide official answers to consumer questions starting with the business's own website and then extending across search engines and voice
assistants. Our platform lets businesses structure the facts about their brands in a database called the Knowledge Graph. Our platform is built to leverage the structured data stored in the Knowledge Graph to deliver a modern
search experience on a business’s or organization’s own website, as well as across approximately 200 service and application providers, which we refer to as our Knowledge Network, and includes Amazon Alexa, Apple
Maps, Bing, Cortana, Facebook, Google, Google Assistant, Google Maps, Siri and Yelp. Our platform powers all of our key features, including Listings, Pages, and Answers, along with its other features and capabilities. We
believe a business is the ultimate authority on its own facts, and it is our mission to put that business in control of it, everywhere.
The online consumer journey is changing. With the introduction of natural language processing and the growing prevalence of voice assistants and chatbots, search has become more conversational. Consumers are no
longer just typing in individual keywords like “mortgage” or “menswear,” but are also using natural language phrases like “wealth advisor near me who specializes in healthcare” and even asking specific, complex questions
like “what’s the best menswear store in London that sells dress shirts and is open now?” Web and mobile applications and voice and artificial intelligence, or AI, engines are increasingly answering questions directly and in
certain cases providing only one answer unlike traditional web-based search where many results are displayed as a list requiring further exploration. As search continues to evolve, and increasingly leverages AI, consumers are
more likely to rely on these direct answers.
While consumer online search behavior has changed, the search experience on many businesses’ websites has not evolved to meet consumer expectations. Numerous searches are unable to understand natural language
queries instead returning a list of links based on keywords rather than direct answers. Poor user experience on a business’s own website may result in lost sales opportunities or may cause consumers to visit a competitor’s
website. The challenge for businesses is to understand and provide accurate answers to consumer’s questions while delivering a rich, consistent search experience on their website as well as third-party applications. Many
answers and results provided by searches currently come from third-party sources such as data aggregators, governmental agencies and consumers. The net result of this third-party sourcing has been to produce “best guess”
data that can often be incomplete, misleading or incorrect.
Yext pioneered a better way for businesses to control and publish the critical facts about themselves to answer consumer questions. We have built our business on the fundamental premise that the best source of accurate
and timely information about a business is the business itself. We do this first by empowering brands to structure the public facts about themselves in a database called the Knowledge Graph. The Knowledge Graph organizes
data in a way that can answer complex questions by storing both data points themselves and the multiple relationships between data points. Then our platform uses multiple algorithms to better understand user intent and find
relevant results from structured data, semi-structured data or unstructured documents. In addition, our products and features are built to leverage the structured data stored in the Knowledge Graph so businesses can provide
official answers to consumer questions.
Businesses of nearly all sizes and in a diverse set of industries can benefit from our platform and capabilities. Yext enables businesses to:
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provide direct answers to consumer questions about their business on their own website;
• modify, enhance and control the facts about each of their locations, professionals, menus, events or other entities managed with our platform;
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update once and disseminate changes to their listings across the most widely used third-party maps, apps, search engines, GPS systems, digital assistants, vertical directories and social networks that consumers rely
upon today;
create and update search-optimized landing pages for their locations, professionals and events on their own websites;
encourage consumer reviews for inclusion on their landing pages; and
analyze how features in the platform drive consumer engagement and revenue for our customers.
Recent Developments
On March 7, 2022, Howard Lerman notified our Board of Directors of his intention to step down from his position as Chief Executive Officer of the Company effective March 25, 2022. Michael Walrath, the Chairman of
the Board of Directors, will succeed Mr. Lerman as Chief Executive Officer, principal executive officer and principal operating officer of the Company, effective March 25, 2022.
On March 7, 2022, Steven Cakebread notified our Board of Directors of his intention to step down from his position as Chief Financial Officer of the Company effective March 25, 2022. Darryl Bond, the Company’s
Executive Vice President and Chief
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Accounting Officer, will succeed Mr. Cakebread as Chief Financial Officer and principal financial officer of the Company, effective March 25, 2022. Mr. Bond will continue to serve as the Company’s Chief Accounting
Officer.
On March 7, 2022, the Board also appointed Marc Ferrentino, the Company’s Chief Strategy Officer, as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Company.
In connection with the changes in our senior management, our Board of Directors and new management anticipate certain additional changes to our strategy and personnel that have not yet been determined.
Industry Background
Search Results Provide Direct Answers. Search that is powered by AI has grown significantly in recent years. Businesses are now able to leverage search to help consumers discover what they need directly on the search
engine results page.
Consumers Search Using Natural Language. Consumers are no longer just typing in individual keywords, but are also using natural language phrases and even asking specific, complex questions. Businesses need to be able
to understand those questions and answer them accurately and directly.
Facts About a Business Are Fundamental. Businesses spend significant sums on developing their brands and creating product and market awareness. When potential consumers reached through those efforts want to make a
purchase, businesses need to be able to answer consumers' questions accurately and directly. Inaccurate or incomplete information may result in lost sales opportunities, negative brand experiences and organizational
inefficiencies.
Search Drives Commerce. When searching for a business, consumers need to know many relevant attributes such as qualifications of a wealth advisor, amenities at a hotel, or course offerings at a university. As a result,
businesses must ensure that the facts about their business are available, accurate and consistent online so that they can be found. Moreover, businesses want to make sure that they appear prominently online when nearby
consumers search for them. Finally, once a consumer reaches a business’s website ready to transact, the business must be ready to answer the consumer’s specific queries.
Managing Facts Online Is Challenging
Many businesses lack the capabilities to effectively control, structure and manage facts across the digital ecosystem where consumers discover businesses. This lack of management capability is due to several factors:
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Lack of Control of Facts Online. Many answers and results provided by searches currently come from third-party sources such as data aggregators, governmental agencies and consumers. The net result of this third-
party sourcing has been to produce “best guess” data that can often miss or misstate the true facts about businesses worldwide.
Attributes that Describe the Facts About a Business Are Expanding. To respond to consumer questions, businesses need to be able to define the facts about their business using detailed, category-specific attributes
ranging from name, address and phone number to more detailed items such as whether a hotel accepts pets, a restaurant has a gluten-free menu or a doctor accepts certain insurance plans.
Facts About a Business Are Dynamic. The facts about a business include dynamic attributes that change frequently, such as opening hours, holiday hours, menus, events and promotions.
Facts About a Business Exist in Many Places. With popular services such as Google, Facebook and Yelp, as well as vertical search applications and search leveraging AI using mobile, voice-based and in-app
search, businesses need an efficient way to control their facts across these multitude of services.
Businesses Need to Provide Consumers with Relevant and Actionable Information. When consumers ask questions about businesses, they expect to be able to quickly find the relevant information they need about those
organizations. Furthermore, the increase in the number of mobile users around the world has resulted in the need for business information to be available on the applications where consumers engage and to be presented in a
way that is consistent with the language and customs of each geography in which consumers reside.
Existing Alternatives Are Inadequate. Traditional methods for managing facts about brands include paper or legacy software-based solutions, such as word processors or spreadsheets. Simply managing and updating
information within the few core search engines, such as Google and Bing, through these traditional methods is already very challenging, and becomes even more so when implementing updates on newer services such as
Instagram, Snapchat and Uber.
Poor Search Experience Results in Lost Transactions. While consumer online search behavior has changed, we believe the search experience on many businesses' websites has not evolved to meet consumer expectations.
Many searches on a business’s website are unable to understand natural language queries and instead return a list of links based on keywords rather than direct answers. Poor search experience on a business’s own website may
result in lost sales opportunities or may cause consumers to visit a competitor’s website.
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Consumer Reviews Are of Critical Importance. Many major applications include consumer review data in their search results and may rank businesses and professional service providers based on the number, quality and
recency of reviews. A limited number of reviews or a few poor reviews without offsetting positive reviews may result in an otherwise lower search ranking in certain applications.
Growth Strategy
Key elements of our strategy include:
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Grow Our Customer Base. We believe that there is a substantial opportunity to continue to increase the size of our customer base across a broad range of industries and companies. We plan to continue to invest in
our sales force to grow our customer base, both domestically and internationally.
Expand Existing Customer Relationships. We continue to expand our relationships with existing customers. For example, some businesses may initially purchase our platform only for their stores in a particular
country with opportunities to expand to other stores in the geographic region. We continue to sell additional features, such as Pages, Reviews and Answers, to existing customers. See "—Sales and Marketing" for a
discussion of customer retention and our ability to expand customer relationships.
Expand Internationally. We sell our platform throughout the world and believe there are substantial opportunities to increase sales to customers outside of the United States as well as to help our existing U.S.-
based customers manage data for more of their international business. We have an established presence in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Japan and we intend
to further expand our footprint to other regions.
• Develop and Market New Products and Features. We are committed to developing and marketing innovative capabilities and we will continue to invest in our platform and develop products and features to help our
customers better control the facts about their businesses online. In the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, we tailored our products and features for various use cases so that our platform could be deployed more
quickly to resolve a customer’s specific search needs such as support search on both internal and external platforms.
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Drive Usage of Our Platform. Our customer success professionals are responsible for building relationships with customers, increasing customer’s adoption and engagement with the Yext platform. Our Hitchhikers
program, a comprehensive training program and community for professionals, helps our customers and the developer community develop skills to build custom search solutions for their business using our platform.
Extend the Knowledge Network. We plan to continue to expand our Knowledge Network. In the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 our Knowledge Network is comprised of approximately 200 applications. We are
increasing our focus on adding more industry vertical-specific and international services to our Knowledge Network as well as including new services that may become more commonly used in the future
Expand Integrations. Yext offers integrations with a number of other platforms accessible through the Yext App Directory. These integrations offer our customers the ability to connect Yext with other systems to
give customers programmatic control of their organization’s facts. As the number of integrations in the Yext App Directory grows, we believe that it will further expand the ways that our platform can be utilized
and increase customer retention. For example, in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, we launched integrations with Salesforce and Zendesk enabling mutual customers to implement Yext's search experience on
help centers as well as support agent's workspaces and decrease case creation by recommending related content within the case submission form.
Key Benefits of Our Platform
The Yext platform provides the following benefits depending on a customer’s subscription level and enabled products and features:
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Control over Facts. Our platform is the system of record that enables our customers to control and centralize the facts about their businesses, resulting in the elimination of inaccurate and duplicate data and the
ability to seamlessly update data across our Knowledge Network.
Flexibility for Optimized Management of Business Attributes. Our technology enables businesses to develop structured data that suits their business needs and is optimized for search and discovery. Our platform
gives businesses the ability to organize, edit and update the facts about their business based on numerous standard attribute fields, such as address and hours of operation, and increase the depth of their data using
our extensible custom fields, such as menu options or accepted insurance plans.
Direct Integrations with the Most Relevant Services. Our platform, coupled with our Knowledge Network of approximately 200 maps, apps, search engines, intelligent GPS systems, digital assistants, vertical
directories and social networks, provides our customers with the ability to update their information and content across this network with a single click.
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Increased Discoverability and Conversions. With structured data stored in the Knowledge Graph coupled with the applications in our Knowledge Network, our customers provide search engines and voice assistants
with the data they need to answer questions about their businesses. By providing accurate and direct answers to questions and guiding consumers to transact directly from search results, we believe businesses are
able to capture, convert and retain more of their customers.
Create and Manage Compelling Landing Pages for Consumers at Scale. Yext Pages enables businesses to create and manage compelling landing pages on their website at scale using the Knowledge Graph. When
data is updated on a business’s Knowledge Graph, Yext automatically publishes the changes to a business's website, so that the most accurate, up-to-date answers are available to customers on and off a business's
website.
Ability to Drive More Reviews and Increase Consumer Engagement. Yext Reviews helps our customers to gather additional genuine consumer reviews and add those reviews to a customer's website as well as
monitor and respond to reviews posted across the Knowledge Network.
Ability to Perform Advanced Analytics. Our platform's advanced analytics inform businesses about their digital public presence and consumer interactions on their Yext Listing, Pages and Answers experiences that
can drive customer revenue.
Reduced Support Costs. We have tailored our products and features to resolve a customer’s specific search needs such as support search on both internal and external platforms. For this use case, our platform is
designed to understand the meaning behind customer questions and deliver direct answers drawing from a business's FAQs, product manuals and help articles. By helping consumers resolve their own questions and
reducing support agent's case resolution times, our platform reduces a business's support costs.
Global Reach and Local Expertise. Our platform integrates with both global and country-specific search engines and applications, accepts international address and phone number data, and allows local employees
to contribute individual expertise, providing a consumer experience that respects local languages, address formats and customs.
The Yext Platform
Yext's cloud-based platform powers products and features that allow our customers to provide accurate and direct answers to consumer questions, to control the facts about their businesses and the content of their
landing pages and to manage their consumer reviews, all from a single login. From our platform customers can centralize, control and manage data fields, including store information such as name, address, phone number and
holiday hours; professional information such as headshots, specialties or education; job information such as title and description; FAQs and more. These and other public facts about a business are stored in a database called the
Knowledge Graph. The Knowledge Graph organizes data in a way that can answer complex questions by storing both data points themselves and the multiple relationships between data points. Our customers can then use
information from the Knowledge Graph to answer consumers' questions, to power and update their landing pages and to make this information available through our Knowledge Network of approximately 200 maps, apps,
search engines, intelligent GPS systems, digital assistants, vertical directories and social networks in a complete, up to date and accurate manner.
The key products and features that comprise the Yext platform include:
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Listings. Listings allows our customers to sync and update the content they store in the Yext platform across our Knowledge Network providing customers with greater control and consistency over their brand.
Pages. Pages enables businesses to create landing pages on their website to capture traffic from search engines and establish a call-to-action for consumers who reach those pages.
Answers. Answers delivers a natural-language search experience on a company’s website and other digital properties, where consumers can search a company’s Knowledge Graph and get direct answers in the form
of knowledge cards, maps and other relevant results.
Our platform contains various other features. Reviews enables customers to encourage and facilitate reviews, thereby increasing the quantity and quality of the reviews available to potential consumers and provides tools to
manage their reviews from multiple sources across our Knowledge Network from a single location. Analytics provides businesses a holistic view of where and how consumers interact with their brand both on their own
websites and on third-party applications as well as insight into consumer interactions on their Yext Listing, Pages and Answers experiences that can drive customer revenue. Ultimately, our platform helps businesses deliver
accurate, consistent, up to date and compelling information to consumers.
We also offer our customers additional resources through Hitchhikers, a comprehensive training program and community for professionals, whom use Yext. With Hitchhikers, our customers and the developer community
are now able to build custom search solutions for their business using our platform. We continue to invest in platform and features development to help our customers better control the facts about their business and have
released new products and features to all of our customers multiple times a year.
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Our Technology
Our cloud-based platform is designed to scale as we continue to add customers and allows us to support the entities managed with our platform and the millions of associated facts. The platform is built primarily with
industry-standard open source technology. We use a microservices-based architecture to maximize the manageability, flexibility and scalability of our software as it continues to grow more complex. We also employ a modern
continuous delivery approach to building, testing and deploying our software.
Hosting
The majority of our customer-facing software is run from two co-location data centers. To provide the highest level of up-time and lowest latency for our platform capabilities, key high-volume services are hosted by
third-party hosting services, which allows easier and greater scalability and provides for redundancy.
Data Structure
The Yext platform allows customers to collect, store and manage structured data, consistent with standards published by schema.org. Schema.org is an open and collaborative initiative launched by certain large search
engines that defines the vocabulary and format for structured markup. Search engines like Google and Bing consume data through structured markup placed in the underlying code of web pages.
We actively monitor and track the schema.org standards so that our platform stores and publishes data in accordance with the most current schema.org specifications.
Integrations with our Knowledge Network and App Directory
The functionality of our platform is dependent on integrations with a variety of third-party technologies that comprise our Knowledge Network and App Directory. For example, we rely on integrations with each of the
applications in our Knowledge Network to accomplish some or all of the following key tasks with members of our Knowledge Network:
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search for existing listings and retrieve details about them, in order to match our customers’ data in the Knowledge Graph to existing listing data;
claim listings and deliver updated content;
retrieve or get notified about reviews and allow review response; and
obtain statistics about traffic on listings to display to our customers in the platform.
Yext’s integrations through its App Directory offer our customers the ability to connect Yext with other systems to enable customers to accomplish key tasks including the following:
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powering chatbots with data stored in the Knowledge Graph;
joining insights from Yext with other platforms to perform deeper business analysis;
optimize marketing campaigns with location data stored in the Knowledge Graph; and
optimize scheduling and appointment bookings.
Over the years, we have developed special integrations with a number of the applications in our Knowledge Network and App Directory. We have also worked with the major application providers to develop trust and
strong working relationships, resulting in specific operational workflows, processes for issue resolution, and specialized technology and processes tailored to the nuances of each. For smaller application providers, we have
developed our own application programming interface, or API specifications that each provider builds and implements for integration with our platform.
Our Customers
We serve businesses with locations throughout the world. These include many leading businesses in a diverse set of industries, such as healthcare, retail and financial services. For this purpose, we define a customer as a
separate and distinct buying entity, such as a company, a government institution, a franchisor, a service provider or agency or a distinct business unit of a large corporation that has an active contract directly with us. No single
customer accounted for more than 10% of our revenue for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.
Customer Support
Our customer support group responds to inquiries about the use of our products. We provide basic customer support as well as premier customer support, which may include services such as priority access to technical
resources, faster target response times and other additional support services. As the Yext platform can be used by a number of different roles throughout the organization, for an additional fee, we also offer field user support
which includes one-on-one training, review of content based on brand guidelines, and other support services.
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Professional Services
We offer professional services to customize our platform for our customers. Our professional services teams comprised of project managers, engineers and design experts offer various services including custom built
landing pages and data integrations as well as ongoing maintenance and services.
Sales and Marketing
We sell our platform throughout the world to customers of all sizes, including our enterprise, mid-size, and third-party reseller customers. In transactions with resellers, we are only a party to the transaction with the reseller
and are not a party to the reseller’s transaction with its customer. We are also developing programs comprised of technology companies and consultants to promote the Yext platform to their customers.
Our sales organization varies by market within each country and will change over time as we build critical mass and address various verticals within a market. Our quota-carrying sales representatives were approximately
225 and approximately 250 at January 31, 2022 and January 31, 2021, respectively. In connection with our recent management changes, we reduced such headcount by approximately 35 representatives. We may make
additional changes to our sales approach as we update our strategy.
We offer annual and multi-year subscriptions to our platform. Revenue is a function of the number of customers, the number of licenses or capacity purchased by each customer, the package to which each customer
subscribes, the price of the package and renewal rates. Our subscriptions are offered in a discrete range of packages, with pricing based on specified feature sets and the number of entities managed on our platform, such as
locations, persons and events among others. We refer to these locations, persons, and other entities collectively as “licenses.”
Our packages start with basic access to the Knowledge Graph and successively include access to additional capabilities at a higher cost. More recently we have offered our enterprise and mid-size customers the option to
purchase our products separately, in addition to packages, with pricing based on licenses as well as capacity.
Our marketing efforts are focused on promoting our brand and generating demand for our products. We use a variety of marketing programs across traditional and social channels to target our prospective and current
customers. Our primary marketing activities include integrated marketing campaigns, sponsorships of leading industry conferences, and thought leadership such as webinars, whitepapers and blog posts.
Research and Development
Our global research and development organization is responsible for the development, design and testing of our platform as well as APIs that facilitate the integration of our platform with third-party applications. Our
research and development team uses and shares the same technology, platform development tools and data across various sites. We have and will continue to invest in our research and development team to enable the release
of new products and features multiple times a year.
Intellectual Property
Our intellectual property is an essential element of our business. We rely on a combination of patent, trade secret, trademark, copyright and other intellectual property laws, confidentiality agreements and license
agreements to protect our intellectual property rights. We also license certain third-party technology for use in conjunction with our platform.
We believe that our continued success depends on hiring and retaining highly capable and innovative employees, especially as it relates to our engineering base. It is our policy that our employees and independent
contractors involved in development are required to sign agreements acknowledging that all inventions, trade secrets, works of authorship, developments and other processes generated by them on our behalf are our property
and assigning to us any ownership that they may claim in those works. Despite our precautions, it may be possible for third parties to obtain and use without consent intellectual property that we own or license. Unauthorized
use of our intellectual property by third parties, and the expenses incurred in protecting our intellectual property rights, may adversely affect our business.
Patents and Patent Applications
As of January 31, 2022, we had fifteen issued U.S. patents, one issued national stage patent, nineteen non-provisional and three provisional U.S. patent applications, two U.S. design patent applications, six international
Patent Cooperation Treaty patent applications pending, and sixteen national stage applications outside of the U.S. The issued patents have expiration dates ranging from 2032 to 2039. Although we actively attempt to utilize
patents to protect our technologies, we believe that none of our patents, individually or in the aggregate, are material to our business. We will continue to file and prosecute patent applications when appropriate to attempt to
protect our rights in our proprietary technologies. However, there can be no assurance that our patent applications will be approved, that any patents issued will adequately protect our intellectual property, or that such patents
will not be challenged by third parties or found by a judicial authority to be invalid or unenforceable.
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Trademarks
We rely on registered and unregistered trademarks to protect our brand. As of January 31, 2022, we had 149 trademarks registered globally. “Yext” is a registered trademark in the United States and in certain other
countries.
Competition
The market for our platform is new and rapidly evolving, and we face many competitors with a variety of product offerings. Our competition comes from businesses that choose to manage their online, public-facing data
in-house using manual, paper and spreadsheet-based systems that corporate personnel employ in a fragmented manner rather than pay for a third-party product or service. In addition, other companies may offer products and
services at lower price points than us or that compete with some of the features present in our platform. For example certain local marketing and reputation management companies offer one or more products that manage
location information across search platforms or facilitate monitoring and responding to reviews. We believe that we generally compete favorably with our competitors because of the size and breadth of our integrations and
relationships with the applications in our Knowledge Network, the features and performance of our platform, the ease of integration of our platform with the technological infrastructures of our customers and the incremental
marketing benefits and return on investment that our various products and features offer to our customers.
As we develop our platform, we will introduce products and features that compete in new markets and as a result we will face more established businesses in these markets. For example, Answers, our search product was
launched in 2019 and competes with more established search products and legacy search features. We believe our product is differentiated from that of our competitors because of its ease and cost of deployment, ability to
leverage structured data in Knowledge Graph, multi-algorithm approach and natural language understanding. As we introduce new features and our existing platform evolves, or as other companies introduce new products and
services, we may become subject to additional competition.
Human Capital
We consider our culture and employees to be vital to our success. Yext is committed to providing a safe, productive, discrimination-free and harassment-free work environment. All employees are responsible for
compliance with our Code of Conduct and Employee Handbook, which includes our anti-harassment policy. These policies and practices help us foster a workplace environment that promotes inclusion and diversity. We also
support seven employee resource groups, or ERGs, that are led and founded by employees with a senior executive sponsor. ERGs provide a community for underrepresented groups and their allies and offer professional
development and mentoring opportunities. In addition, our diversity and inclusion team develops and implements diversity and inclusion strategies to improve our recruitment process, performance management, leadership
development, employee engagement and retention.
To attract and retain highly capable and innovative employees, we have developed competitive compensation packages and benefits programs. Our compensation packages include market-competitive pay, an Employee
Stock Purchase Plan, healthcare and retirement benefits, paid time off and family leave and flexible work schedules. We also offer broad-based equity awards with multi-year vesting provisions to incentivize and reward our
employees for long term corporate performance based on the value of our common stock and promote retention throughout the vesting period. We have invested resources to develop employee talent. Upward, our rotational
program, offers analysts early in their careers the opportunity to rotate through three functional areas to gain an understanding not only of how our platform and systems work, but also how our customers interact with our
products. In addition, we conduct an annual employee survey to gauge employee engagement and identify areas of focus.
To support our employees in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 and to promote their health and safety, our offices are open on a voluntary basis in accordance with guidance provided by government agencies, although
currently the majority of our employees are still working remotely. While we continue to hold virtual events, we have also resumed in-person marketing events. We provided two weeks of emergency family leave for
employees to take care of a child or parent due to COVID-19 disruptions.
As of January 31, 2022, we had over 1,400 full-time employees, the majority of whom are based in our New York headquarters.
Governmental Regulation
We are subject to governmental regulation and other legal obligations, including those related to privacy, data protection and information security. Compliance with such laws and regulations could, individually or in the
aggregate, increase our cost of doing business, impact our competitive position relative to our peers, and otherwise have an adverse impact on our operating results. For additional information about the impact of government
regulations on our business, see "Risk Factors—Risks Related to Laws, Regulation and Taxation" in Part I, Item 1A in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Additional Information
We are a Delaware corporation with our headquarters located at 61 Ninth Avenue, New York, NY 10011. You can access our website at www.yext.com and our investor relations website at http://investors.yext.com. Our
telephone number is (212) 994-3900.
Copies of our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to these reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, are available, free of charge, on our investor relations website as soon as reasonably practicable after we file such
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material electronically with or furnish it to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC. The SEC also maintains a website at http://www.sec.gov that contains our SEC filings. None of the information contained on,
or that can be accessed through, our website, our investor relations website or the SEC's website is part of this Form 10-K nor is such information incorporated by reference herein.
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Item 1A. Risk Factors
You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and
related notes, before making a decision to invest in our common stock. 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 affect our business. If any of the following risks occur, our business, financial condition, operating results and prospects could be materially harmed. In that
event, the price of our common stock could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment.
Risk Factor Summary
This risk factor summary contains a high-level summary of risks associated with our business, but does not address all of the risks that we face. Additional discussion of the risks summarized below, and other risks that we
face, may be found immediately following this summary.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
• Our revenue growth rate in recent periods may not be indicative of our future performance.
• We have a history of losses and may not achieve profitability in the future.
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Failure to adequately scale our sales force will impede our growth.
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have had and are expected to continue to have an adverse effect on our business, operations and financial results as well as the business and operations of our customers and
potential customers.
Because we recognize revenue from subscriptions for our platform over the term of the subscription, downturns or upturns in new business may not be immediately reflected in our operating results.
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• We have a limited operating history and our business has evolved, which makes it difficult to predict our future operating results.
• We have experienced rapid growth and significant changes to our organization and structure and may not be able to effectively manage such growth.
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• We have expanded and intend to continue to expand our international operations, which exposes us to significant risks.
• Our growth depends in part on the success of our strategic relationships with existing and prospective Knowledge Network application providers.
• We do not have a long history with our pricing models and changes could adversely affect our operating results.
• Our success depends on a fragmented internet environment for finding information, particularly information about businesses.
• Our platform faces competition in the marketplace. If we are unable to compete effectively, our operating results could be adversely affected.
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Business and professional service providers may not widely adopt our platform to manage their information or as an important part of their marketing strategy, which would limit our ability to grow our business.
If customers do not renew their subscriptions for our platform or if they reduce their subscriptions at the time of renewal, our revenue will decline and our business will suffer.
If we are unable to attract new customers, our revenue growth could be slower than we expect and our business may be harmed.
If we fail to integrate our platform with a variety of third-party technologies, our platform may become less marketable and less competitive or obsolete and our operating results would be harmed.
If we are unable to successfully develop and market new features, make enhancements to our existing features, or expand our offerings into new markets, our business, results of operations and competitive position may
suffer.
If we fail to adapt and respond effectively to rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards and changing customer needs or requirements, our platform may become less competitive.
If customers do not expand their use of our platform beyond their current subscriptions and licenses, our ability to grow our business and operating results may be adversely affected.
Because our platform is sold to enterprises that often have complex operating environments, we may encounter long and unpredictable sales cycles, which could adversely affect our operating results in any given period.
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• A portion of our revenue is dependent on a few customers.
• A significant portion of our revenue is dependent on third-party reseller customers, the efforts of which we do not control.
• Adverse economic conditions or reduced technology spending may adversely impact our business.
• We may require additional capital to support our business, and this capital might not be available on acceptable terms, if at all.
Risks Related to Information Technology, Intellectual Property, and Data Security
• A security breach, network attack or information security incident could delay or interrupt service to our customers, result in the unauthorized access to, or use, modification or publishing of customer content or other
information, harm our reputation or subject us to significant liability.
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Assertions by third parties of infringement or other violations by us of their intellectual property rights could result in significant costs and harm our business and operating results.
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• We could incur substantial costs in protecting or defending our intellectual property rights, and any failure to protect our intellectual property could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial
condition.
• Our platform utilizes open source software, and any failure to comply with the terms of one or more of these open source licenses could negatively affect our business.
• We employ third-party licensed software for use in or with our platform, and the inability to maintain these licenses or errors in the software we license could result in increased costs, or reduced service levels, which
could adversely affect our business.
The reliability of our network and support infrastructure will be critical to our success. Sustained failures or outages could lead to significant costs and service disruptions, which could negatively affect our business,
financial results and reputation.
Real or perceived errors, failures or bugs in our software, or in the software or systems of our third-party application providers and partners, could materially and adversely affect our operating results and growth
prospects.
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Risks Related to Laws, Regulation and Taxation
• We are subject to governmental regulation and other legal obligations, including those related to privacy, data protection and information security, and our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations
could harm our business. Compliance with such laws could also impair our efforts to maintain and expand our customer base, and thereby decrease our revenue.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock and Our Status as a Public Company
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Our quarterly results may fluctuate significantly and may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business.
The market price of our common stock has been and may continue to be volatile and may decline. Market volatility may affect the value of an investment in our common stock and could subject us to litigation.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
Our revenue growth rate in recent periods may not be indicative of our future performance.
We experienced revenue growth rates of 31% from the fiscal year ended January 31, 2019 to the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020, 19% from the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020 to the fiscal year ended January 31,
2021, and 10% from the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 to the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022. However, we expect our growth in the coming year to be slower. Our historical revenue growth rates are not indicative of
future growth, and we may not achieve similar revenue growth rates in future periods. You should not rely on our revenue for any prior quarterly or annual periods as an indication of our future revenue or revenue growth. Our
operating results may vary as a result of a number of factors, including our ability to execute on our business strategy, our ability to compete effectively for customers and business partners, the impact of the COVID-19
pandemic on our business, and other factors that are outside of our control. If we are unable to maintain consistent revenue or revenue growth, our stock price could be volatile, and it could be difficult to achieve or maintain
profitability.
We have a history of losses and may not achieve profitability in the future.
We generated a net loss of $93.3 million, $94.7 million and $121.5 million for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. As of January 31, 2022, we had an accumulated deficit of $610.6
million, reflecting our losses recognized historically on a GAAP basis. We will need to generate and sustain increased revenue levels in future periods to become profitable, and, even if we do, we may not be able to maintain
or increase our level of profitability. As a result, we may continue to experience operating losses for the indefinite future. Further, we expect our operating expenses to increase over the next several years as we hire additional
personnel, incur additional expenses associated with our expanded facilities, expand our distribution channels, develop our technology and new features, face increased compliance costs associated with our growth and entry
into new markets and geographies and adopt new systems to scale and automate our operations. If our revenue does not increase to offset these and other potential increases in operating expenses, we may not be profitable in
future periods. If we are unable to achieve and sustain profitability, the market price of our common stock may significantly decrease.
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have had and are expected to continue to have an adverse effect on our business, operations and financial results as well as the business and operations of our customers and
potential customers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted business operations for us and our customers as well as suppliers, and other parties with whom we do business. Such disruptions are expected to continue for an
indefinite period of time. We have adopted several measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to monitor regional developments to inform our operational decisions. Our offices have been open on a
voluntary basis in accordance with guidance provided by government agencies, although currently the majority of our employees are still working remotely. While we continue to hold virtual events, we have also resumed in-
person marketing events. We continue to monitor regional developments relating to the COVID-19 pandemic to inform operational decisions, but these efforts may not be successful and may require additional costs. The
uncertain duration of these measures have had and may continue to have negative effects on our sales efforts and revenue growth rates. In addition, our management team has, and
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will likely continue, to spend time, attention and resources monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic and seeking to manage its effects on our business and workforce.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had and we believe will continue to have a negative impact on our sales activities including our ability to attract, retain and sell additional products and features to our customers and on our
customers’ perception of the need for our products. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic some existing and potential customers, in particular customers in industries that have been highly impacted by the pandemic, such as
retail and food services as well as certain geographies such as Europe, have and we expect other customers may reduce, suspend or delay technology spending, request to renegotiate contracts to obtain concessions such as
extended billing and payment terms, shorten the duration of contracts or elect not to renew their subscriptions. If additional customers or potential customers take similar actions, our operating results and financial condition
may be materially adversely impacted. Because our platform is offered as a subscription-based service and we generally recognize revenue from our customer contracts ratably over the term of the contract, changes in our
contracting activity in the near term may not be fully reflected in our results of operations and overall financial performance until future periods.
The COVID-19 pandemic including its variants and measures taken to control its spread may adversely affect other aspects of our business as described in this “Risk Factors” section. As a result of the scale of the
pandemic and measures taken to control its spread, our financial and operating results have been adversely affected and may differ materially from our historical results, and such adverse results may continue or worsen.
Further, even though some governments have begun to relax COVID-19 related restrictions, any recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic impact may be slowed or reversed by a variety of factors,
such as, the spread of new variants of the COVID-19 virus. Even after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, we may continue to experience adverse impacts to our business as a result of its global economic impact. Further,
many of the factors discussed in this “Risk Factors” section are, and we anticipate will continue to be further, heightened or exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because we recognize revenue from subscriptions for our platform over the term of the subscription, downturns or upturns in new business may not be immediately reflected in our operating results.
We generally recognize revenue from customers ratably over the terms of their agreements, which are typically one year in length but may be up to three years or longer in length. As a result, most of the revenue we report
in each quarter is the result of subscription agreements entered into during previous quarters. Consequently, a decline in new or renewed subscriptions in any one quarter may not be reflected in our revenue results for that
quarter. Any such decline, however, will negatively affect our revenue in future quarters. Accordingly, the effect of significant downturns in sales and market acceptance of our products or a decline in our retention rate,
including as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, may not be fully apparent or reflected in our results of operations until future periods. Our subscription model also makes it difficult for us to rapidly increase our
revenue through additional sales in any period, as revenue from new customers must be recognized over the applicable subscription term.
Our business has evolved, which makes it difficult to predict our future operating results.
We were incorporated in 2006 and originally operated as an advertising services company. Our business has evolved several times since then. For example, we sold our advertising business to IAC/InterActiveCorp in 2012
and over the following years have become a platform that puts businesses in control of their facts online with their official answers in search. Many of the most popular features of our platform have only been launched in the
past few years.
As a result of recent changes to our platform and our sales model, our ability to forecast our future operating results is limited and subject to a number of uncertainties, including our ability to plan for and model our future
growth. The dynamic nature of our business and our industry may make it difficult to evaluate our current business and future prospects, and as a result our historical performance should not be considered indicative of our
future performance. We have encountered and will encounter risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing industries, such as the risks and uncertainties described herein. In
addition, the duration and extent of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and industry are uncertain and introduce additional uncertainty to our forecasts of future operating results. If our assumptions
regarding these risks and uncertainties are incorrect or change due to changes in our industry, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our operating and financial results could differ materially from our expectations and
our business could suffer.
We have experienced rapid growth and significant changes to our organization and structure and may not be able to effectively manage such growth.
Our headcount and operations have grown substantially in recent years. We increased the number of our full-time employees from over 450 as of January 31, 2016 to over 1,400 as of January 31, 2022 and have hired
several members of our senior management team in recent years. In March 2022, we announced that our Chief Executive Officer, Howard Lerman, and our Chief Financial Officer, Steven Cakebread will resign effective
March 25, 2022, and that our Chairman, Michael Walrath, and our Chief Accounting Officer, Darryl Bond, will succeed as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, respectively.
We believe that our corporate culture has been a critical component of our success. We have invested substantial time and resources in building our team and nurturing our culture. As we expand our business and operate
as a public company, we may find it
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difficult to maintain our corporate culture while managing our personnel growth. Any failure to manage our anticipated growth and organizational changes in a manner that preserves the key aspects of our culture could hurt
our chance for future success, including our ability to recruit and retain personnel and effectively focus on and pursue our corporate objectives. Furthermore, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, our corporate culture may be
difficult to maintain as the majority of our employees are working remotely.
In addition, to manage the growth of our headcount, customer-base and operations, we will need to continue to improve our information technology infrastructure and our operational, financial and management systems
and procedures. We have implemented many of these systems and procedures only recently, and they may not work as we expect or at all. Our anticipated additional headcount and capital investments will increase our costs,
which will make it more difficult for us to address any future revenue shortfalls by reducing expenses in the short term. However, to the extent we cannot scale our information technology infrastructure, we will continue to rely
on manual processes that are costly, inefficient and subject to error.
Finally, in order to successfully manage our rapid growth, our organizational structure has become more complex. We have added personnel and may need to continue to scale and adapt our operational, financial and
management controls, as well as our reporting systems and procedures. The expansion of our systems and infrastructure may require us to commit additional financial, operational and management resources before our revenue
increases and without any assurances that our revenue will increase. If we fail to successfully manage our growth, we likely will be unable to successfully execute our business strategy, which could have a negative impact on
our business, operating results and financial condition.
Failure to adequately expand and scale our sales force will impede our growth.
Our revenue growth is substantially reliant on our sales force. Much of our sales process is relationship-driven, which requires a significant sales force. While we plan to expand and scale our sales force, both domestically
and internationally, we have historically had difficulty recruiting and retaining a sufficient number of sales personnel, and this difficulty has heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic. If we are unable to adequately expand
and scale our sales force, we will not be able to reach our market potential and execute our business plan.
Identifying and recruiting qualified sales personnel and training them on our products requires significant time, expense and attention. Our financial results will suffer if our efforts to expand, scale and train our sales force
do not generate a corresponding increase in revenue. We have hired a significant number of sales personnel in recent years. If new sales personnel are unable to achieve desired productivity levels in a reasonable period of
time, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic or if we are unable to retain and develop talented sales personnel, we may not be able to realize the expected benefits of this investment or increase our revenue.
We have expanded and intend to continue to expand our international operations, which exposes us to significant risks.
In 2014, we opened our first office outside the United States, and we intend to continue to expand our operations abroad. Our international expansion has created and will create significant challenges for our management,
administrative, operational and financial infrastructure. Operating in international markets requires significant resources and management attention and will subject us to regulatory, economic and political risks in addition to
those we already face in the United States. Because of our limited experience with international operations and developing and managing sales in international markets, our international expansion efforts may not be
successful.
Some of the specific risks we will face in conducting business internationally that could adversely affect our business include:
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the difficulty of recruiting and managing international operations and the increased operations, travel, infrastructure and legal compliance costs associated with numerous international locations;
our ability to effectively price our multi-tiered subscriptions in competitive international markets;
our ability to identify and manage sales partners;
new and different sources of competition in each country or region;
potentially greater difficulty collecting accounts receivable and longer payment cycles;
the need to adapt and localize our products for specific countries, including differences in the location attributes and formats used in each country and differences in languages, for example in the case of our search
product, which relies on natural language processing;
the need to develop integrations with new third-party applications used by international customers;
the need to offer customer support in various languages;
difficulties in understanding and complying with local laws, regulations and customs in foreign jurisdictions;
compliance with U.S. laws and regulations for foreign operations, including, without limitation, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, the U.K. Bribery Act, import and export control laws, tariffs, trade
barriers, economic sanctions
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and other regulatory or contractual limitations on our ability to sell in certain foreign markets, and the risks and costs of non-compliance;
compliance with international laws and regulations, including without limitation, those governing privacy, data security and data transfer, such as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which may
impair our ability to grow our business or offer our service in some locations, may subject us to liability for non-compliance or may require us to change our business practices;
expanded demands on, and distraction of, senior management;
difficulties with differing technical and environmental standards, data privacy and telecommunications regulations and certification requirements outside the United States;
varying levels of internet technology adoption and infrastructure;
tariffs and other non-tariff barriers, such as quotas and local content rules;
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• more limited protection for intellectual property rights in some countries;
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adverse tax consequences;
fluctuations in currency exchange rates, which could increase the price of our products outside of the United States, increase the expenses of our international operations and expose us to foreign currency exchange
rate risk;
currency control regulations, which might restrict or prohibit our conversion of other currencies into U.S. dollars;
restrictions on the transfer of funds;
deterioration of political relations between the United States and other countries;
natural disasters, pandemics including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, acts of terrorism and other events beyond our control; and
political or social unrest or economic instability in a specific country or region in which we operate, which could have an adverse impact on our operations in that location.
In particular, in February 2022, Russia launched a large-scale military attack on Ukraine. The invasion significantly amplified already existing geopolitical tensions among Russia, Ukraine, Europe, NATO and the West,
including the United States. It is not possible to predict the full extent of the broader consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which could include sanctions, embargoes, regional instability, geopolitical shifts and adverse
effects on macroeconomic conditions, currency exchange rates and financial markets. Our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially adversely affected by any negative impact on the global
economy and capital markets resulting from such conflict.
Also, our network service provider fees outside of the United States are generally higher than domestic rates, and our gross margin may be affected and may fluctuate as we expand our operations and customer base
worldwide.
Our failure to manage any of these risks successfully could harm our international operations, and adversely affect our overall business, operating results and financial condition.
Some of our customers and Knowledge Network application providers also have international operations and are subject to the risks described above. Even if we are able to successfully manage the risks of international
operations, our business may be adversely affected if these customers and application providers are not able to successfully manage these risks.
Our growth depends in part on the success of our strategic relationships with existing and prospective Knowledge Network application providers.
We have established strategic relationships with approximately 200 third-party service and application providers that comprise our Knowledge Network, including Amazon Alexa, Apple Maps, Bing, Cortana, Facebook,
Google, Google Assistant, Google Maps, Siri, Yelp and many others. These application providers provide us with direct access to update content on their websites and applications. This direct access enables our customers to
control their business listings on the Knowledge Network application providers' websites and applications and to push real-time or nearly real-time updates to those business listings. In order to maintain relationships with
application providers, we may need to modify our products or strategies in a way that may be adverse to our business and financial results. Furthermore, if we were to lose access to these applications, either in whole or in part,
our Knowledge Network would not be as efficient, accurate or competitive. Our customers may also place a significant value on particular application providers such as Google such that the termination or impairment of our
relationship with one or a limited number of application providers could lead to a loss of a significant number of customers.
In order to grow our business, we anticipate that we will need to continue to maintain and potentially expand these relationships. We may be unsuccessful in renegotiating our agreements with these third-party application
providers or third-party application
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providers may insist on fees to access their applications. Additionally, our contracts with these third-party application providers may be canceled after a notice period or may not be renewed, and we could lose access to these
resources without having sufficient time to replace them. We believe we will also need to establish new relationships with third-party application providers, including third-party application providers in new geographic
markets that we enter, and third-party application providers that may emerge in the future as leading sources of information about businesses for end consumers. Identifying potential third-party application providers, and
negotiating and documenting relationships with them, requires significant time and resources. Our competitors may be more effective than we are in providing incentives to application providers to favor their products or
services or to prevent or reduce subscriptions to our products. In addition, the acquisition of a competitor by one of our third-party application providers could result in the termination of our relationship with that third-party
application provider, which, in turn, could lead to decreased customer subscriptions. If we are unsuccessful in establishing or maintaining our relationships with third-party application providers, our ability to compete in the
marketplace or to grow our revenue could be impaired and our operating results could suffer.
Changes to our pricing models could adversely affect our operating results.
Any changes we make to our pricing models could adversely affect our operating results. For example, we recently began offering capacity-based pricing for our Pages and Answers products. There is no assurance that
this new pricing and distribution model will be successful thus adversely affecting our financial results. Furthermore, as the markets for our features grow, as new competitors introduce new products or services that compete
with ours or reduce their prices, or as we enter into new international markets, we may be unable to attract new customers or retain existing customers at the same price. Moreover, large customers, which have historically been
the focus of our sales efforts, may demand greater price discounts.
As we expand internationally, we also must determine the appropriate price to enable us to compete effectively internationally. In addition, if the mix of features we sell changes, then we may need to, or choose to, revise
our pricing. As a result, in the future we may be required to reduce our prices or offer shorter contract durations, which could adversely affect our revenue, gross margin, profitability, financial condition and cash flow.
Our success depends on a fragmented internet environment for finding information, particularly information about businesses.
We believe that our platform offers value to our customers in part because of the difficulty for a customer to update information about their business across many websites and apps, many of which are owned or controlled
by different entities and receive information from a variety of sources. Industry consolidation or technological advancements could result in a small number of websites or applications emerging as the predominant sources of
information about businesses, thereby creating a less fragmented internet environment for purposes of end consumer searches about businesses. Additionally, we may enter new geographies with less fragmented internet
environments. If most end consumers relied on a few websites or applications for this information, or if reliably accurate information across the most used websites and applications were generated from a single source, the
need to synchronize information about a business and for our platform could decline significantly. In particular, if larger providers of internet services were able to consolidate or control key websites and apps from which end
consumers seek information about businesses, including regarding physical locations, other entities and attributes, our platform may become less necessary or attractive to our customers, and our revenue would suffer
accordingly.
Our platform faces competition in the marketplace. If we are unable to compete effectively, our operating results could be adversely affected.
The market for our features is competitive, rapidly evolving and fragmented, and is subject to changing technology and shifting customer needs. Many companies develop and market products and services that compete to
varying extents with our features, and we expect competition in our market to intensify.
As we develop our platform, we will introduce products and features that compete in new markets and as a result we will face new competitors. For example, in October 2019 we launched Answers, our search product, and
as a result we face competition from established companies in enterprise search. We believe that our ability to compete depends upon many factors both within and beyond our control, including product capabilities, such as
speed, scale, and relevance, with which to power search experiences; ease of deployment and ease of use; adoption of our products by many types of users such as developers, IT professionals, and organizational leaders; and
low total cost of ownership. Our competitors in enterprise search may have greater experience in these areas as well as greater name recognition, more established relationships with current and potential customers and larger
customer bases. As a result, potential customers may be unwilling to use or switch to our product.
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We also face many other competitors with a variety of product offerings. These companies have developed, or are developing, products that currently, or in the future are likely to, compete with some or all of our features.
A number of potential new competitors, such as application providers, that enter our markets through acquisitions or otherwise, may decide to create or acquire products that compete with our platform or we may develop
products that compete with their existing platforms. Moreover, industry consolidation may increase competition. Some of these current and potential competitors may have longer operating histories, greater name recognition,
more established relationships with current and potential customers, larger customer bases or significantly greater financial, technical, marketing and other resources than we do. As a result, our competitors may be able to
respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards or customer requirements. We could lose customers if our competitors introduce new competitive products, add new
features to existing competitive products, acquire competitive products, reduce prices, form strategic alliances with other companies or are acquired by third parties with greater available resources. If our competitors' products,
services or technologies become more accepted than our features, if they are successful in bringing their products or services to market earlier than we bring our features to market, or if their products or services are more
technologically capable than our features, then our revenue growth could be adversely affected. Certain of our existing and new competitors have or may develop technologies and services that compete with specific products
or features in our platform seeking to be best-in-class. To the extent our customers or potential customers choose to work with several of these vendors rather than implement our platform, our revenue growth could be
adversely affected. In addition, some of our competitors offer their products and services at a lower price. If we are unable to achieve our target pricing levels, our margins and operating results could be negatively affected.
Business and professional service providers may not widely adopt our platform to manage their information or as an important part of their marketing strategy, which would limit our ability to grow our business.
Our ability to grow our business and increase revenue depends on our success in educating businesses and professional service providers about the potential benefits of our cloud-based platform. Cloud applications for
organizing and managing information about a business, particularly for their locations, entities and attributes, have not previously been widely adopted. Concerns about cost, security, reliability and other issues may cause
businesses and professional service providers not to adopt our platform. Moreover, businesses and professional service providers who have already invested substantial resources in other marketing strategies and data
management systems or methods may be reluctant to adopt a new approach like ours to supplement or replace existing systems or methods. If businesses and professional service providers do not widely adopt software such as
ours, our ability to grow our business will be limited.
If customers do not renew their subscriptions for our platform or if they reduce their subscriptions at the time of renewal, our revenue will decline and our business will suffer.
Our customers have no obligation to renew their subscriptions for our platform after the expiration of their subscription periods. In the normal course of business, some customers have elected not to renew their
subscriptions with us. Our customers may seek to renew their subscriptions for fewer features, at renegotiated rates, or for shorter contract lengths, all of which could reduce the amount of the subscription. Our renewal rates
may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including limited customer resources, changes in our pricing and subscription models, customer satisfaction with our platform, the acquisition of our customers by
other companies and deteriorating general economic conditions. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic certain customers reduced their subscriptions, elected not to renew their subscriptions, reduced length of contracts,
requested extended billing and payment terms or sought more favorable rates, and certain of these trends contributed to a general decline in our trailing twelve month dollar-based net retention rate. If our customers do not
renew their subscriptions for our platform or decrease the amounts they spend with us, our revenue will decline and our business will suffer. If our renewal rates fall significantly below the expectations of the public market,
equity research analysts or investors, the price of our common stock could also be harmed.
If we are unable to attract new customers, our revenue growth could be slower than we expect and our business may be harmed.
To increase our revenue, we must add new customers. If competitors introduce lower cost or differentiated products or services that are perceived to compete with our features, our ability to sell our features based on
factors such as pricing, technology and functionality could be impaired. As a result, we may be unable to attract new customers at rates or on terms that would be favorable or comparable to prior periods, which could
negatively affect the growth of our revenue. We have also allocated marketing resources to virtual events, virtual lead generation, and tools to help our sales personnel connect virtually with customers and potential customers.
These new marketing efforts may not be successful and may not attract as many new customers as our historical customer and industry events, which could harm our future revenue and revenue growth.
If we fail to integrate our platform with a variety of third-party technologies, our platform may become less marketable and less competitive or obsolete and our operating results would be harmed.
Our platform must integrate with a variety of third-party technologies, and we need to continuously modify and enhance our platform to adapt to changes in cloud-enabled hardware, software, networking, mobile, browser
and database technologies. Any failure of our platform to operate effectively with future technologies could reduce the demand for our platform, resulting in customer dissatisfaction and harm to our business. If we are unable
to respond to these changes in a cost-effective and timely manner, our platform may become less marketable and less competitive or obsolete and our operating results may be negatively affected. In addition, an increasing
number of customers are utilizing mobile devices to access the internet and conduct business. If we cannot
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continue to effectively make our platform available on these mobile devices and offer the information, services and functionality required by enterprises that widely use mobile devices, we may experience difficulty attracting
and retaining customers, which could negatively affect our revenue.
If we are unable to successfully develop and market new features, make enhancements to our existing features, or expand our offerings into new markets, our business, results of operations and competitive position may
suffer.
The software industry is subject to rapid technological change and evolving standards and practices, as well as changing customer needs, requirements and preferences. Our ability to attract new customers and increase
revenue from existing customers depends, in part, on our ability to enhance and improve our existing features, increase adoption and usage of our platform and introduce new products and features, including Yext Answers.
We expend significant resources on research and development to enhance our platform and to incorporate additional features, improve functionality or add other enhancements in order to meet our customers' rapidly evolving
demands. The success of any enhancements or new features depends on several factors, including timely completion, adequate quality testing, actual performance quality, market-accepted pricing levels and overall market
acceptance. We may not be successful in these efforts, which could result in significant expenditures that could impact our revenue or distract management's attention from current offerings.
Increased emphasis on the sale and development of new features could distract us from other parts of the business and the development and sale of our core platform, negatively affecting our overall sales. We have
invested and expect to continue to invest in new businesses, products, features, services, and technologies. Such endeavors may involve significant risks and uncertainties, including insufficient revenue from such investments
to offset any new liabilities assumed and expenses associated with these new investments, inadequate return of capital on our investments, distraction of management from current operations, failure to adequately develop and
enhance existing products and unidentified issues not discovered in our due diligence of such strategies and offerings that could cause us to fail to realize the anticipated benefits of such investments and incur unanticipated
liabilities. Because these new strategies and offerings are inherently risky, no assurance can be given that they will be successful.
As we enhance our platform and develop new features, our platform has also become increasingly sophisticated requiring additional technology, sales, customer support and professional services resources. In order for our
customers to understand and derive value from these new products and features, we will need to devote additional resources to train our sales personnel and provide higher-quality customer support and professional services. In
addition, as our software becomes more complex, we may fail to detect errors, bugs or vulnerabilities.
Even if we are successful in these endeavors, diversifying our platform offerings will bring us more directly into competition with other providers that may be better established or have greater resources than we have. Our
new features or enhancements could fail to attain sufficient market acceptance for many reasons, including:
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delays in introducing new, enhanced or modified features;
failure to accurately predict market demand or end consumer preferences;
defects, errors or failures in any of our features or our platform;
introduction of competing products;
poor business conditions for our customers or poor general macroeconomic conditions;
changes in legal or regulatory requirements, or increased legal or regulatory scrutiny, adversely affecting our platform;
failure of our brand promotion activities or negative publicity about the performance or effectiveness of our existing features; and
disruptions or delays in the availability and delivery of our platform.
There is no assurance that we will successfully identify new opportunities or develop and bring new features to market on a timely basis, or that products and technologies developed by others will not render our platform
obsolete or noncompetitive, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business and operating results and compromise our ability to generate revenue. If our new features or enhancements do not achieve adequate
acceptance in the market, or if our new features do not result in increased sales or subscriptions, our brand and competitive position will be impaired, our anticipated revenue growth may not be achieved and the negative
impact on our operating results may be particularly acute because of the upfront technology and development, marketing, advertising and other expenses we may incur in connection with the new feature or enhancement.
If we fail to adapt and respond effectively to rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards and changing customer needs or requirements, our platform may become less competitive.
Our future success depends on our ability to adapt and be innovative. To attract new customers and increase revenue from existing customers, we need to continue to enhance and improve our offerings to meet customer
needs at prices that our customers are willing to pay. Such efforts will require adding new functionality and responding to technological advancements, which will increase our research and development costs. If we are unable
to develop new features that address our customers' needs, or to enhance and
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improve our platform in a timely manner, we may not be able to maintain or increase market acceptance of our platform. Our ability to grow is also subject to the risk of future disruptive technologies. Access and use of our
platform is provided via the cloud, which, itself, was disruptive to the previous enterprise software model. If new technologies emerge that are able to deliver software and related applications at lower prices, more efficiently,
more conveniently or more securely, such technologies could adversely affect our ability to compete.
If customers do not expand their use of our platform beyond their current subscriptions and licenses, our ability to grow our business and operating results may be adversely affected.
Our ability to grow our business depends in part on our ability to encourage current and future customers to subscribe to our higher priced packages with more extensive features or to purchase greater capacity. If we fail to
achieve market acceptance of new features, or if a competitor establishes a more widely adopted platform, our revenue and operating results will be harmed. In addition, customers may initially purchase licenses for only a
portion of the locations or entities that comprise their business or a limited amount of capacity. If these customers do not expand the number of licenses managed with our platform or purchase additional capacity, our revenue
and operating results will be harmed.
Because our platform is sold to enterprises that often have complex operating environments, we may encounter long and unpredictable sales cycles, which could adversely affect our operating results in any given period.
Our ability to increase revenue and achieve profitability depends, in large part, on widespread acceptance of our platform by enterprises. As we target our sales efforts at these customers, we face greater costs, longer sales
cycles and less predictability in completing some of our sales. As a result of the variability and length of the sales cycle, we have only a limited ability to forecast the timing of sales. A delay in or failure to complete sales could
harm our business and financial results, and could cause our financial results to vary from period to period. Our sales cycle varies widely, reflecting differences in potential customers' decision-making processes, procurement
requirements and budget cycles, and is subject to significant risks over which we have little or no control, including:
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customers' budgetary constraints and priorities;
the timing of customers' budget cycles;
the need by some customers for lengthy evaluations prior to purchasing products; and
the length and timing of customers' approval processes.
Our typical sales cycles for more substantial enterprise customers can often be long, and we expect that this lengthy sales cycle may continue or could even increase. In the large enterprise market, the customer’s decision
to use our platform may be an enterprise-wide decision or may require the approval of senior management, which may not only lengthen the sales cycle but also reduce the likelihood of completing a sale. The COVID-19
pandemic has disrupted the operations of our customers making sales cycles more complex. Delayed and more complex sales cycles could cause our operating results and financial condition to suffer in a given period. If we
cannot adequately expand and scale our sales force, we will experience further delays in signing new customers, which could slow our revenue growth.
A portion of our revenue is dependent on a few customers.
For the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, the aggregate of our top five customers accounted for approximately 8%, 9% and 11%, respectively, of our revenue. We anticipate that sales of our platform to
a relatively small number of customers will continue to account for a significant portion of our revenue in future periods. If we were to lose any of our significant customers, our revenue could decline and our business and
results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. These negative effects could be exacerbated by customer consolidation, changes in technologies or solutions used by customers, changes in demand for our
features, selection of suppliers other than us, customer bankruptcies or customer departures from their respective industries, pricing competition or deviation from marketing and sales methods away from physical location
retailing, any one of which may result in even fewer customers accounting for a high percentage of our revenue and reduced demand from any single significant customer.
In addition, some of our customers have used, and may in the future use, the size and relative importance of their purchases to our business to require that we enter into agreements with more favorable terms than we would
otherwise agree to, to obtain price concessions, or to otherwise restrict our business.
A significant portion of our revenue is dependent on third-party reseller customers, the efforts of which we do not control.
Third-party reseller customers comprise a significant portion of our revenue. In transactions with third-party reseller customers, we are only party to the transaction with the reseller and are not a party to the reseller's
transaction with its customer, and we do not control the efforts of these resellers. Such resellers may elect not to renew their subscriptions with us or may elect to purchase significantly fewer licenses, which would materially
adversely affect our operating results and financial condition. In addition, our third-party reseller customers, which often sell to small and midsized organizations that can have liquidity and expense limitations, are also
susceptible to global economic weakness and uncertainty, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. See also "—If customers do not renew their subscriptions for our platform or if they reduce their subscriptions at the
time of renewal, our revenue
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will decline and our business will suffer." Lower demand from certain of our reseller customers has and may continue to result in them not renewing their subscriptions with us, purchasing fewer licenses, attempting to
renegotiate contracts to obtain concessions and requesting extended billing and payment terms. Such an adverse effect on our financial condition and operating results would not be fully reflected in our results of operations
until future periods. In addition, if third-party reseller customers merge or consolidate with other businesses, declare bankruptcy or depart from their respective industries, our business could be harmed. For example,
consolidation among our third-party reseller customers may require us to renegotiate agreements on less favorable terms, including longer payment periods, or may lead to a termination of our agreements with these resellers.
We may expend significant resources managing these relationships. Further, in some international markets, we grant certain reseller customers the exclusive right to sell our features. If those reseller customers to whom we
have granted exclusive rights elect not to renew their subscriptions or to purchase significantly fewer licenses, then we may be unable to adequately address sales opportunities in that territory. If we are unable to maintain or
replace our contractual relationships with our existing reseller customers, efficiently manage our relationships with them or establish new contractual relationships with other third parties, we may fail to retain customers or
acquire potential new customers and may experience delays and increased costs in adding or replacing customers that were lost, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, operating results and financial
condition.
We previously identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. We may identify additional material weaknesses in the future or otherwise fail to maintain an effective system of internal
control over financial reporting, and as a result, investor confidence in us and the value of our common stock could be materially and adversely affected.
As a public company, we are required to establish and maintain internal control over financial reporting. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or Section 404, requires that we evaluate and determine the
effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting and provide a management report on internal control over financial reporting. Under standards established by the United States Public Company Accounting
Oversight Board, a material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of annual or interim
financial statements will not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis.
As of January 31, 2021, we had identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting associated with processes to calculate, record and account for sales commissions. In fiscal year 2022, we
remediated the identified deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting – see Item 9A. “Controls and Procedures”. Based on the results of our evaluation, we concluded that as of January 31, 2022 we have maintained
effective internal control over financial reporting.
If we are unable to 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. In addition, we may discover other control deficiencies in the future, and we cannot assure you that we will not have a material weakness in future periods. Additionally, the process of designing,
implementing and maintaining internal control over financial reporting required to comply with Section 404 is time consuming, costly and complicated. Effective internal control over financial reporting is necessary for us to
provide reliable and timely financial reports and, together with adequate disclosure controls and procedures, are designed to reasonably detect and prevent fraud. Any failure to implement required new or improved controls, or
difficulties encountered in their implementation and maintenance could cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations. Undetected material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting could lead to financial
statement restatements and require us to incur the expense of remediation. Deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that are identified in such assessments may be deemed to be material weaknesses or may
require prospective or retroactive changes to our financial statements or identify other areas for further attention or improvement.
We may acquire other companies or technologies, which could divert our management's attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders and otherwise disrupt our operations and adversely affect our operating
results.
We have in the past acquired and may in the future seek to acquire or invest in businesses, features or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our platform, enhance our technical capabilities or otherwise
offer growth opportunities. The pursuit of potential acquisitions may divert the attention of management and cause us to incur various expenses in identifying, investigating and pursuing suitable acquisitions, whether or not
they are consummated.
Although we have previously acquired businesses, we have limited acquisition experience. If we acquire additional businesses, we may not be able to integrate the acquired personnel, operations and technologies
successfully or effectively manage the combined business following the acquisition. We also may not achieve the anticipated benefits from the acquired business due to a number of factors, including:
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unanticipated liabilities associated with the acquisition;
difficulty incorporating acquired technology and rights into our platform and of maintaining quality and security standards consistent with our brand;
inability to generate sufficient revenue to offset acquisition or investment costs;
incurrence of acquisition-related costs;
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difficulties and additional expenses associated with supporting legacy products and hosting infrastructure of the acquired business;
difficulty converting the customers of the acquired business into our customers;
diversion of our management's attention from other business concerns;
adverse effects to our existing business relationships as a result of the acquisition;
potential loss of key employees;
use of resources that are needed in other parts of our business; and
use of substantial portions of our available cash to consummate the acquisition.
In addition, a significant portion of the purchase price of companies we acquire may be allocated to acquired goodwill and intangible assets, which must be assessed for impairment at least annually. In the future, if our
acquisitions do not yield expected returns, we may be required to take charges to our operating results based on this impairment assessment process, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
Acquisitions could also result in dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of debt, which could adversely affect our operating results. If an acquired business fails to meet our expectations, our business,
operating results and financial condition may suffer.
Natural disasters and other events beyond our control could adversely affect us.
Natural disasters or other catastrophic events may cause damage or disruption to our operations and the global economy, and thus could have a strong negative effect on us. Our business operations are subject to
interruption by natural disasters, fire, power shortages, civil unrest, pandemics, acts of terrorism and other events beyond our control. While we maintain crisis management and disaster response plans, natural disasters and
other events could also make it difficult or impossible for us to continue operations, and could decrease demand for our platform. For example, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic the operation of our business has been
disrupted. Our offices have been open on a voluntary basis in accordance with guidance provided by government agencies, although currently the majority of our employees are still working remotely.While we continue to hold
virtual events, we have also resumed in-person marketing events. The duration of the business disruption and related financial impact cannot be reasonably estimated at this time. However, a prolonged disruption to our
operations may have a material adverse effect on our business reducing operational efficiency and increasing operational costs.
In addition, our data centers are located in New Jersey and Texas and our cloud computing providers operate from facilities in northern Virginia, Frankfurt, Germany and Tokyo, Japan, making our business particularly
susceptible to natural disasters and other catastrophic events in those areas. Any natural disaster or other event affecting our data centers could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and operating results.
We depend on our senior management team and the loss of our chief executive officer, president or one or more key employees could adversely affect our business.
Our success depends largely upon the continued services of our key executive officers. We also rely on our leadership team in the areas of research and development, marketing, sales, services and general and
administrative functions. From time to time, there may be changes in our executive management team resulting from the hiring or departure of executives, which could disrupt our business. For example in March 2022, we
announced changes to our Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and broader leadership team, and the change of key executives may disrupt strategic initiatives of these functions. We do not have employment
agreements with our executive officers or other key personnel that require them to continue to work for us for any specified period and, therefore, they could terminate their employment with us at any time. The loss of one or
more of our executive officers or key employees could have a serious adverse effect on our business.
The failure to attract and retain additional qualified personnel could prevent us from executing our business strategy.
To execute our business strategy, we must attract and retain highly qualified personnel. In particular, we compete with many other companies for software developers with high levels of experience in designing,
developing and managing cloud-based software and search software, as well as for skilled information technology, sales, marketing, legal and accounting professionals, and we may not be successful in attracting and retaining
the professionals we need. In the future, we may experience difficulty in hiring and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications. For example, we have experienced such difficulty during the COVID-19
pandemic particularly with respect to our quota-carrying sales representatives. In addition, recent decreases in our stock price may also decrease retention. We face intense competition for qualified individuals from numerous
software and other technology companies. For example, we may not be successful in attracting and retaining software developers with search expertise, as our competitors have greater experience and name recognition in this
area. Competition for qualified personnel is particularly intense in metropolitan areas where we have offices including the New York area. We may incur significant costs to attract and retain qualified personnel, and we may
lose new employees to our competitors or other technology companies before we capitalize the benefit of our investment in
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recruiting and training them. We also employ a number of foreign nationals on work visas, primarily under the H-1B visa. Current and future restrictions on the availability of visas or delays in the issuance of visas could impair
our ability to employ skilled professionals. If we are unable to hire and retain highly qualified personnel, our rate of growth and business will be adversely affected.
In addition, in making employment decisions, particularly in the software industry, job candidates often consider the value of the stock options or other equity incentives they are to receive in connection with their
employment. If the price of our stock declines, does not appreciate or experiences significant volatility, our ability to attract or retain key employees will be adversely affected. Also, as employee equity awards vest, we may
have difficulty retaining key employees or may be required to grant larger equity awards from our equity plans, which would cause dilution. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current
personnel, our growth prospects could be severely harmed.
If we fail to provide high-quality customer support and professional services, our business and reputation may suffer.
High-quality customer support and professional services are important for the successful retention of existing customers. Providing support and services, including education, training, data cleansing and processing,
ongoing support as well as custom development services, requires that our personnel have specific knowledge and expertise of our platform, making it more difficult for us to hire qualified personnel and to scale up these
operations. The importance of high-quality customer support and professional services and the difficulty of hiring qualified personnel will increase as we expand our business and pursue new customers and as our platform
becomes more complex with the development more features and capabilities. If we do not provide effective and timely ongoing customer support and professional services, our ability to sell additional features to, or to retain,
existing customers may suffer, and our reputation with existing or potential customers may be harmed.
In addition, certain aspects of our customer support, for example data cleansing, are conducted manually and are subject to error. While there are processes designed to verify the accuracy of data, if information is not
updated or matched correctly, our reputation may be harmed and we may be subject to liability.
If we fail to continue to develop our brand, our business may suffer.
We believe that continuing to develop and maintain awareness of our brand is critical to achieving widespread acceptance of our platform and is an important element in attracting and retaining customers. Efforts to build
our brand may involve significant expense and may not generate customer awareness or increase revenue at all, or in an amount sufficient to offset expenses we incur in building our brand. In addition, we sell our features to
companies in a number of industries, including healthcare, retail and financial services. If we are not successful in building our brand, we may become identified with a single industry, which could make it more difficult for us
to penetrate other industries.
Promotion and enhancement of our brand will depend largely on our success in being able to provide high quality, reliable and cost-effective features. If customers do not perceive our platform as meeting their needs, or if
we fail to market our platform effectively, we will likely be unsuccessful in creating the brand awareness that is critical for broad customer adoption of our platform.
Adverse economic conditions or reduced technology spending may adversely impact our business.
Our business depends on the overall demand for technology and on the economic performance of our current and prospective customers. In general, worldwide economic conditions may remain unstable, and these
conditions would make it difficult for our customers, prospective customers and us to forecast and plan future business activities accurately, and they could cause our customers or prospective customers to reevaluate their
decision to purchase our features. Weak global economic conditions, changes in consumer behavior or a reduction in technology spending even if economic conditions stabilize, could adversely impact our business and results
of operations in a number of ways, including longer sales cycles, lower demand or prices for our platform, fewer subscriptions and lower or no growth. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting governmental
restrictions and regulations have created additional uncertainty in the global economy and a sharp increase in unemployment. The prolonged uncertainty and weak economic conditions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic have
led certain of our customers and potential customers to decrease the rate of their information technology spending, has adversely affected their ability or willingness to purchase our platform and has caused them to delay
purchasing decisions or reduce the value or duration of their subscriptions, all of which has adversely affected our operating results. Further, Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine may lead to disruption, instability, deterioration
and volatility in global markets and industries that could negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, the economies of countries in Europe have been experiencing weakness associated with high sovereign debt levels, weakness in the banking sector and uncertainty over the future of the European Union,
including uncertainty regarding Brexit. We have operations, as well as current and potential new customers, throughout Europe. The European Union's economy also suffered a sharp downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic
and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and economic conditions in Europe and other key markets for our platform remain weak. As a result, we have experienced negative impacts on our sales activities in Europe. If such conditions
deteriorate further, customers may delay or reduce their information technology spending. In addition, the legal, regulatory and economic impacts of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union in January 2020 are
not fully known at this time. While the United Kingdom and the European Union have signed an EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, there are still many uncertainties and regulations applicable during the transition
period will likely be amended and may diverge from European Union
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regulations. The outcome of these events may, among other things, increase the costs and complexity of our operations in Europe including our ability to hire and retain employees.
Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in accounting principles generally accepted in the United States.
Generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or U.S. GAAP, are subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, the SEC, and various bodies formed to promulgate and
interpret appropriate accounting principles. A change in these principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported financial results and could affect the reporting of transactions completed before the
announcement of a change.
Our estimates of market opportunity, market size and forecasts of market growth may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the market in which we compete achieves our forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow
at similar rates, if at all.
Market opportunity and size estimates and growth forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate. We had historically analyzed the size of our
estimated total addressable market, solely with respect to locations, using data published by third parties as well as internally generated data and assumptions regarding our ability to generate revenue from those locations. We
have not independently verified the estimate of locations published by third parties and cannot assure you of its accuracy or completeness. In addition, our estimated market size for location-related data was based on an
assumed annual revenue per location.
As we continue to develop new features, the methodology and assumptions used to estimate new market opportunities may differ materially from methodologies and assumptions previously used to estimate total
addressable market with respect to locations. With the addition of new products and features including our search product, we are targeting and positioning our platform towards new markets. To estimate the size of these new
markets and their growth rates, we have relied on historical estimates and forecasts provided by industry publications and other third-party sources, including Gartner. We have not independently verified these estimates
published by third parties and cannot assure you of their accuracy or completeness. The target markets in which we operate are also subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk. Our customers as well as analysts, market
participants, and others may disagree with our assessment of our target markets and we may never successfully compete in these markets. In addition, third parties may have different assessments of the size of the markets in
which in our products compete.
These estimates of total addressable market and growth forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty, are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate. In addition, as a result of the COVID-19
pandemic, our total addressable market may be more difficult to estimate and subject to greater uncertainty as the assumptions and forecasts on which we and third-parties have based estimates may not reflect future trends.
Even if the market in which we compete meets the size estimates and growth we forecast, our business could fail to grow at similar rates, if at all.
Our management team has limited experience managing a public company.
Our chief executive officer and chief financial officer have limited experience managing a public company, interacting with public company investors and complying with the increasingly complex laws pertaining to
public companies. While certain other executives have such experience, our management team, as a whole, may not successfully or efficiently manage the ongoing transition to being a public company subject to significant
regulatory oversight and reporting obligations under the federal securities laws and the continuous scrutiny of securities analysts and investors. These new obligations and constituents will require significant attention from our
senior management, particularly from our chief executive officer and chief financial officer, and could divert their attention away from the day-to-day management of our business, which could adversely affect our business,
operating results and financial condition.
We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates.
We face exposure to movements in currency exchange rates, which may cause our revenue and operating results to differ materially from expectations. Our operating results could be negatively affected depending on the
amount of expense and intercompany transactions including loans denominated in foreign currencies. As exchange rates vary, revenue, cost of revenue, operating expenses and other operating results, when re-measured, may
differ materially from expectations. For example, a significant portion of our international revenue is derived from Europe including the United Kingdom. Our revenues and cash flows from these regions may be adversely
affected as a result of weakness in the Euro or British Pound. In addition, our operating results are subject to fluctuation if our mix of U.S. and foreign currency denominated transactions and expenses changes in the future.
Although in the future we may apply certain strategies to mitigate foreign currency risk, these strategies might not eliminate our exposure to foreign exchange rate fluctuations and would involve costs and risks of their own,
such as ongoing management time and expertise, external costs to implement the strategies and potential accounting implications. Additionally, as we anticipate growing our business further outside of the United States, the
effects of movements in currency exchange rates will increase as our transaction volume outside of the United States increases.
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Our credit facility contains restrictive covenants that may limit our operating flexibility.
Our credit facility contains restrictive covenants that may limit our ability to transfer or dispose of assets, merge with other companies or consummate certain changes of control, acquire other companies, pay dividends or
repurchase Yext stock, incur additional indebtedness and liens and enter into new businesses. We therefore may not be able to engage in any of the foregoing transactions unless we obtain the consent of the lender or terminate
the credit facility, which may limit our operating flexibility. In addition, our credit facility is secured by all of our assets and requires us to satisfy certain financial covenants. There is no guarantee that we will be able to
generate sufficient cash flow or sales to meet these financial covenants or pay the principal and interest on any such debt. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that future working capital, borrowings or equity financing will be
available to repay or refinance any such debt. Any inability to make scheduled payments or meet the financial covenants on our credit facility would adversely affect our business.
Loans under our credit facility bear interest, at our option, at an annual rate based on LIBOR (or a successor benchmark rate) or a base rate. LIBOR is expected to be replaced as an index rate in financial transactions by an
alternative benchmark rate in the near future. While our credit agreement provides for a methodology to effect a transition from LIBOR to a new benchmark rate, it is not possible to predict the effect or timing of any
establishment of a successor benchmark rate or its effect on our credit facility or our business generally. The transition from LIBOR could result in our interest costs increasing and our access to capital could change, which
could adversely affect our results of operations and cash flows.
We may require additional capital to support our business, and this capital might not be available on acceptable terms, if at all.
We intend to continue to make investments to support our business and may require additional funds. In particular, we may seek additional funds to develop new features and enhance our existing features, expand our
operations, including our sales and marketing organizations and our presence outside of the United States, expand office space including into new facilities, improve our infrastructure or acquire complementary businesses,
technologies, services, features and other assets. Accordingly, we may need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds. If we raise additional funds through future issuances of equity or convertible debt
securities, our stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges superior to those of holders of our common stock. Any debt financing that we
may secure in the future could involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue
business opportunities. We may not be able to obtain additional financing on terms favorable to us, if at all. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us when we require it, our ability to
continue to support our business growth, scale our infrastructure, develop feature enhancements and respond to business challenges could be significantly impaired, and our business, operating results and financial condition
may be adversely affected.
Risks Related to Information Technology, Intellectual Property, and Data Security
A security breach, network attack or information security incident could delay or interrupt service to our customers, result in the unauthorized access to, or use, modification or publishing of customer content or other
information, harm our reputation or subject us to significant liability.
We are vulnerable to computer viruses, break-ins, phishing attacks, ransomware, supply chain attacks, attempts to overload our servers with denial-of-service or other attacks and similar disruptions from unauthorized use
of our computer systems. Any such attack, or any information security incident from any other source affecting us or our services providers, including through employee error or misconduct or additional vulnerabilities
introduced by remote work arrangements, could lead to interruptions, delays, website or application shutdowns, loss of data or unauthorized access to, or use or acquisition of, personal information, confidential information or
other data that we or our services providers process or maintain.
For example, in December 2015, we suffered a denial-of-service attack, which resulted in the inability for some of our customers to access our platform for several hours. If we experience additional compromises to our
security that result in performance or availability problems, the complete shutdown of our platform or the actual or perceived loss of, or unauthorized access to, unavailability of, or unauthorized use, disclosure, destruction, or
other unauthorized processing of, personal information or other types of confidential information, our customers or application providers may assert claims against us for credits, refunds or other damages, and may lose trust
and confidence in our platform. Additionally, security breaches and incidents or other unauthorized access to, unavailability of, or unauthorized use, disclosure, destruction, acquisition, or other processing of, personal
information or other types of confidential information that we or our services providers maintain, or the perception that any of these have occurred, could result in claims against us for identity theft or other similar fraud
claims, breach of contract or indemnity, governmental enforcement actions, litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity, or other claims and litigation, and could cause our customers and partners to lose trust in us, any of
which could have an adverse effect on our business, reputation, operating results and financial condition. Our existing insurance coverage may not continue to be available on acceptable terms or may not be available in
sufficient amounts to cover one or more large claims related to a security breach. An insurer may also deny coverage as to a future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available
insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies could have a material adverse effect on our business. We could also be required to incur significant costs for remediation or expend significant capital
and other resources to address a security breach. The techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service or sabotage systems change frequently, often are not recognized until launched against a target and
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may originate from less regulated countries, we may be unable to proactively address these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures.
In addition, customers' and application providers' accounts and listing pages hosted on our platform could be accessed by unauthorized persons for the purpose of placing illegal, abusive or otherwise unauthorized content
on their respective websites and applications. If an unauthorized person obtained access to a customer's account or our platform, such person could update the customer's business information with abusive content or create and
disseminate false responses to reviews. This type of unauthorized activity could negatively affect our ability to attract new customers and application providers, deter current customers and application providers from using our
platform, subject us to third-party lawsuits, regulatory fines, indemnification requests or additional liability under customer contracts, or other action or liability, any of which could materially harm our business, operating
results and financial condition.
Assertions by third parties of infringement or other violations by us of their intellectual property rights could result in significant costs and harm our business and operating results.
Patent and other intellectual property disputes are common in our industry. Some companies, including some of our competitors, own large numbers of patents, copyrights and trademarks, which they may use to assert
claims against us. In addition, because patent applications can take years to issue and are often afforded confidentiality for some period of time, there may currently be pending applications, unknown to us, that later result in
issued patents that could cover one or more of our features.
Third parties may in the future assert claims of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property rights against us. If asserted, we cannot assure you that an infringement claim will be successfully
defended. Certain third parties have substantially greater resources than we have and may be able to sustain the costs of intellectual property litigation for longer periods of time than we can. A successful claim against us could
require that we pay substantial damages or ongoing royalty payments, prevent us from offering our platform, or require that we comply with other unfavorable terms. We may also be obligated to indemnify our customers or
business partners or pay substantial settlement costs, including royalty payments, in connection with any such claim or litigation and to obtain licenses, modify applications or refund fees, which could be costly. Even if we
were to prevail in such a dispute, any litigation regarding our intellectual property could be costly and time-consuming and divert the attention of our management and key personnel from our business operations.
We could incur substantial costs in protecting or defending our intellectual property rights, and any failure to protect our intellectual property could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial
condition.
Our success depends, in part, on our ability to protect our proprietary methods and technologies. There can be no assurance that the particular forms of intellectual property protection that we seek, including business
decisions about when to file trademark applications and patent applications, will be adequate to protect our business. We intend to continue to file and prosecute patent applications when appropriate to attempt to protect our
rights in our proprietary technologies. However, there can be no assurance that our patent applications will be approved, that any patents issued will adequately protect our intellectual property, that the scope of the claims in
our issued patents will be sufficient or have the coverage originally sought, that our issued patents will provide us with any competitive advantages, or that such patents will not be challenged by third parties or found by a
judicial authority to be invalid or unenforceable.
We could be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect our intellectual property rights. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights, determine the validity and
scope of our proprietary rights or those of others, or defend against claims of infringement or invalidity. Such litigation may fail, and even if successful, could be costly, time-consuming and distracting to management and
could result in a diversion of significant resources. Our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual
property rights or alleging that we infringe the counterclaimant's own intellectual property. An adverse determination of any litigation or defense proceedings could put our intellectual property at risk of being invalidated or
interpreted narrowly and could put our related pending patent applications at risk of not being issued. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation,
there is a risk that some of our confidential or sensitive information could be compromised by disclosure in the event of litigation. During the course of litigation there could be public announcements of the results of hearings,
motions or other interim proceedings or developments. If securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the price of our common stock.
Any of our patents, copyrights, trademarks or other intellectual property rights could be challenged by others or invalidated through administrative processes or litigation. Furthermore, there can be no guarantee that others
will not independently develop similar products, duplicate any of our products or design around our patents.
We also rely, in part, on confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, advisors, customers and others in our efforts to protect our proprietary technology, processes and methods. These agreements may not
effectively prevent disclosure of our confidential information, and it may be possible for unauthorized parties to copy our software or other proprietary technology or information, or to develop similar software independently
without our having an adequate remedy for unauthorized use or disclosure of our confidential information. In addition, others may independently discover our trade secrets and proprietary information, and in
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these cases, we would not be able to assert any trade secret rights against those parties. Costly and time-consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our proprietary rights, and failure to obtain
or maintain trade secret protection could adversely affect our competitive business position.
In addition, the laws of some countries do not protect intellectual property and other proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. To the extent we expand our international activities, our exposure
to unauthorized copying, transfer and use of our proprietary technology or information may increase. For example, many foreign countries have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner must grant licenses to
third parties. In addition, many countries limit the enforceability of patents against third parties, including government agencies or government contractors. In these countries, patents may provide limited or no benefit.
Proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business. Accordingly, our efforts to protect our intellectual property
rights in such countries may be inadequate. In addition, changes in the law and legal decisions by courts in the United States and foreign countries may affect our ability to obtain adequate protection for our technology and the
enforcement of intellectual property.
We cannot be certain that our means of protecting our intellectual property and proprietary rights will be adequate or that our competitors will not independently develop similar technology. If we fail to meaningfully
protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights, our business, operating results and financial condition could be adversely affected.
Our platform utilizes open source software, and any failure to comply with the terms of one or more of these open source licenses could negatively affect our business.
Our platform utilizes software governed by open source licenses. The terms of various open source licenses have not been interpreted by United States courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a
manner that imposes unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to market our platform. By the terms of certain open source licenses, we could be required to release the source code of our proprietary software, and
to make our proprietary software available under open source licenses, if we combine our proprietary software with open source software in a specified manner. In the event that portions of our proprietary software are
determined to be subject to an open source license, we could be required to publicly release the affected portions of our source code, or to re-engineer all or a portion of software, each of which could reduce or eliminate the
value of our platform. In addition to risks related to license requirements, usage of open source software can lead to greater risks than use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide
warranties or controls on the origin of the software. Many of the risks associated with usage of open source software cannot be eliminated and could negatively affect our business.
We employ third-party licensed software for use in or with our platform, and the inability to maintain these licenses or errors in the software we license could result in increased costs, or reduced service levels, which
could adversely affect our business.
Our platform incorporates certain third-party software obtained under licenses from other companies, including companies that sell products that compete with our platform. We anticipate that we will continue to rely on
such third-party software and development tools in the future. There is no assurance that we will be able to renew licenses for third-party software that we use. Although we believe that there are commercially reasonable
alternatives to the third-party software we currently license, this may not always be the case, or the software we currently license may be difficult or costly to replace. In addition, integration of the software used in our platform
with new third-party software may require significant work and require substantial investment of our time and resources. Also, to the extent that our platform depends upon the successful operation of third-party software in
conjunction with our software, any undetected errors or defects in this third-party software could prevent the deployment or impair the functionality of our platform, delay new feature introductions, result in a failure of our
platform and injure our reputation. Our use of additional or alternative third-party software would require us to enter into license agreements with third parties.
The reliability of our network and support infrastructure will be critical to our success. Sustained failures or outages could lead to significant costs and service disruptions, which could negatively affect our business,
financial results and reputation.
Our reputation and ability to attract, retain, and serve our customers and application providers are dependent upon the reliable performance of our platform and our underlying technical and network infrastructure. Our
customers access our platform through our website and related technologies. We rely on internal systems and third-party service providers, including data center, cloud computing, bandwidth and telecommunications
equipment providers, to maintain the availability of our platform. If any service provider fails to provide sufficient capacity to support our platform, experiences service outages, reduces or suspends service due to a natural
disaster or pandemic such as the COVID-19 pandemic, or otherwise ceases to do business, such failure could interrupt our customers' access to our services. For example, we currently serve our customers from third-party data
center hosting facilities and cloud computing providers located in the United States, Germany and Japan. Our primary data center is in New Jersey, and our backup data center is in Texas. If these data centers or cloud
computing services become unavailable to us without sufficient advance notice, if we are unable to renew our agreements with these providers or if a provider is acquired or ceases business, we would likely experience delays
in delivering our platform until we could migrate to an alternate provider. Our disaster recovery program contemplates
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transitioning our platform to our backup center in the event of a catastrophe and our platform may be unavailable, in whole or in part, during any transition procedure.
We have experienced, and will in the future experience, interruptions, outages and other performance problems. Such disruptions may be due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, human or software
errors, capacity constraints due to an overwhelming number of customers and partners accessing our platform simultaneously and inadequate design. In some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of
these performance problems within an acceptable period of time.
If we do not accurately predict our infrastructure requirements, our existing customers may experience performance degradation or service outages, which may subject us to financial penalties, financial liabilities and
customer losses. For example, to support the international growth of our business, we have expanded and may need to continue to expand capacity outside the United States, but we may not be able to address future capacity
constraints, either through existing or alternative providers, in a cost-effective and timely manner, if at all. When we add capacity, we may move or transfer our data and our customers’ data. Despite precautions taken during
this process, any unsuccessful data transfers may impair the delivery of our services, which may damage our business.
Real or perceived errors, failures or bugs in our software, or in the software or systems of our third-party application providers and partners, could materially and adversely affect our operating results and growth
prospects.
Our features are highly technical and complex. Our software has previously contained, and may now or in the future contain, undetected errors, bugs, or vulnerabilities. Some errors in our software may only be discovered
after the software has been deployed. Any errors, bugs, or vulnerabilities discovered in our software after it has been deployed could result in damage to our reputation, loss of customers, partners or application providers, loss
of revenue or liability for damages.
In addition, the proper functioning of our platform is dependent on the ability of our Knowledge Network application providers and partners to maintain the availability and proper functioning of their software integrations
with our systems and also is dependent on the ability of our third-party application providers to maintain the availability and proper functioning of their websites and applications on which business listing information is
published for customers. For example, a number of our Knowledge Network application providers provide us with an Application Program Interface, or API, on which our ability to interface with that provider is based.
Furthermore, in a rapidly changing business environment, for example in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, our Knowledge Network application providers may experience limitations and delays, which could limit the
functionality of our platform. If the functionality of the software, APIs or websites of our third-party application providers is impaired, our customers may attribute such limitations to us and our platform thus damaging our
reputation and customer relationships. If our Knowledge Network application providers do not maintain the availability and proper functioning of their software, APIs, websites and applications, our business, operating results
and financial condition could be materially affected.
Risks Related to Laws, Regulation and Taxation
We are subject to general litigation that may materially adversely affect us.
From time to time, we may be involved in disputes or regulatory inquiries that arise in the ordinary course of business. We expect that the number and significance of potential disputes may increase as our business
expands and our company grows larger. While our agreements with customers limit our liability for damages arising from our platform, we cannot assure you that these contractual provisions will protect us from liability for
damages in the event we are sued or a dispute arises. Although we carry general liability insurance coverage, our insurance may not cover all potential claims to which we are exposed or may not be adequate to indemnify us
for all liability that may be imposed. Any claims against us, whether meritorious or not, could be time-consuming, result in costly litigation or dispute resolution, require significant amounts of management time, and result in
the diversion of significant operational resources. Because litigation is inherently unpredictable, we cannot assure you that the results of any of these actions will not have a material adverse effect on our business, operating
results or financial condition.
We are subject to governmental regulation and other legal obligations, including those related to privacy, data protection and information security, and our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations
could harm our business. Compliance with such laws could also impair our efforts to maintain and expand our customer base, and thereby decrease our revenue.
We receive, store and process personal data and other data from and about customers, including third-party reseller customers, partners, end users of our services, and in limited cases, end consumers in addition to our
employees and services providers. Also, in connection with future feature offerings, we may receive, store and process additional types of data, including personal data. Our handling of data is subject to a variety of laws and
regulations, including regulation by various government agencies, such as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, and various state, local and foreign agencies. Our data handling also is subject to contractual obligations
and industry standards.
The U.S. federal and various state governments have adopted or proposed limitations on the collection, distribution, use, storage and security of data relating to individuals, including the use of contact information and
other data for marketing, advertising and other communications with individuals and businesses. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, or CCPA, became effective January 1, 2020. The CCPA requires
covered businesses to, among other things, make new disclosures to consumers about their data collection, use, and sharing practices, and allows consumers to opt out of certain data sharing with third parties. The CCPA
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also provides a new private cause of action for certain data breaches. The California Privacy Rights Act, or CPRA, which will become effective on January 1, 2023, will significantly modify the CCPA, and also create a new
state agency that will be vested with authority to implement and enforce the CCPA and the CPRA. The effects of the CCPA and the CPRA are potentially significant and may require us to incur substantial costs and expenses in
an effort to comply and increase our potential exposure to regulatory enforcement and/or litigation. States such as Virginia and Colorado have enacted and we expect additional states may also enact legislation similar to the
CCPA and CRPA. Additionally, the FTC and many state attorneys general are interpreting federal and state consumer protection laws as imposing standards for the online collection, use, dissemination and security of data.
Several foreign countries and governmental bodies, including the European Union, Switzerland and the United Kingdom have laws and regulations dealing with the handling and processing of personal information
obtained from their residents, which in certain cases are more restrictive than those in the United States, and we expect additional jurisdictions may enact similar regulations. Laws and regulations in these jurisdictions apply
broadly to the collection, use, storage, disclosure and security of various types of data, including data that identifies or may be used to identify an individual, such as names, email addresses and in some jurisdictions, Internet
Protocol, or IP, addresses. Within the European Union, legislators have adopted the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which became effective in May 2018. The GDPR includes more stringent operational
requirements for processors and controllers of personal data than previous EU data protection laws and imposes significant penalties for non-compliance. The United Kingdom has implemented data protection laws that
substantially implements the GDPR and provide for similar penalties. However, the United Kingdom’s decision to exit the European Union, known as Brexit, has created uncertainty regarding the regulation of data protection
in the United Kingdom in the medium to long term, which may delay or deter transactions with customers that transfer personal data to and from the United Kingdom. We participate in and have certified under the EU-U.S.
Privacy Shield and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks with respect to our transfer of certain personal data from the European Union and Switzerland to the United States. In July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European
Union invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework, but concluded that the Standard Contractual Clauses issued by the European Commission for the transfer of personal data, or SCCs, are valid, subject to companies
being required to engage in additional measures when relying on the SCCs. The Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield subsequently was invalidated in September 2020 by the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner.
On June 4, 2021, the European Commission published new SCCs that are required to be implemented, and on February 2, 2022, the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office issued new standard contractual
clauses to support personal data transfers out of the United Kingdom, or UK SCCs”. If approved by the United Kingdom Parliament, the UK SCCs will become effective March 21, 2022, and we may, in addition to other
impacts, experience additional costs associated with increased compliance burdens and be required to engage in new contract negotiations with third parties that aid in processing personal data on our behalf or localize certain
personal data. The invalidation of the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks and related developments and uncertainty regarding other data transfer mechanisms could require us to implement additional
contractual and technical safeguards for any personal data transferred out of the European Economic Area, or EEA, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, which may increase compliance and related costs and risks, lead to
increased regulatory scrutiny or liability, necessitate additional contractual negotiations, and adversely impact our business, operating results and financial condition. Customers and potential customers may hesitate or refuse
to purchase and use our products and services due to the potential risk posed by the Court of Justice of the European Union ruling or may view alternative data transfer mechanisms as being too costly, burdensome or
uncertain. Our ability to attract and retain customers may therefore be impaired. In addition, other mechanisms that we use or may use in the future in an effort to legitimize cross-border data transfers may be challenged or
invalidated or may evolve such that they do not function as appropriate means for us to transfer certain personal data from the European Union, Switzerland and the United Kingdom to the United States.
These domestic and foreign laws and regulations relating to privacy and data security are evolving, can be subject to significant change and may result in ever-increasing regulatory and public scrutiny and escalating levels
of enforcement and sanctions. Interpretation of certain requirements remains unclear and may evolve, in particular for regulations that have recently been enacted. Application of laws may be inconsistent or may conflict
among jurisdictions resulting in additional complexity and increased legal risk. In addition, these regulations have increased our compliance costs and may impair our ability to grow our business or offer our service in some
locations, may subject us to liability for non-compliance, may require us to modify our data processing and transferring practices and policies and may strain our technical capabilities. In addition as we, our customers and
potential customers evaluate the impact of new regulations such as GDPR and as additional requirements pursuant to such regulations are adopted, sales cycles have lengthened and transaction costs have increased as
customers conduct additional diligence and contractual obligations under the new regulations are negotiated.
We also handle credit card and other personal data. Due to the sensitive nature of such information, we have implemented policies and procedures in an effort to preserve and protect our data and our customers' data
against loss, misuse, corruption, misappropriation caused by systems failures, unauthorized access or misuse. Notwithstanding these policies, we could be subject to liability claims by individuals and customers whose data
resides in our databases for the misuse of that information, and we are required to comply with applicable industry standards with respect to our handling of this information. If we fail to meet appropriate compliance levels,
this could negatively impact our ability to utilize credit cards as a method of payment, and/or collect and store credit card information, which could disrupt our business.
We may be subject to rules of the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, and potentially other federal agencies, state laws as well as international regulations related to commercial electronic mail and
other messages. Compliance with these
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provisions may limit our ability to send certain types of messages. If we were found to have violated such rules and regulations, we may face enforcement actions by the FTC or FCC or face civil penalties, either of which
could adversely affect our business.
As our products are applied to new uses and in new verticals, we may become subject to additional regulations or legal risks. For example, we have begun selling our platform to government entities. Risks associated with
sales to government entities include adherence to complex procurement regulations and other government-specific contractual requirements. We may be subject to audits and investigations relating to our government contracts
and any violations could result in various civil and criminal penalties and administrative sanctions, including termination of contracts, payment of fines, and suspension or debarment from future government business, as well
as harm to our reputation and financial results. Sales to government entities can be highly competitive, expensive and time consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that we will
successfully complete a sale. Our platform has been and increasingly may be used to store confidential or sensitive information, which exposes us to additional risks. For example, in order to offer our products to certain
customers in the health care industry we have implemented certain security and privacy measures and related procedures to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, and the
Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH. This may require us to execute HIPAA business associate agreements, or BAAs, with certain customers that are “covered entities” under
HIPAA, which would subject us to additional liabilities, penalties and fines in the event we fail to comply with the terms of such agreements. The storage of such information may require us to modify and enhance our platform
at a significant cost.
Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with laws, regulations, policies, legal or contractual obligations, industry standards, or regulatory guidance relating to privacy or data security, may result in governmental
investigations and enforcement actions, litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity, and could cause our customers and partners to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. We
expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws, regulations and industry standards relating to privacy, data protection, marketing, consumer communications, information security and local data residency in the United
States, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and we cannot determine the impact such future laws, regulations and standards may have on our business. Future laws, regulations, standards and other obligations or any
changed interpretation of existing laws or regulations could impair our ability to develop and market new features and maintain and grow our customer base and increase revenue. Future restrictions on the collection, use,
sharing or disclosure of data or additional requirements placed upon us, our customers, partners or end consumers in connection with the use and disclosure of such information could require us to incur additional costs or
modify our platform or other aspects of our products and services, possibly in a material manner, and could increase the complexity and cost of developing and deploying new products or limit our ability to develop new
products and features altogether. If our policies, procedures, or measures relating to privacy, data protection, marketing, or customer communications fail or are perceived to fail to comply with laws, regulations, policies, legal
obligations or industry standards, we may be subject to governmental enforcement actions, litigation, regulatory investigations, fines, penalties, consumer actions and negative publicity and could cause our application
providers, customers and partners to lose trust in us, which could materially affect our business, operating results and financial condition. Furthermore, our third-party reseller customers, over which we have more limited
control, may not comply with the laws, regulations and policies described above, which may damage our reputation or subject us to costly legal or regulatory inquiries and liability.
We are subject to anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering and similar laws, and non-compliance with such laws can subject us to criminal penalties or significant fines and harm our business and reputation.
We are subject to anti-corruption and anti-bribery and similar laws, such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, or the FCPA, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the
U.S. Travel Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, the U.K. Bribery Act 2010, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and possibly other anti-corruption, anti-bribery and anti-money laundering laws in countries in which we conduct
activities. Anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws have been enforced aggressively in recent years, are interpreted broadly and prohibit companies and their employees and agents from promising, authorizing, making, offering,
soliciting or accepting improper payments or other benefits to or from government officials and others in the private sector. As we increase our international sales and business, particularly in countries with a low score on the
Corruptions Perceptions Index by Transparency International, and increase our use of third-party business partners such as sales agents, distributors, resellers, or consultants, our risks under these laws may increase. We can be
held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of our employees, representatives, contractors, business partners, resellers and agents, even if we do not explicitly authorize, control or have actual knowledge of such
activities. While we have policies and procedures in this area, we cannot guarantee that improprieties committed by our employees or third parties will not occur. Non-compliance with these laws could subject us to
investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, other enforcement actions, disgorgement of profits, significant fines, damages, other civil and criminal penalties or injunctions, suspension or debarment from contracting with
certain persons, the loss of export privileges, whistleblower complaints, reputational harm, adverse media coverage, and other collateral consequences. If any subpoenas or investigations are launched, or governmental or other
sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal litigation, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially harmed. In addition, responding to any action will likely
result in a materially significant diversion of management's attention and resources and significant defense and compliance costs and other professional fees and may harm our reputation, which may damage our relationships
with our customers, strategic partners and other third parties. In certain cases, enforcement authorities may even require us to appoint an independent compliance monitor, which
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can result in added costs and administrative burdens. Any investigations, actions or sanctions or other previously mentioned harm could have a material negative effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.
We are subject to governmental export and import controls and economic sanctions laws that could impair our ability to compete in international markets and subject us to liability if we are not in full compliance with
applicable laws.
Our business activities are subject to various restrictions under U.S. export and import controls and trade and economic sanctions laws, including U.S. customs regulations, the U.S. Commerce Department's Export
Administration Regulations and economic and trade sanctions regulations maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. The U.S. export control laws and U.S. economic sanctions laws
include prohibitions on the sale or supply of certain products and services to U.S. embargoed or sanctioned countries, governments, persons and entities and also require authorization for the export of certain encryption items.
In addition, various countries regulate the import of certain encryption technology, including through import permitting and licensing requirements, and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to distribute our services or
could limit our customers' ability to implement our services in those countries. Although we take precautions to prevent our platform from being provided in violation of such laws, our platform may have been in the past, and
could in the future be, provided inadvertently in violation of such laws, despite the precautions we take. If we fail to comply with these laws and regulations, we and certain of our employees could be subject to civil or criminal
penalties, including the possible loss of export or import privileges, monetary penalties, and, in extreme cases, imprisonment of responsible employees for knowing and willful violations of these laws. Obtaining the necessary
authorizations, including any required license, for a particular transaction may be time-consuming, is not guaranteed, and may result in the delay or loss of sales opportunities. In addition, changes in our platform or changes in
applicable export or import regulations may create delays in the introduction and sale of our products in international markets, prevent our customers with international operations from deploying our products or, in some cases,
prevent the export or import of our products to certain countries, governments or persons altogether. Any change in export or import regulations, shift in the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or change in the
countries, governments, persons or technologies targeted by such regulations, could also result in decreased use of our products or in our decreased ability to export or sell our products to existing or potential customers with
international operations. For example, in February 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States and other countries announced economic sanctions against Russia, and the United States and other countries
could impose wider sanctions and take other actions as the conflict further escalate. Any decreased use of our products or limitation on our ability to export or sell our products would likely adversely affect our business.
Although we take precautions to prevent transactions with U.S. sanction targets, we could inadvertently provide our platform to persons prohibited by U.S. sanctions. Violations of export and import regulations and economic
sanctions could result in negative consequences to us, including government investigations, penalties and reputational harm.
Changes in laws and regulations related to the internet or changes in internet infrastructure itself may diminish the demand for our platform and could adversely affect our business and results of operations.
The future success of our business depends upon the continued use of the internet. Federal, state or foreign government bodies or agencies have in the past adopted, and may in the future adopt, laws or regulations affecting
the use of the internet as a commercial medium. In addition, government agencies or private organizations have imposed and may impose additional taxes, fees or other charges for accessing the internet, generally. These laws
or charges could limit the use of the internet or decrease the demand for internet-based solutions. In addition, the use of the internet as a business tool could be adversely affected due to delays in the development or adoption of
new standards and protocols to handle increased demands of internet activity, security, reliability, cost, ease-of-use, accessibility and quality of service. The performance of the internet and its acceptance as a business tool has
been adversely affected by "viruses", "worms" and similar malicious programs. If the use of the internet is reduced as a result of these or other issues, then demand for our platform could decline, which could adversely affect
our business, operating results and financial condition.
Unanticipated changes in our effective tax rate may impact our financial results.
We are subject to income taxes in the United States and various jurisdictions outside of the United States, and we continue to expand our operations internationally. Our effective tax rate could fluctuate due to changes in
the mix of earnings and losses in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in non-deductible expenses, expiration or non-utilization of net operating losses, changes in excess tax benefits related to exercises and
vesting of stock options and awards compensation, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities and our ability to utilize them, the applicability of withholding taxes and changes in accounting principles and tax
laws in jurisdictions where we operate. While we regularly evaluate new information that may change our judgment resulting in recognition, derecognition or change in measurement of a tax position taken, there can be no
assurance that the final determination of any examinations will not have an adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition.
We may have additional tax liabilities, which could harm our business, results of operations or financial condition.
Significant judgments and estimates are required in determining the (provision for) benefit from income taxes and other tax liabilities. We generally conduct our international operations through wholly-owned subsidiaries
and report our taxable income based upon our business operations in those jurisdictions. The amount of taxes we pay may depend on the application of the tax laws of various jurisdictions, including the United States, to our
business activities, changes in tax rates, new or revised tax laws or
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interpretations of existing tax laws and policies and our ability to operate our business in a manner consistent with our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements.
In determining the adequacy of income taxes, we assess the likelihood of adverse outcomes that could result if our tax positions were challenged by the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, and other tax authorities. The tax
authorities in the United States and other countries where we do business may examine our income and other tax returns. The ultimate outcome of these examinations cannot be predicted with certainty. Should the IRS or other
tax authorities assess additional taxes as a result of examinations, we may be required to record charges that would adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.
We may also be subject to additional tax liabilities and penalties due to changes in non-income based taxes resulting from tax examinations in federal, state, city or international jurisdictions, settlements or judicial
decisions, changes in taxing jurisdictions’ tax laws and administrative interpretations, or changes in accounting principles. Any resulting increase in our tax obligation or cash taxes paid could adversely affect our results of
operations and financial condition.
Adverse tax laws or regulations could be enacted or existing laws could be applied to us or our customers, which could increase our costs and adversely affect our business.
The application of federal, state, local and international tax laws to services provided electronically is evolving. New income, sales, use or other tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations or ordinances could be enacted at any
time, possibly with retroactive effect, and could be applied solely or disproportionately to services provided over the internet. These enactments could adversely affect our sales activity due to the inherent cost increase the taxes
would represent and ultimately result in a negative impact on our operating results and cash flows.
Existing tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations or ordinances could be interpreted, changed, modified or applied adversely to us, possibly with retroactive effect, which could require us or our customers to pay additional tax
amounts, as well as require us or our customers to pay fines or penalties and interest for past amounts. If we are unsuccessful in collecting such taxes from our customers, we could be held liable for such costs.
Certain jurisdictions in which we do not collect sales and use, value added or similar taxes may assert that such taxes are applicable, which has resulted or could result in tax assessments, penalties and interest, to us or our
customers for past amounts, and we may be required to collect such taxes in the future. Such tax assessments, penalties and interest, or future requirements may adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.
Our ability to use our net operating losses to offset future taxable income may be subject to certain limitations.
As of January 31, 2022, we had significant U.S. federal and state net operating loss carryforwards, or NOLs, due to prior period losses. In general, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or
the Code, a corporation that undergoes an ownership change, which is generally defined as a greater than 50-percentage-point cumulative change by value in the equity ownership of certain stockholders over a rolling three-
year period, is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its pre-change NOLs to offset post-change taxable income. Our existing NOLs may be subject to limitations arising from previous ownership changes, and if we
undergo an ownership change our ability to utilize NOLs could be further limited by Section 382 of the Code and similar state provisions. Future changes in our stock ownership, some of which may be outside of our control,
could result in an ownership change under Section 382 of the Code. Furthermore, our ability to utilize NOLs of companies that we may acquire in the future may be subject to limitations. There is also a risk that due to
regulatory changes, such as suspensions on the use of NOLs, or other unforeseen reasons, our existing NOLs could expire, decrease in value or otherwise be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock and Our Status as a Public Company
Our quarterly results may fluctuate significantly and may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business.
Our quarterly results of operations, including the levels of our revenue, gross margin and profitability, as well as our cash flows and unearned revenue balances, may vary significantly in the future, and period-to-period
comparisons of our operating results and key metrics may not be meaningful. Accordingly, the results of any one quarter should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. Our quarterly financial results and
metrics may fluctuate as a result of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control and, as a result, may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business. These fluctuations may negatively affect the
value of our common stock. Factors that may cause fluctuations in our quarterly results include:
•
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•
our ability to attract new customers;
our ability to execute on our business strategy;
the launch of significant new products and features;
the addition or loss of large customers, including third-party reseller customers, including through acquisitions or consolidations;
the timing of recognition of revenue;
33
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
a change in accounting principles;
the timing of billing and cash collections;
the timing of significant marketing events and related expenses;
the amount and timing of operating expenses;
network outages and security breaches;
natural disasters, pandemics including the COVID-19 pandemic, acts of terrorism and other events beyond our control;
general economic, industry and market conditions;
customer renewal rates;
pricing changes upon any renewals of customer agreements;
changes in our pricing policies or those of our competitors;
the timing and success of new feature introductions by us or our competitors or any other change in the competitive dynamics of our industry, including consolidation among competitors, customers or application
providers;
our ability to adequately scale our sales force and retain key employees;
the timing of expenses related to the development or acquisition of technologies or businesses and potential future charges for impairment of goodwill from acquired companies; and
unforeseen litigation.
If securities or industry analysts do not continue to publish research or reports about us, our business or our market, or if they cease publishing research or change their recommendations regarding our stock adversely,
or if our actual results differ significantly from our guidance or analysts' expectations, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock depends in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. If analysts cease coverage of us or fail to publish reports on us
regularly, demand for our common stock could decrease, which might cause our common stock price and trading volume to decline. In addition, if one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our common stock or
publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, the price of our common stock would likely decline.
In addition, from time to time, we may release earnings guidance or other forward-looking statements in our earnings releases, earnings conference calls or otherwise regarding our future performance that represent our
management's estimates as of the date of release. Some or all of the assumptions of any future guidance that we furnish may not materialize or may vary significantly from actual future results. Furthermore, the adoption of new
accounting standards may require us to modify our earnings guidance, and such modifications though solely attributed to changes in accounting standards, may be perceived unfavorably. Any failure to meet guidance or
analysts' expectations could have a material adverse effect on the trading price or trading volume of our common stock.
The market price of our common stock has been and may continue to be volatile and may decline. Market volatility may affect the value of an investment in our common stock and could subject us to litigation.
Technology stocks have historically experienced high levels of volatility. The market price of our common stock has been and may continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to many risk factors listed in this
section, and others beyond our control, including:
•
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
actual or anticipated fluctuations in our financial condition and operating results;
changes in projected operational and financial results;
addition or loss of significant customers;
addition or loss of significant strategic relationships with application providers in the Knowledge Network;
changes in laws or regulations applicable to our platform;
actual or anticipated changes in our growth rate relative to our competitors;
announcements of technological innovations or new offerings by us or our competitors;
announcements by us or our competitors of significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital-raising activities or commitments;
additions or departures of key personnel;
changes in our financial guidance or securities analysts' estimates of our financial performance;
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•
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•
•
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•
discussion of us or our stock price by the financial press and in online investor communities;
reaction to our press releases and filings with the SEC;
changes in accounting principles;
announcements related to litigation, regulation or disputes;
fluctuations in the valuation of companies perceived by investors to be comparable to us;
sales of our common stock by us or our stockholders;
share price and volume fluctuations attributable to inconsistent trading volume levels of our shares;
natural disasters, pandemics including the COVID-19 pandemic, acts of terrorism and other events beyond our control; and
general economic and market conditions.
Furthermore, in recent years, the stock markets have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies, and technology
companies in particular. These fluctuations often have been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political
and market conditions such as recessions, interest rate changes or international currency fluctuations, may negatively impact the market price of our common stock. If the market price of our common stock declines, you may
not realize any return on your investment in us and may lose some or all of your investment.
In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation
against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management's attention from other business concerns, which could also harm our business.
Future sales and issuances of our capital stock or rights to purchase capital stock could result in dilution of the percentage ownership of our stockholders and could cause our stock price to decline.
We may issue additional securities. Our certificate of incorporation authorizes us to issue up to 500,000,000 shares of common stock and up to 50,000,000 shares of preferred stock. Future sales and issuances of our capital
stock or rights to purchase our capital stock could result in substantial dilution to our existing stockholders. We may sell common stock, convertible securities and other equity securities in one or more transactions at prices and
in a manner as we may determine from time to time. If we sell any such securities in subsequent transactions, the ownership of existing stockholders will be diluted, possibly materially. New investors in subsequent transactions
could also gain rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of existing holders of our common stock. In addition, substantial blocks of our total outstanding shares are eligible to be sold into the market, although shares
held by directors, executive officers and other affiliates are subject to volume limitations under Rule 144 under the Securities Act
The price of our common stock could decline if there are substantial sales of our common stock, particularly sales by our directors, executive officers and significant stockholders, or if there is a large number of shares of
our common stock available for sale and the market perceives that sales will occur. We have 131,156,986 shares of our common stock outstanding as of January 31, 2022.
In addition, equity compensation comprises a significant component of our compensation strategy. We have granted and expect to grant equity awards from our equity incentive plan and under the terms of such plan,
shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance will be subject to annual increases, which would cause dilution. We have and may in the future file registration statements registering the issuance of shares of common
stock subject to outstanding options under our equity incentive plans and the shares reserved for future issuance under our equity incentive plans. Shares registered on the Form S-8 registration statement would be eligible for
sale to the public, subject to certain legal limitations. The market price of the shares of our common stock could decline as a result of the sale of a substantial number of our shares of common stock in the public market or the
perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell their shares.
Additionally, certain existing holders of our common stock, or their transferees, will have rights, subject to specified conditions, to require us to file one or more registration statements covering their shares or to include
their shares in registration statements that we may file for ourselves or other stockholders. If we were to register the resale of these shares, they could be freely sold in the public market. If these additional shares are sold, or if it
is perceived that they will be sold, in the public market, the trading price of our common stock could be adversely affected.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We may not declare or pay cash dividends on our capital stock in the near future. We currently intend to retain any future earnings to finance the operation and expansion of our business, and we do not expect to declare or
pay any dividends in the foreseeable future. In addition, our ability to pay dividends may be limited by our credit agreement. Consequently, stockholders must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation as the
only way to realize any future gains on their investment.
35
Share repurchases could affect our stock price and increase its volatility and will diminish our cash reserves.
Repurchases pursuant to any share repurchase program we adopt in the future could affect our stock price and increase its volatility and will reduce the market liquidity for our stock. These activities may have the effect of
maintaining the market price of our common stock or slow down a decline in the market price of the common stock, and, as a result, the price of our common stock may be higher than the price that otherwise might exist in the
open market. Additionally, these repurchases will diminish our cash reserves, which could impact our ability to pursue possible future strategic opportunities and acquisitions and result in lower overall returns on our cash
balances.
Delaware law and provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws could make a merger, tender offer or proxy contest difficult, thereby depressing the trading price of
our common stock.
Our status as a Delaware corporation may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control, even if a change of control would be beneficial to our existing stockholders. In addition, our amended and restated certificate of
incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that may make the acquisition of our company more difficult, including the following:
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a classified board of directors with three-year staggered terms, which could delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of a majority of our Board of Directors;
a prohibition on cumulative voting in the election of our directors;
the requirement that our directors may only be removed for cause;
the ability of our Board of Directors to issue shares of preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could
be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquirer;
the right of our Board of Directors to elect a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of our Board of Directors or the resignation, death or removal of a director;
a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent, which forces stockholder action to be taken at an annual or special meeting of our stockholders;
the requirement that a special meeting of stockholders may be called only by the Board pursuant to a resolution adopted by a majority of the Board, the chairman of the Board of Directors, our chief executive
officer, or our president (in the absence of a chief executive officer), which could delay the ability of our stockholders to force consideration of a proposal or to take action, including the removal of directors;
the requirement for the affirmative vote of holders of at least 66 2/3% of the voting power of all of the then-outstanding shares of our voting stock, voting together as a single class, to amend the provisions of our
amended and restated certificate of incorporation relating to the management of our business or our amended and restated bylaws, which may inhibit the ability of an acquirer to affect such amendments to facilitate
an unsolicited takeover attempt; and
advance notice procedures with which stockholders must comply to nominate candidates to our Board of Directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders' meeting, which may discourage or deter a
potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer's own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.
In addition, as a Delaware corporation, we are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. The provisions of Section 203 may prohibit large stockholders, in particular those owning 15% or more of
our outstanding voting stock, from merging or combining with us for three years after achieving that ownership threshold. A Delaware corporation may opt out of this provision by express provision in its original certificate of
incorporation or by amendment to its certificate of incorporation or bylaws approved by its stockholders. However, we have not opted out of this provision.
These and other provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, amended and restated bylaws and Delaware law could make it more difficult for stockholders or potential acquirers to obtain control of
our Board of Directors or initiate actions that are opposed by our then-current Board of Directors, including delaying or impeding a merger, tender offer, or proxy contest involving our company. The existence of these
provisions could negatively affect the price of our common stock and limit opportunities for you to realize value in a corporate transaction.
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Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments
None.
Item 2. Properties
Our worldwide corporate headquarters are located in New York, NY, which comprise approximately 142,500 square feet of office space under a sublease that expires in February 2031. In addition to serving as our
corporate headquarters, our New York office also supports our sales, marketing, research and development and other general and administrative functions.
We also have other domestic offices, including Rosslyn, VA, and international offices, including London, UK. All of our facilities are leased. We believe that our existing facilities are adequate for our current needs and
that suitable additional or alternative space will be available on commercially reasonable terms if and when it becomes needed.
Item 3. Legal Proceedings
We are not currently a party to any legal proceedings that are material to our business or financial condition. From time to time we may become party to various litigation matters and subject to claims that arise in the
ordinary course of business.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
Not applicable.
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Item 5. Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
Market Information for Common Stock
PART II
Our common stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “YEXT” on April 13, 2017. Prior to that date, there was no public trading market for our common stock.
Dividend Policy
We have never declared or paid any dividends on our capital stock. We anticipate that we will retain any earnings to support operations and to finance the growth and development of our business. Accordingly, we do not
expect to pay cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. In addition, our revolving credit facility agreement contains customary covenants restricting our ability to pay dividends.
Stockholders
As of March 1, 2022, there were 45 registered stockholders of record of our common stock. The number of registered stockholders of record does not include beneficial holders whose shares are held by banks, brokers and
other institutions.
Sales of Unregistered Equity Securities
None.
Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers
None.
Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans
The following table sets forth information regarding our equity compensation plans as of January 31, 2022.
Plan category
Equity compensation plans approved by security
holders (2)
Equity compensation plans not approved by
security holders
Total
(a) Number of securities to be issued
upon exercise of outstanding options,
and vesting of restricted stock and
restricted stock units
(b) Weighted-average exercise
price of outstanding options (1)
(c) Number of securities remaining
available for future issuance under
equity compensation plans (excludes
securities reflected in column (a))
16,804,915
(3)
—
16,804,915
$
$
7.28
—
7.28
4,969,482
(4)
—
4,969,482
(1) The weighted-average exercise price is calculated based solely on the exercise prices of the outstanding options to purchase shares of our common stock. It does not reflect the shares of our common stock that will be
issued upon the vesting of outstanding restricted stock and restricted stock units.
(2) These plans consist of our 2008 Equity Incentive Plan, 2016 Equity Incentive Plan and 2017 Employee Stock Purchase Plan. The 2008 Equity Incentive Plan was terminated in connection with the adoption of the 2016
Equity Incentive Plan and since its termination, we have not granted and will not grant any additional awards under the 2008 Equity Incentive Plan. However, the 2008 Equity Incentive Plan will continue to govern the
terms and conditions of the outstanding awards previously granted thereunder.
(3) This amount includes 6,620,701 shares subject to outstanding options and 10,184,214 shares subject to outstanding restricted stock and restricted stock units granted under our 2008 Equity Incentive Plan and 2016
Equity Incentive Plan.
(4) This amount includes 1,425,786 shares of our common stock available for issuance under our 2016 Equity Incentive Plan and 3,543,696 shares of our common stock available for issuance under our 2017 Employee
Stock Purchase Plan. The number of shares available for issuance under these plans automatically increase each February 1 subject to the terms of the respective plans. Such future increases are not reflected in the table
above.
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Performance Graph
The following shall not be deemed soliciting material or to be filed with the SEC, nor shall such information be incorporated by reference into any of our other filings under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as
amended, or the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.
The graph below compares the cumulative total stockholder return on our common stock with the cumulative total return on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Nasdaq Computer Index. The graph assumes an initial
investment of $100 in our common stock at the market close on April 13, 2017, which was our initial trading day. Data for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Nasdaq Computer Index assume reinvestment of dividends.
The comparisons in the graph below are based upon historical data and are not indicative of, nor intended to forecast, future performance of our common stock.
Item 6. Reserved
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Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this Annual
Report on Form 10-K. As discussed in the section titled "Special Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements," the following discussion and analysis contains forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties,
as well as assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute
to these differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the section titled "Risk Factors" under Part I, Item 1A in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Overview
Yext organizes a business's facts so it can provide official answers to consumer questions starting with the business's own website and then extending across search engines and voice assistants. Our platform lets
businesses structure the facts about their brands in a database called the Knowledge Graph. Our platform is built to leverage the structured data stored in the Knowledge Graph to deliver a modern search experience on a
business's or organization's own website, as well as across approximately 200 service and application providers, which we refer to as our Knowledge Network and includes Amazon Alexa, Apple Maps, Bing, Cortana,
Facebook, Google, Google Assistant, Google Maps, Siri and Yelp. Our platform powers all of our key features, including Listings, Pages, and Answers, along with its other features and capabilities.
We sell our platform throughout the world to customers of all sizes, including our enterprise, mid-size, and third-party reseller customers. In transactions with resellers, we are only party to the transaction with the reseller
and are not a party to the reseller's transaction with its customer.
Revenue is a function of the number of customers, the number of licenses with each customer, the package to which each customer subscribes, the price of the package and renewal rates. We offer subscriptions in a
discrete range of packages, with pricing based on specified feature sets and the number of licenses managed by the customer as well as on a capacity-basis.
Fiscal Year
Our fiscal year ends on January 31 . References to fiscal 2022, for example, are to the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022.
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COVID-19 Update
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted business operations for us and our customers, as well as suppliers, and other parties with whom we do business. Such disruptions are expected to continue for an
indefinite period of time.
We have adopted several measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to monitor regional developments to inform our operational decisions. Our offices have been open on a voluntary basis in
accordance with guidance provided by government agencies, although currently the majority of our employees are still working remotely. While we continue to hold virtual events, we have also resumed in-person marketing
events. The uncertain duration of these measures have had and may continue to have negative effects on our sales efforts and revenue growth rates. We continue to be committed to our business, the strength of our platform,
our ability to continue to execute on our strategy, and our efforts to support our customers.
We may continue to see some existing and potential customers, in particular customers in industries that have been highly impacted by the pandemic such as retail and food services as well as certain geographies such as
Europe, reduce, suspend or delay technology spending, request to renegotiate contracts to obtain concessions such as, extended billing and payment terms; shorten the duration of contracts; or elect not to renew their
subscriptions which could materially adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations in future periods. The ultimate extent of the impact of the pandemic will depend on future developments, which
continue to be highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including the severity and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and its variants, vaccination rates and efficacy and the actions taken to contain and address the impact of
the pandemic, among others. However, because we generally recognize revenue from our customer contracts ratably over the term of the contract, changes in our contracting activity in the near term may not be fully reflected
in our results of operations and overall financial performance until future periods. See Part I Item 1A “Risk Factors” for further discussion of the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business.
Recent Developments
On March 7, 2022, Howard Lerman notified our Board of Directors of his intention to step down from his position as Chief Executive Officer of the Company effective March 25, 2022. Michael Walrath, the Chairman of
the Board of Directors, will succeed Mr. Lerman as Chief Executive Officer, principal executive officer and principal operating officer of the Company, effective March 25, 2022.
On March 7, 2022, Steven Cakebread notified our Board of Directors of his intention to step down from his position as Chief Financial Officer of the Company effective March 25, 2022. Darryl Bond, the Company’s
Executive Vice President and Chief
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Accounting Officer, will succeed Mr. Cakebread as Chief Financial Officer and principal financial officer of the Company, effective March 25, 2022. Mr. Bond will continue to serve as the Company’s Chief Accounting
Officer.
On March 7, 2022, the Board also appointed Marc Ferrentino, the Company’s Chief Strategy Officer, as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Company.
In connection with the changes in our senior management, our Board of Directors and new management anticipate certain additional changes to our strategy and personnel that have not yet been determined.
Components of Results of Operations
Revenue
We derive our revenue primarily from subscription and associated support to our Yext platform. Our contracts are typically one year in length, but may be up to three years or longer in length. Revenue is a function of the
number of customers, the number of licenses or capacity purchased by each customer, the package to which each customer subscribes, the price of the package and renewal rates. Revenue is generally recognized ratably over
the contract term beginning on the commencement date of each contract, which is the date our platform is made available to customers. At the beginning of each subscription term we invoice our customers, typically in annual
installments, but also monthly, quarterly, and semi-annually. Amounts that have been invoiced for non-cancelable contracts are recorded in accounts receivable and unearned revenue. Unearned revenue is subsequently
recognized as revenue when transfer of control to a customer has occurred.
Cost of Revenue
Cost of revenue consists primarily of employee-related costs, including personnel-related costs, which mainly consist of salaries and wages, and stock-based compensation expense. Cost of revenue also includes fees
associated with our Knowledge Network application provider arrangements, the nature of which may be unpaid, fixed, or variable, and are unpaid with many of our larger providers, as well as the costs associated with our data
centers. In addition, cost of revenue includes depreciation expense, including with respect to certain capitalized software development costs incurred in connection with additional functionality to our platform. Cost of revenue
also includes lease expenses associated with our office spaces, which are allocated based on employee headcount. In addition, cost of revenue includes software expense, which relates to licenses, professional services, and
other costs associated with software for use in the operations of our business, which is also allocated based on employee headcount.
Operating Expenses
Sales and marketing expenses. Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of employee-related costs which are comprised of personnel-related costs and stock-based compensation expense. Personnel-related costs
mainly consist of salaries and wages and costs of obtaining revenue contracts. Sales and marketing expenses also include lease expenses associated with our office spaces, as well as software expense, each of which are
allocated based on employee headcount. In addition, sales and marketing expenses include costs related to advertising and conferences and brand awareness events.
Research and development expenses. Research and development expenses consist primarily of employee-related costs which are comprised of personnel-related costs and stock-based compensation expense. Personnel-
related costs mainly consist of salaries and wages. Capitalized software development costs related to additional functionality to our platform are excluded from research and development expenses as they are capitalized as a
component of property and equipment, net and depreciated to cost of revenue over the term of their useful life. Research and development expenses also include lease expenses associated with our office spaces, as well as
software expense, each of which are allocated based on employee headcount.
General and administrative expenses. General and administrative expenses consist primarily of employee-related costs which are comprised of personnel-related costs and stock-based compensation expense for our finance
and accounting, human resources, information technology and legal support departments. Personnel-related costs mainly consist of salaries and wages. General and administrative expenses also include lease expenses
associated with our office spaces, as well as software expense, each of which are allocated based on employee headcount, and other professional related costs.
41
Results of Operations
(in thousands)
Statements of Operations Data:
Revenue
Cost of revenue
Gross profit
Operating expenses:
(1)
(1)
Sales and marketing
Research and development
General and administrative
Total operating expenses
(1)
(1)
Loss from operations
Interest income
Interest expense
Other expense, net
Loss from operations before income taxes
(Provision for) benefit from income taxes
Net loss
(1) Amounts include stock-based compensation expense as follows:
(in thousands)
Cost of revenue
Sales and marketing
Research and development
General and administrative
Total stock-based compensation expense
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
$
$
390,577 $
98,299
292,278
230,467
68,350
83,420
382,237
(89,959)
22
(544)
(1,501)
(91,982)
(1,277)
(93,259) $
354,661 $
86,404
268,257
228,417
58,146
76,026
362,589
(94,332)
532
(614)
(181)
(94,595)
(97)
(94,692) $
298,829
77,030
221,799
218,076
49,445
77,231
344,752
(122,953)
4,099
(308)
(1,285)
(120,447)
(1,097)
(121,544)
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
7,099 $
26,496
20,654
19,231
73,480 $
5,724 $
32,581
17,071
16,918
72,294 $
4,115
31,421
13,212
19,022
67,770
$
$
42
The following table sets forth selected consolidated statements of operations data for each of the periods indicated as a percentage of total revenue:
Revenue
Cost of revenue
Gross profit
Operating expenses:
Sales and marketing
Research and development
General and administrative
Total operating expenses
Loss from operations
Interest income
Interest expense
Other expense, net
Loss from operations before income taxes
(Provision for) benefit from income taxes
Net loss
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
100
25
74.8
59
18
21
98
(23)
—
—
—
(23)
—
(23)
%
%
100
24
75.6
65
16
21
102
(26)
—
(1)
—
(27)
—
(27)
%
%
100
26
74.2
73
16
26
115
(41)
1
—
—
(40)
(1)
(41)
%
%
Fiscal Year Ended January 31, 2022 Compared to Fiscal Year Ended January 31, 2021
Revenue and Cost of Revenue
(in thousands)
Revenue
Cost of revenue
Gross profit
Gross margin
$
$
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2022
390,577
98,299
292,278
74.8
%
$
$
2021
354,661
86,404
268,257
75.6
%
$
$
$
Variance
Dollars
Percent
35,916
11,895
24,021
10
14
9
%
%
%
Total revenue was $390.6 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, compared to $354.7 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, an increase of $35.9 million or 10%, primarily driven by new customer
subscriptions to our platform, and to a lesser extent included expanded subscriptions for existing customers. Our revenue is predominately derived from our enterprise, mid-size, and third-party reseller customers. Revenue
recognized from subscriptions and associated support to our platform was 92% and revenue recognized from professional services was 8%, for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, compared to 93% and 7%, respectively,
for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021.
Cost of revenue was $98.3 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, compared to $86.4 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, an increase of $11.9 million, or 14%. This increase was primarily driven
by employee-related costs, as personnel-related costs increased $8.8 million and stock-based compensation expense increased $1.4 million, reflecting higher headcount and employee stock grants. In addition, depreciation
expense increased $2.2 million and costs associated with our data centers increased $1.5 million. These increases were partially offset by Knowledge Network application provider fees which decreased $5.1 million due to
favorable contract renewal terms with certain providers in the prior year.
Gross margin was 74.8% for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, compared to 75.6% for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 as reflected in the discussion above.
Operating Expenses
(in thousands)
Sales and marketing
Research and development
General and administrative
Fiscal year ended January 31,
Variance
2022
2021
Dollars
Percent
$
$
$
230,467
68,350
83,420
$
$
$
228,417
58,146
76,026
$
$
$
2,050
10,204
7,394
1
18
10
%
%
%
Sales and marketing expense was $230.5 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, compared to $228.4 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, an increase of $2.1 million, or 1%. The increase
reflected a $5.5 million increase in personnel-
43
related costs, inclusive of a $3.5 million increase in costs to obtain revenue contracts. In addition, there was a $2.3 million increase in depreciation expense and a $0.9 million increase in advertising costs associated with certain
brand media campaigns. These increases were largely offset by a $6.1 million decrease in stock-based compensation expense, which is lower in the current period reflecting the impact of certain departures of senior
management in the prior periods.
Research and development expense was $68.4 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, compared to $58.1 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, an increase of $10.2 million, or 18%. The increase
was primarily driven by a $3.6 million increase in stock-based compensation expense due to employee stock grants, a $3.6 million increase in personnel-related costs, reflecting higher headcount, which mainly consisted of
salaries and wages, as well as a $0.8 million increase in depreciation expense.
General and administrative expense was $83.4 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, compared to $76.0 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, an increase of $7.4 million or 10%. The increase
was primarily driven by a $2.6 million increase in personnel-related costs, a $2.3 million increase in stock-based compensation due to employee stock grants, as well as a $0.9 million increase in depreciation expense. This was
partially offset by a $1.3 million decrease in bad debt expense as the prior year period had higher expense to reflect the initial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fiscal Year Ended January 31, 2021 Compared to Fiscal Year Ended January 31, 2020
Revenue and Cost of Revenue
(in thousands)
Revenue
Cost of revenue
Gross profit
Gross margin
$
$
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
354,661
86,404
268,257
75.6
%
$
$
2020
298,829
77,030
221,799
74.2
%
$
$
$
Variance
Dollars
Percent
55,832
9,374
46,458
19
12
21
%
%
%
Total revenue was $354.7 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, compared to $298.8 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020, an increase of $55.8 million or 19%, primarily driven by new customer
subscriptions to our platform, and to a lesser extent included expanded subscriptions for existing customers. Our revenue is predominately derived from our enterprise, mid-size, and third-party reseller customers. Revenue
from our small business customers represented less than 5% of total revenue for each period. Revenue recognized from subscriptions and associated support to our platform was 93% and 95%, while revenue recognized from
professional services was 7% and 5%, for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.
Cost of revenue was $86.4 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, compared to $77.0 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020, an increase of $9.4 million, or 12%. This overall increase primarily
reflects the increases in costs associated with our data centers of $3.2 million, personnel-related costs of $1.6 million, stock-based compensation expense of $1.6 million, and software expense of $1.4 million. These increases
were partially offset by a decrease in Knowledge Network application provider costs of $1.0 million as a result of more favorable contract terms with certain providers.
Gross margin was 75.6% for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, compared to 74.2% for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020 as reflected in the discussion above.
Operating Expenses
(in thousands)
Sales and marketing
Research and development
General and administrative
Fiscal year ended January 31,
Variance
2021
2020
Dollars
Percent
$
$
$
228,417
58,146
76,026
$
$
$
218,076
49,445
77,231
$
$
$
10,341
8,701
(1,205)
5
18
(2)
%
%
%
Sales and marketing expense was $228.4 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, compared to $218.1 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020, an increase of $10.3 million, or 5%. The increase was
primarily due to a $23.6 million increase in personnel-related costs, reflecting higher headcount, which mainly consisted of salaries and wages and costs to obtain revenue contracts, a $2.8 million increase in software expense,
a $1.4 million increase in operating and short-term lease expenses, a $1.3 million increase in depreciation expense, and a $1.2 million increase in stock-based compensation expense. These increases were partially offset by
reductions in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and leveraging costs, including a $10.8 million decrease in employee travel and a $7.6 million decrease in conferences and events.
Research and development expense was $58.1 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, compared to $49.4 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020, an increase of $8.7 million, or 18%. The increase
was primarily due to a $3.9 million increase
44
in stock-based compensation expense, a $3.0 million increase in personnel-related costs, reflecting higher headcount, which mainly consisted of salaries and wages, and a $0.8 million increase in software expense.
General and administrative expense was $76.0 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, relatively consistent compared to $77.2 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020, as decreases of $2.1 million in
stock-based compensation expense and $2.0 million in employee travel, were generally offset by a $1.3 million increase in the allowance for doubtful accounts and a $0.8 million increase in software expense.
Net Loss
Net loss was $93.3 million, $94.7 million, and $121.5 million for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020.
Non-GAAP Net Loss
In addition to our financial results determined in accordance with GAAP, we believe that non-GAAP net loss is useful in evaluating our operating performance and our business.
Non-GAAP net loss is a financial measure that is not calculated in accordance with GAAP. We define non-GAAP net loss as our GAAP net loss as adjusted to exclude the effects of stock-based compensation expense. We
believe non-GAAP net loss provides investors and other users of our financial information consistency and comparability with our past financial performance and facilitates period-to-period comparisons of our results of
operations. We also believe non-GAAP net loss is useful in evaluating our operating performance compared to that of other companies in our industry, as it eliminates the effects of stock-based compensation, which may vary
for reasons unrelated to overall operating performance.
We use non-GAAP net loss in conjunction with traditional GAAP net loss as part of our overall assessment of our performance, including the preparation of our annual operating budget and quarterly forecasts, and to
evaluate the effectiveness of our business strategies. Our definition may differ from the definitions used by other companies and therefore comparability may be limited. In addition, other companies may not publish this or
similar metrics. Thus, our non-GAAP net loss should be considered in addition to, not as a substitute for, nor superior to or in isolation from, measures prepared in accordance with GAAP.
Non-GAAP net loss may be limited in its usefulness because it does not present the full economic effect of our use of stock-based compensation. We compensate for these limitations by providing a reconciliation of non-
GAAP net loss to the most closely related GAAP financial measure. We encourage investors and others to review our financial information in its entirety, not to rely on any single financial measure and to view non-GAAP net
loss in conjunction with GAAP net loss.
The following table provides a reconciliation of GAAP net loss to non-GAAP net loss:
(in thousands)
Net loss
Plus: Stock-based compensation expense
Non-GAAP net loss
Dollar-Based Net Retention Rate
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
$
$
(93,259)
73,480
(19,779)
$
$
(94,692)
72,294
(22,398)
$
$
2020
(121,544)
67,770
(53,774)
We believe that our ability to retain our customers and expand the revenue they generate for us over time is an important component of our growth strategy and reflects the long term value of our customer relationships.
We assess our performance in this respect using a metric we refer to as our dollar-based net retention rate. Our dollar-based net retention rate was 98%, 102%, and 106% for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and
2020, respectively. The general decline in the net retention rate reflects continued challenges in our ability to retain and expand relationships with existing customers, which has been and may continue to be negatively impacted
by the effects of COVID-19 on our customers. See "—Overview — COVID-19 Update" and "Risk Factors" for the impact of COVID-19 on our business.
We calculate this metric for a particular period by first establishing a cohort of the enterprise, mid-size, and third-party reseller customers, who had active contracts at the end of each month of the same period in the prior
year. We divide the single month revenue from each of those customer cohorts for the applicable month in the current year by the single month revenue of that same customer cohort for the corresponding month in the prior
year. We then determine the dollar-based weighted average of each of the monthly rates, and this average represents the dollar-based net retention rate for the period. As a result, if a customer, in particular an enterprise
customer, elects to upgrade, downgrade or cancel its subscription, the full impact on dollar-based net retention rate is realized over the subsequent twelve months, thereby mitigating the immediate effect in the quarter when
such election was made. We only consider revenue from our enterprise, mid-size, and third-party reseller customers when calculating this metric since small business customers have limited licenses, experience inherently high
turnover, and continue to decline as a percentage of total revenue.
45
Quarterly Results of Operations
The following tables set forth our unaudited quarterly statements of operations data for each of the eight quarters in the periods ended January 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. The information for each of these quarters
has been prepared on the same basis as the audited annual consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and, in the opinion of management, includes all adjustments, which consist
only of normal recurring adjustments, necessary for the fair presentation of the results of operations for these periods in accordance with GAAP. This data should be read in conjunction with our audited consolidated financial
statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. These quarterly operating results are not necessarily indicative of our operating results for a full year or any future period.
Three months ended
(in
thousands)
Revenue
Cost of
revenue
Gross
profit
Gross
margin
Sales and
marketing
Research
and
development
General
and
administrative
Total
operating
expenses
Total
operating
expenses as a
percentage of
revenue
Loss
from
operations
Net loss
Net loss
per share
attributable to
common
stockholders,
basic and
diluted
Quarterly Trends
Jan. 31, 2022
100,932
24,575
76,357
75.7
%
58,175
18,007
22,136
98,318
97
%
(21,961)
(23,110)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Oct. 31, 2021
99,529
25,255
74,274
74.6
%
58,548
17,986
22,094
98,628
99
%
(24,354)
(24,926)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Jul. 31, 2021
98,124
26,615
71,509
72.9
%
58,578
18,500
20,843
97,921
100
%
(26,412)
(27,592)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Apr. 30, 2021
91,992
21,854
70,138
76.2
%
55,166
13,857
18,347
87,370
95
%
(17,232)
(17,631)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Jan. 31, 2021
92,194
21,597
70,597
76.6
%
57,202
14,505
18,033
89,740
97
%
(19,143)
(18,311)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Oct. 31, 2020
89,061
21,639
67,422
75.7
%
56,646
14,475
18,061
89,182
100
%
(21,760)
(22,041)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Jul. 31, 2020
88,055
21,984
66,071
75.0
%
56,049
14,788
19,474
90,311
103
%
(24,240)
(25,116)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Apr. 30, 2020
85,351
21,184
64,167
75.2
%
58,520
14,378
20,458
93,356
109
%
(29,189)
(29,224)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
(0.18)
$
(0.19)
$
(0.22)
$
(0.14)
$
(0.15)
$
(0.18)
$
(0.21)
$
(0.25)
Historically, a higher proportion of new subscription and renewal agreements have occurred within the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, which contributes to driving our revenue recognized for the following fiscal year. We
believe that this results from the procurement, budgeting, and deployment cycles of many of our customers, particularly our enterprise customers. At the beginning of each subscription term, we invoice our customers, typically
in annual installments, but also monthly, quarterly, and semi-annually. Amounts that have been invoiced for non-cancelable contracts are recorded in accounts receivable and unearned revenue. As a result, accounts receivable
and unearned revenue are seasonally stronger in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year. However, the nature of our subscription agreements generally results in revenue recognition ratably over the contract term, thereby mitigating
the effect of potential seasonality in our revenue. Our quarterly revenue has generally increased over the periods presented.
Cost of revenue has moved generally proportional as a percentage of revenue. Personnel-related costs may generally continue to increase, while Knowledge Network application provider costs have become more stable
and may continue to decline as a percentage of revenue, although costs may increase at times as we enter new international markets, or introduce new products and features.
Gross margin has generally stabilized in recent periods, and may decrease at times as we enter new international markets, or introduce new products and features.
Operating expenses as a percentage of revenue have generally decreased in recent quarters, reflecting COVID-19 impacts and strategically leveraging costs. Operating expenses may increase as a result of employee-related
costs, inclusive of costs to obtain revenue contracts, as well as stock-based compensation.
Our quarterly results may fluctuate due to various factors affecting our performance including impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and its variants. The ultimate extent of the impact of the pandemic on our business,
financial condition and results of operations will depend on future developments, which continue to be highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including the severity and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and its variants
and the actions taken to contain and address its impact, among others. However, because we generally recognize revenue from our customer contracts ratably over the term of the contract, changes in our contracting activity in
the near term may not be apparent as a change to our reported revenue until future periods. Most of our expenses are recorded as period costs and thus factors affecting our cost structure may be reflected in our financial results
sooner than changes to our revenue.
46
Liquidity and Capital Resources
As of January 31, 2022, our principal sources of liquidity were cash and cash equivalents of $261.2 million. We believe our existing cash and cash equivalents will be sufficient to meet our projected operating requirements
for at least the next 12 months. Our cash flows, including net cash used in or provided by operating activities, may vary significantly from quarter to quarter, due to the timing of billings, cash collections, lease payments and
capital expenditures, significant marketing events and related expenses, the potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, among other factors.
Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including those set forth under "Risk Factors." We may in the future enter into arrangements to acquire or invest in complementary businesses, services,
technologies, and intellectual property rights. In addition, we may be required to seek additional equity or debt financing. In the event that additional financing is required from outside sources, we may not be able to raise it on
terms acceptable to us or at all. If we are unable to raise additional capital when desired, our business, operating results and financial condition would be adversely affected.
Common Stock Offering
On March 20, 2019, we closed a common stock offering, in which we issued and sold 7,000,000 shares of common stock, inclusive of the fully exercised underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares. The price per
share to the public was $21.50. We received aggregate proceeds of $147.0 million from this offering, net of underwriters’ discounts and commissions, before deducting offering costs of approximately $0.5 million, which were
recognized through additional paid in capital.
Credit Arrangements
On March 11, 2020, we entered into a credit agreement with Silicon Valley Bank (the “Credit Agreement”). No significant debt issuance costs were incurred in association with the Credit Agreement. In January 2021, we
amended the Credit Agreement which modified the conditions pursuant to which subsidiaries are required to become guarantors.
The Credit Agreement provides for a senior secured revolving loan facility of up to $50.0 million that matures three years after the effective date, with the right subject to certain conditions to add an incremental revolving
loan facility of up to $50.0 million in the aggregate. The three-year revolving loan facility provides for borrowings up to the amount of the facility with sub-limits of up to (i) $30.0 million to be available for the issuance of
letters of credit and (ii) $10.0 million to be available for swingline loans.
Under the Credit Agreement, loans bear interest, at our option, at an annual rate based on LIBOR or a base rate. Loans based on LIBOR shall bear interest at a rate between LIBOR plus 2.50% and LIBOR plus 3.00%,
depending on our average daily usage of the revolving loan facility. Loans based on the base rate shall bear interest at a rate between the base rate minus 0.50% and the base rate plus 0.00%, depending on our average daily
usage of the revolving loan facility. See Part I Item 1A “Risk Factors - Our credit facility contains restrictive covenants that may limit our operating flexibility" for discussion of LIBOR being phased out.
The obligations under the Credit Agreement are secured by a lien on substantially all of our tangible and intangible property and by a pledge of all of our equity interests of material direct and indirect domestic subsidiaries
and 66% of each class of capital stock of any material first-tier foreign subsidiaries, subject to limited exceptions.
The Credit Agreement contains customary affirmative and negative covenants and restrictions, as well as financial covenants that require us to maintain the year-over-year growth rate of its ordinary course recurring
revenue for a trailing four fiscal quarter period above specified rates when certain liquidity thresholds are not met and to maintain a consolidated quick ratio of at least 1.50 to 1.00 tested on a monthly basis.
As of January 31, 2022, we were in compliance with all debt covenants. As of such date, the $50.0 million revolving loan facility had $35.7 million available and $14.3 million in letters of credit allocated as security in
connection with office space.
47
Cash Flows
The following table summarizes our cash flows:
(in thousands)
Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities
Net cash (used in) provided by investing activities
Net cash provided by financing activities
Operating Activities
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
$
$
$
21,849
(13,418)
24,617
$
$
$
1,204
(65,111)
22,548
$
$
$
2020
(30,768)
39,308
168,373
Net cash provided by operating activities of $21.8 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 was primarily due to positive adjustments in reconciling our net loss of $93.3 million to net cash provided by operating
activities. These adjustments included stock-based compensation expense of $73.5 million, depreciation and amortization expense of $16.8 million, amortization of operating lease right-of-use assets of $9.3 million, and bad
debt expense of $1.3 million. In addition, there were changes in unearned revenue of $33.3 million and changes in prepaid expenses and other current assets of $4.2 million. These increases were partially offset by changes in
costs to obtain revenue contracts of $9.1 million, operating lease liabilities of $6.6 million, and accounts receivable of $6.1 million, mainly due to timing of billing and cash collections during the period.
Net cash provided by operating activities of $1.2 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 was primarily due to positive adjustments in reconciling our net loss of $94.7 million to net cash provided by operating
activities. These adjustments included stock-based compensation expense of $72.3 million, amortization of operating lease right-of-use assets of $12.2 million, depreciation and amortization expense of $10.6 million, and bad
debt expense of $2.5 million, reflecting an increase in the allowance for doubtful accounts in light of impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, there were changes in unearned revenue of $12.7 million, operating
lease liabilities of $8.9 million, and costs to obtain revenue contracts of $2.4 million. These increases were partially offset by changes in accounts receivable of $18.0 million, mainly due to timing of billing and cash collections
during the period, changes in prepaid expenses and other current assets of $5.5 million, and changes in accounts payable, accrued expenses and other current liabilities of $2.0 million.
Net cash used in operating activities of $30.8 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020 was primarily due to the net loss of $121.5 million, as well as changes in accounts receivable of $27.0 million, mainly due to
timing of billing and cash collections during the period, and changes in costs to obtain revenue contracts of $18.3 million. This was partially offset by positive reconciling adjustments related to non-cash charges of stock-based
compensation expense of $67.8 million, amortization of operating lease right-of-use assets of $11.1 million and depreciation and amortization expense of $8.1 million. In addition, net cash used in operating activities was also
partially offset by changes in unearned revenue of $42.3 million and accounts payable, accrued expenses and other liabilities of $8.3 million.
Investing Activities
Net cash used in investing activities of $13.4 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 reflected capital expenditures primarily associated with our new corporate headquarters in New York, NY.
Net cash used in investing activities of $65.1 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 reflected capital expenditures primarily associated with our new corporate headquarters in New York, NY, and our office
spaces in Rosslyn, VA and Tokyo, Japan, among others.
Net cash provided by investing activities of $39.3 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020 was due to maturities of marketable securities of $51.2 million, partially offset by capital expenditures of $11.9 million.
Financing Activities
Net cash provided by financing activities of $24.6 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 was primarily related to proceeds from exercise of stock options of $19.2 million, and net proceeds from employee
stock purchase plan withholdings of $5.7 million, partially offset by payments of deferred financing costs of $0.3 million.
Net cash provided by financing activities of $22.5 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 was primarily related to proceeds from exercise of stock options of $16.5 million, and net proceeds from employee
stock purchase plan withholdings of $7.0 million, partially offset by payments of deferred financing costs of $0.9 million.
Net cash provided by financing activities of $168.4 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020 was primarily related to proceeds from our common stock offering of $147.0 million, net of underwriting discounts
and commissions, and to a lesser extent proceeds from exercises of stock options of $14.9 million, and $7.3 million of net proceeds from employee stock purchase plan withholdings.
48
Contractual Obligations
We are obligated to make payments under certain non-cancelable contractual obligations in the normal course of business. Our contractual obligations primarily relate to our operating lease arrangements for office space.
Our other contractual obligations include contracts with our Knowledge Network application providers, which generally have a term of one year, although some have a term of several years, as well as contracts with our
software vendors, among others. These obligations represent minimum contractual payments, or our best estimate for variable elements based on historical payments. Our contractual obligations have various expiry dates
between fiscal years 2023 and 2035.
As of January 31, 2022, our contractual obligations are as follows (in thousands):
Fiscal year ending January 31:
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028 and thereafter
Total
Operating Leases
Other
$
$
19,643
19,086
18,576
19,337
19,433
75,492
171,567
$
$
35,460
16,094
8,926
1,825
1,538
401
64,244
See Note 13 "Commitments and Contingencies" to our consolidated financial statements for further discussion on contractual obligations.
Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates
Our management's discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations is based on our financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in
the United States of America ("GAAP"). The 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 at the date of the financial statements, as well as the reported revenue generated and expenses incurred during the reporting periods. Our estimates are based on our historical experience and various other
factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about items that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these
estimates under different assumptions or conditions.
See Note 2 "Summary of Significant Accounting Policies" to our consolidated financial statements for further discussion on our accounting policies. Our most critical accounting policies and estimates, based on the degree
of judgment and complexity, are discussed below.
Revenue Recognition
We derive our revenue primarily from our subscriptions and associated support to the Yext platform. Our subscriptions do not provide customers with the right to take possession of the software supporting the applications
and, as a result, are accounted for as service contracts. Our subscription and associated support performance obligation is distinct because a customer's use of the Yext platform is fully functional upon access, does not require
any additional development, modification or customization, and is often sold separately. In certain instances, we enter into a contract that includes a promise to provide certain technical or customized professional services, in
addition to a promise to provide its subscription and associated support. Our professional services performance obligation is distinct as it does not significantly change or enhance the functionality of the Yext platform.
In instances when a contract includes more than one performance obligation, we must allocate the transaction price to the performance obligations on a relative standalone selling price basis ("SSP"). SSP represents the
price at which a company would sell a promised product or service separately to a customer. We determine the SSP based on a series of complex factors. Our selling prices associated with our subscription and associated
support are considered highly variable based on discounting practices, customer geography, customer size, and other such factors. In contrast, our selling prices associated with our professional services are more observable,
predictable and consistent. Accordingly, we use the residual method to determine SSP.
The recognition of revenue is determined through application of the five-step model in accordance with ASC 606. Revenue is recognized upon transfer of control of services to our customers, including third-party reseller
customers, in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to receive in exchange for those services. In transactions with resellers, we contract only with the reseller, in which pricing and length of subscription and
support services are agreed upon. The reseller negotiates the price charged and length of subscription and support service directly with its customer. We do not pay separate fees to third-party reseller customers in association
with these transactions, and do not have direct interactions with the reseller’s customer.
Revenue is generally recognized ratably over the contract term beginning on the commencement date of each contract, which is the date our platform is made available to our customers. Amounts that have been invoiced
for non-cancelable contracts are recorded
49
in accounts receivable and unearned revenue or revenue. See Note 2 "Summary of Significant Accounting Policies" and Note 3 "Revenue" to our consolidated financial statements for further discussion on our revenue
recognition.
Costs Capitalized to Obtain Revenue Contracts
We capitalize costs of obtaining revenue contracts that are incremental and recoverable. Incremental costs primarily include sales commissions, certain related incentives, and associated payroll tax and fringe benefit costs.
We amortize such costs on a straight-line basis over the average benefit period, which is typically three years for new contracts and one year for renewals. We determine the average benefit period by considering both
qualitative and quantitative factors, which include the estimated life of capitalized software development costs resulting from additional functionality to the Yext platform and estimated customer life, among other such factors.
Amortization of costs capitalized to obtain revenue contracts is included in sales and marketing expense in the consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss.
Stock-Based Compensation
Stock-based compensation for all employee and non-employee stock-based awards, including restricted stock units and restricted stock, is measured at fair value on the date of grant and recognized over the service period.
The fair value of restricted stock units and restricted stock are calculated based on the fair value of our common stock on the date of grant, while the fair value of stock options are calculated using a Black-Scholes option-
pricing model.
Stock-based compensation expense is recognized over the requisite service periods of awards, which is typically one to four years for restricted stock units and restricted stock. The estimated forfeiture rate applied to
employee awards is based on historical forfeiture rates. The estimated number of stock-based awards that will ultimately vest requires judgment, and to the extent actual results, or updated estimates, differ from our current
estimates, such amounts will be recorded as a cumulative adjustment in the period actual results are realized or estimates are revised. A higher forfeiture rate will result in an adjustment that will decrease stock-based
compensation expense, whereas a lower forfeiture rate will result in an adjustment that will increase stock-based compensation expense. We do not apply a forfeiture rate assumption to value non-employee awards, given the
nature of the services provided.
For our Employee Stock Purchase Plan ("ESPP"), we measure stock-based compensation expense at fair-value using a Black-Scholes option-pricing model, at the commencement of each offering period and recognize the
expense over that offering period, which is generally six months. The key assumptions used in the Black-Scholes option-pricing model include a volatility assumption based on the historical volatility of our stock price and the
risk-free rate assumption based on the U.S. treasury yield curve in effect at the commencement of the offering period or grant date. The dividend yield assumption is zero as we have not historically paid any dividends and do
not expect to declare or pay any dividends in the foreseeable future.
We will continue to use judgment in evaluating the assumptions related to our stock-based compensation. As we continue to accumulate additional data related to our common stock, we may refine our estimates. If factors
change and different assumptions are used, the impact to our stock-based compensation expense could be material.
Income Taxes
We account for income taxes in accordance with ASC Topic 740, “Income Taxes,” under which deferred income taxes are provided for temporary differences between the financial reporting and tax basis of our assets and
liabilities. We classify all deferred tax assets and liabilities as non-current on the consolidated balance sheet. The effect of a change in tax rates on deferred tax assets and liabilities is recognized within the (provision for)
benefit from income taxes on the consolidated statement of operations and comprehensive loss in the period that includes the enactment date.
We reduce deferred tax assets, if necessary, by a valuation allowance if it is more likely than not that we will not realize some or all of our deferred tax assets. In making such a determination, we consider all available
positive and negative evidence, including results of operations, future reversals of existing taxable temporary differences, projected future taxable income, and tax-planning strategies.
We recognize the tax benefit from an uncertain tax position only if it is more likely than not that the tax position will be sustained on examination by taxing authorities, based on the technical merits of the position. We
recognize interest and penalties related to uncertain tax positions within the (provision for) benefit from income taxes on our consolidated statement of operations and comprehensive loss.
Leases
We enter into contracts in the normal course of business and assess whether any such contracts contain a lease. We classify leases as operating or financing in nature, and record the associated lease liability and right-of-use
asset on our balance sheet. The lease liability represents the present value of future lease payments, net of lease incentives, discounted using incremental borrowing rates.
For each individual lease arrangement, we estimate an incremental borrowing rate at the commencement date. The incremental borrowing rate is determined based on what we would estimate to pay for a collateralized
loan over a similar term and economic environment for each lease arrangement. As of January 31, 2022, a hypothetical 100 basis point change in our estimated incremental
50
borrowing rates for our respective leases would have a less than 10% impact to the aggregated total operating lease liability on the consolidated balance sheet.
With respect to our operating lease arrangements, we account for lease components, and non-lease components that are fixed, as a single lease component in the measurement of operating lease liabilities and right-of-us
assets. Non-lease components that are variable are expensed as incurred in the consolidated statement of operations and comprehensive loss. Lease arrangements with an initial term of 12 months or less are recognized on a
straight-line basis over the lease term and are not recorded on the consolidated balance sheet.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements
See Note 2 "Summary of Significant Accounting Policies" to the consolidated financial statements for our discussion about adopted and pending recent accounting pronouncements.
51
Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
Market risk represents the risk of loss that may affect our financial position due to adverse changes in financial market prices and rates. We are exposed to market risks related to foreign currency exchange rates, inflation
and interest rates.
Foreign Currency Risk
Assets and liabilities of non-U.S. subsidiaries that operate in a local currency environment, where the local currency is the functional currency, are translated from foreign currencies into U.S. dollars using month-end rates
of exchange for assets and liabilities, and average rates for the period derived from month-end spot rates for revenue, costs and expenses. We record translation gains and losses in accumulated other comprehensive (loss)
income as a component of stockholders' equity. We reflect net foreign exchange transaction gains and losses resulting from the conversion of the transaction currency to functional currency as a component of foreign currency
exchange losses in other expense, net. Based on the size of our international operations and the amount of our expenses denominated in foreign currencies, we would not expect a 10% change in the value of the U.S. dollar from
rates on January 31, 2022 to have a material effect on our financial position or results of operations. These exposures may change over time as business practices evolve and economic conditions change, including market
impacts associated with COVID-19.
Inflation Risk
We do not believe that inflation has had a material effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations, other than its impact on the general economy. Nonetheless, if our costs were to become subject to
inflationary pressures, we may not be able to fully offset such higher costs through price increases. Our inability or failure to do so could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Interest Rate Risk
As of January 31, 2022, we had cash and cash equivalents of $261.2 million. The primary objective of our investments is the preservation of capital to fulfill liquidity needs. We do not enter into investments for trading or
speculative purposes.
We do not believe our cash equivalents have significant risk of default or illiquidity. While we believe our cash equivalents do not contain excessive risk, we cannot assure you that in the future our investments will not be
subject to adverse changes in market value. In addition, we maintain significant amounts of cash and cash equivalents at one or more financial institutions that are in excess of federally insured limits and are exposed to
counterparty risk. We have not been exposed to, nor do we anticipate being exposed to, material risks due to changes in interest rates. A hypothetical 10% change in interest rates during any of the periods presented would not
have had a material impact on our financial statements.
52
Item 8. Consolidated Financial Statements and Supplementary Data
Index to Consolidated Financial Statements
Reports of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm (PCAOB ID: 42)
Consolidated Balance Sheets
Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss
Consolidated Statements of Stockholders' Equity
Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows
Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements
PAGE
54
57
58
59
60
61
53
To the Stockholders and the Board of Directors of Yext, Inc.
Opinion on the Financial Statements
REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM
We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Yext, Inc. (the Company) as of January 31, 2022 and 2021, the related consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss, stockholders’ equity
and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended January 31, 2022, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the "consolidated financial statements"). In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements
present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company at January 31, 2022 and 2021, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended January 31, 2022, in
conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the Company's internal control over financial reporting as of January 31, 2022, based on
criteria established in Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013 framework), and our report dated March 18, 2022 expressed an
unqualified opinion thereon.
Basis for Opinion
These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm
registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange
Commission and the PCAOB.
We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material
misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that
respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and
significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.
Critical Audit Matters
The critical audit matters communicated below are matters arising from the current period audit of the financial statements that were communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relate to
accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our
opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matters below, providing separate opinions on the critical audit matters or on the accounts or disclosures to
which they relate.
Description of the Matter
Completeness and Measurement of Costs Capitalized to Obtain Revenue Contracts
The Company capitalized $47.8 million of costs to obtain revenue contracts during the year ended January 31, 2022. As described in Note 2 to the consolidated
financial statements, capitalized costs are inclusive of sales commissions and any associated payroll taxes or fringe benefit costs that are incremental to obtain the
contract with the customer but expected to be recoverable.
Auditing the costs capitalized to obtain revenue contracts required complex auditor judgment and was especially challenging due to the volume of sales commission
plans with various underlying criteria and inputs used to calculate amounts capitalized to obtain revenue contracts. This involved an increased extent of audit effort to
test the completeness and accuracy of inputs of the commission-eligible revenue contracts and measurement of incremental costs eligible for capitalization.
54
How We Addressed the Matter in Our Audit
We obtained an understanding, evaluated the design, and tested the operating effectiveness of the Company’s internal controls over the costs to obtain revenue contracts
process. For example, we tested controls over the Company’s processes to evaluate the completeness and accuracy of the underlying criteria and inputs used to calculate
amounts capitalized. This included testing relevant controls over the IT systems that are important to the initiation, processing and recording of amounts capitalized to
obtain revenue contracts.
We performed audit procedures that included, among others, assessing whether those costs capitalized were eligible costs and met the criteria of incremental and
recoverable. For example, we tested a sample of commissions transactions by reviewing and assessing the underlying commission plan and tested the measurement of
capitalized costs by recalculating the amount earned based on sales and contract data. We validated that each commission earned and capitalized was an incremental
cost to obtain a revenue contract. Our procedures also included reconciling the capitalized commission population to sales commissions paid throughout the year. We
performed a retrospective review of commission payments made subsequent to the balance sheet date related to commissions earned in the current fiscal year to test the
completeness of costs capitalized.
Revenue Recognition
The Company recorded consolidated revenue and unearned revenue of $390.6 million and $223.9 million, respectively, for the year ended January 31, 2022. As
described in Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company primarily earns revenue from subscriptions and associated support to the platform. The
Company’s revenue contracts include contractual terms and conditions that can impact the amount allocated to each of its performance obligations and the timing of
revenue recognition. Auditing the timing and measurement of the Company's revenue recognition was especially challenging due to the volume of executed contracts
and the assessment of the unique terms. This involved assessing the contractual terms and conditions of both new and modified contracts to determine the contract
period, identifying all performance obligations, and determine if the transaction price expected to be received was fixed or variable.
We obtained an understanding, evaluated the design, and tested the operating effectiveness of the Company’s internal controls over the accounting for revenue. For
example, we tested controls over the Company’s processes to evaluate contractual terms and conditions and determine the timing and amount of revenue to be
recognized related to the performance obligations identified as services are transferred to the customer. This included testing relevant controls over the IT systems
that are important to the initiation, processing and recording of revenue transactions.
We performed audit procedures that included, among others, reading a sample of revenue contracts to evaluate the contractual terms and conditions, identify
performance obligations, assess the fixed and variable components to determine the transaction price, and assess the measurement and timing of revenue recognized
and unearned revenue recorded as of year-end. We tested the revenue recognized and unearned revenue as of year-end through tests of details and analytical
procedures, including the recalculation of balances on a disaggregated basis. Finally, we assessed the appropriateness of the related disclosures in the consolidated
financial statements.
Description of the Matter
How We Addressed the Matter in Our Audit
/s/ Ernst & Young, LLP
We have served as the Company’s auditors since 2014.
New York, New York
March 18, 2022
55
To the Stockholders and the Board of Directors of Yext, Inc.
Opinion on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM
We have audited Yext, Inc.’s internal control over financial reporting as of January 31, 2022, based on criteria established in Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the
Treadway Commission (2013 framework) (the COSO criteria). In our opinion, Yext, Inc. (the Company) maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of January 31, 2022, based on
the COSO criteria.
We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the consolidated balance sheets of Yext, Inc. as of January 31, 2022 and 2021, the related
consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss, stockholders’ equity, and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended January 31, 2022, and the related notes and our report dated March 18, 2022
expressed an unqualified opinion thereon.
Basis for Opinion
The Company’s management is responsible for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting and for its assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting included in the accompanying
Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on our audit. We are a public accounting firm
registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange
Commission and the PCAOB.
We conducted our audit in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether effective internal control over financial
reporting was maintained in all material respects.
Our audit included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control
based on the assessed risk, and performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.
Definition and Limitations of Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
A company’s 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 for external purposes in
accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company’s internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that (1) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail,
accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (2) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance
with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company; and (3) provide
reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition of the company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.
Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may
become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.
/s/ Ernst & Young, LLP
New York, New York
March 18, 2022
56
YEXT, INC.
Consolidated Balance Sheets
(In thousands, except share and per share data)
January 31, 2022
January 31, 2021
Assets
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents
Accounts receivable, net of allowances of $2,042 and $2,528, respectively
Prepaid expenses and other current assets
Costs to obtain revenue contracts, current
Total current assets
Property and equipment, net
Operating lease right-of-use assets
Costs to obtain revenue contracts, non-current
Goodwill
Intangible assets, net
Other long term assets
Total assets
Liabilities and stockholders’ equity
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable, accrued expenses and other current liabilities
Unearned revenue, current
Operating lease liabilities, current
Total current liabilities
Operating lease liabilities, non-current
Other long term liabilities
Total liabilities
Commitments and contingencies (Note 13)
Stockholders’ equity:
Preferred stock, $0.001 par value per share; 50,000,000 shares authorized at January 31, 2022 and 2021; zero shares issued and outstanding at
January 31, 2022 and 2021
Common stock, $0.001 par value per share; 500,000,000 shares authorized at January 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively; 137,662,320 and 130,494,513
shares issued at January 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively; 131,156,986 and 123,989,179 shares outstanding at January 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively
Additional paid-in capital
Accumulated other comprehensive (loss) income
Accumulated deficit
Treasury stock, at cost
Total stockholders’ equity
Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity
See the accompanying notes to the consolidated financial statements.
57
$
$
$
$
261,210 $
101,607
13,538
33,998
410,353
74,604
97,124
27,286
4,572
217
6,179
620,335 $
48,432 $
223,427
18,845
290,704
113,776
3,985
408,465
—
137
834,429
(187)
(610,604)
(11,905)
211,870
620,335 $
230,411
97,455
17,993
30,325
376,184
80,344
104,844
22,692
4,842
767
6,316
595,989
54,186
191,810
14,165
260,161
123,584
5,009
388,754
—
130
733,933
2,422
(517,345)
(11,905)
207,235
595,989
YEXT, INC.
Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss
(In thousands, except share and per share data)
Revenue
Cost of revenue
Gross profit
Operating expenses:
Sales and marketing
Research and development
General and administrative
Total operating expenses
Loss from operations
Interest income
Interest expense
Other expense, net
Loss from operations before income taxes
(Provision for) benefit from income taxes
Net loss
Net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted
Weighted-average number of shares used in computing net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted
Other comprehensive (loss) income:
Foreign currency translation adjustment
Unrealized (loss) gain on marketable securities, net
Total comprehensive loss
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
390,577 $
98,299
292,278
230,467
68,350
83,420
382,237
(89,959)
22
(544)
(1,501)
(91,982)
(1,277)
(93,259) $
354,661 $
86,404
268,257
228,417
58,146
76,026
362,589
(94,332)
532
(614)
(181)
(94,595)
(97)
(94,692) $
298,829
77,030
221,799
218,076
49,445
77,231
344,752
(122,953)
4,099
(308)
(1,285)
(120,447)
(1,097)
(121,544)
(0.73) $
(0.79) $
127,814,447
119,690,378
(1.09)
111,758,946
(2,609) $
—
(95,868) $
2,782 $
—
(91,910) $
1,197
(129)
(120,476)
$
$
$
$
$
See the accompanying notes to the consolidated financial statements.
58
Balance, January 31, 2019
Common stock offering, net of issuance costs of $ 530
Exercise of stock options
Vested restricted stock units converted to common
shares
Issuance of restricted stock
Issuance of common stock under employee stock
purchase plan
Stock-based compensation
Other comprehensive income
Net loss
Balance, January 31, 2020
Exercise of stock options
Vested restricted stock units converted to common
shares
Issuance of restricted stock
Issuance of common stock under employee stock
purchase plan
Stock-based compensation
Other comprehensive income
Net loss
Balance, January 31, 2021
Exercise of stock options
Vested restricted stock units converted to common
shares
Issuance of restricted stock
Issuance of common stock under employee stock
purchase plan
Stock-based compensation
Other comprehensive loss
Net loss
Balance, January 31, 2022
131,157 $
YEXT, INC.
Consolidated Statements of Stockholders' Equity
(In thousands)
Common Stock
Shares
Amount
102,173 $
7,000
3,308
109 $
7
3
Additional
Paid-In
Capital
Accumulated
Other
Comprehensive
Income (Loss)
398,882 $
146,463
14,852
(1,428) $
—
—
2,946
11
392
—
—
—
115,830
3,064
4,358
38
699
—
—
—
123,989
2,220
4,402
15
531
—
—
—
3
—
—
—
—
—
122
3
4
—
1
—
—
—
130
2
4
—
1
—
—
—
137 $
(3)
—
6,627
69,187
—
—
636,008
16,513
(4)
—
6,999
74,417
—
—
733,933
19,195
(4)
—
6,484
74,821
—
—
834,429 $
—
—
—
—
1,068
—
(360)
—
—
—
—
—
2,782
—
2,422
—
—
—
—
—
(2,609)
—
(187) $
See the accompanying notes to the consolidated financial statements.
59
Accumulated
Deficit
Treasury
Stock
Total Stockholders’
Equity
(301,109) $
(11,905) $
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
(121,544)
(422,653)
—
—
—
—
—
—
(94,692)
(517,345)
—
—
—
—
—
—
(93,259)
(610,604) $
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
(11,905)
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
(11,905)
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
(11,905) $
84,549
146,470
14,855
—
—
6,627
69,187
1,068
(121,544)
201,212
16,516
—
—
7,000
74,417
2,782
(94,692)
207,235
19,197
—
—
6,485
74,821
(2,609)
(93,259)
211,870
YEXT, INC.
Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows
Operating activities:
Net loss
Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash provided by (used in) operating activities:
Depreciation and amortization expense
Bad debt expense
Stock-based compensation expense
Amortization of operating lease right-of-use assets
Other, net
Changes in operating assets and liabilities:
Accounts receivable
Prepaid expenses and other current assets
Costs to obtain revenue contracts
Other long term assets
Accounts payable, accrued expenses and other current liabilities
Unearned revenue
Operating lease liabilities
Other long term liabilities
Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities
Investing activities:
Maturities of marketable securities
Capital expenditures
Net cash (used in) provided by investing activities
Financing activities:
Proceeds from common stock offering, net of underwriting discounts and commissions
Payments of common stock deferred offering costs
Proceeds from exercise of stock options
Payments of deferred financing costs
Proceeds, net from employee stock purchase plan withholdings
Net cash provided by financing activities
Effect of exchange rate changes on cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash
Net increase (decrease) in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash
Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at beginning of period
Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at end of period
Supplemental disclosure of cash flow data:
(In thousands)
Cash paid on interest
Cash paid on income taxes
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
$
(93,259) $
(94,692) $
(121,544)
16,783
1,253
73,480
9,296
582
(6,106)
4,238
(9,113)
(231)
(494)
33,262
(6,644)
(1,198)
21,849
—
(13,418)
(13,418)
—
—
19,228
(263)
5,652
24,617
(2,249)
30,799
10,612
2,547
72,294
12,203
(489)
(17,990)
(5,463)
2,429
(1,630)
(1,976)
12,702
8,937
1,720
1,204
—
(65,111)
(65,111)
—
—
16,464
(869)
6,953
22,548
3,594
(37,765)
$
$
$
230,411
261,210 $
268,176
230,411 $
75 $
1,325 $
54 $
1,413 $
8,069
1,246
67,770
11,124
120
(26,981)
268
(18,344)
(2,629)
8,267
42,345
(1,044)
565
(30,768)
51,197
(11,889)
39,308
147,000
(530)
14,893
(260)
7,270
168,373
(492)
176,421
91,755
268,176
41
531
Supplemental reconciliation of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash reported within the consolidated balance sheets as of January 31,
(in thousands)
Cash and cash equivalents
Restricted cash
Total cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash
2022
2021
2020
$
$
261,210 $
—
261,210 $
230,411 $
—
230,411 $
256,076
12,100
268,176
See the accompanying notes to the consolidated financial statements.
60
1. Organization and Description of Business
Description of Business
YEXT, INC.
Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements
Yext, Inc. ("Yext" or the "Company") organizes a business's facts so it can provide official answers to consumer questions starting with the business's own website and then extending across search engines and voice
assistants. The Yext platform lets businesses structure the facts about their brands in a database called the Knowledge Graph. The platform is built to leverage the structured data stored in the Knowledge Graph to deliver a
modern search experience on a business's or organization's own website, as well as across approximately 200 service and application providers, which the Company refers to as its Knowledge Network and includes Amazon
Alexa, Apple Maps, Bing, Cortana, Facebook, Google, Google Assistant, Google Maps, Siri and Yelp. The Yext platform powers all of the Company's key features, including Listings, Pages, and Answers, along with its other
features and capabilities.
Fiscal Year
The Company's fiscal year ends on January 31 . References to fiscal 2022, for example, are to the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022.
st
2. Summary of Significant Accounting Policies
Basis of Presentation and Consolidation
The accompanying consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("GAAP") and applicable rules and regulations of the
Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") regarding financial reporting. The consolidated financial statements include the accounts of the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiaries. All significant intercompany
balances and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation.
There were no prior period amounts that have been reclassified to conform to the current period presentation.
Use of Estimates
The preparation of consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of
contingent assets and liabilities as of the date of those financial statements and the reported amounts of revenue and expense during the reporting period. These estimates include, but are not limited to, the standalone selling
prices of performance obligations, the incremental borrowing rate associated with lease liabilities, the useful life of capitalized costs to obtain revenue contracts, income taxes, and the valuation and assumptions underlying
stock-based compensation. Management bases its estimates on historical experience and on various other market-specific and relevant assumptions that it believes to be reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results could
differ from those estimates and such differences could be material to the financial position and results of operations.
Segment Information
The Company is the provider of the Yext platform and operates as one operating segment. An operating segment is defined as a component of an enterprise for which separate financial information is evaluated regularly
by the chief operating decision makers ("CODM"). The Company defines its CODM as its executive officers, and their role is to make decisions about allocating resources and assessing performance. The Company's business
operates as one operating segment as all of the Company's offerings operate on the Yext platform and are deployed in an identical way, with its CODM evaluating the Company's financial information, resources and
performance of these resources on a consolidated basis. Since the Company operates as one operating segment, all required financial segment information can be found in the consolidated financial statements.
Revenue Recognition
The Company derives its revenue primarily from its subscriptions and associated support to the Yext platform. The Company's subscriptions do not provide customers with the right to take possession of the software
supporting the applications and, as a result, are accounted for as service contracts.
The Company accounts for revenue in accordance with ASC Topic 606, "Revenue from Contracts with Customers." The Company recognizes revenue upon transfer of control of services to its customers in an amount that
reflects the consideration it expects to receive in exchange for those services. The recognition of revenue is determined through application of the following five-step model:
•
•
•
•
•
Identification of the contract(s) with customers;
Identification of the performance obligation(s) in the contract;
Determination of the transaction price;
Allocation of the transaction price to the performance obligation(s) in the contract; and
Recognition of revenue when or as the performance obligation(s) are satisfied
61
The Company identifies the performance obligations in a contract with a customer and determines whether they are distinct or distinct within the context of the contract. When there is more than one distinct performance
obligation in a contract, the Company allocates the transaction price to the performance obligations on a relative standalone selling price basis. The Company estimates the amount of consideration expected to be received in
exchange for transferring services if the consideration promised in a contract includes a variable amount.
Revenue is generally recognized ratably over the contract term beginning on the commencement date of each contract, which is the date the Yext platform is made available to customers. Contracts are typically one year in
length, but may be up to three years or longer in length. At the beginning of each subscription term, the Company invoices its customers, typically in annual installments but also monthly, quarterly, and semi-annually.
Amounts that have been invoiced for non-cancelable contracts are recorded in accounts receivable and in unearned revenue or revenue. The Company reports revenue net of sales tax and other taxes collected from customers to
be remitted to government authorities.
Costs Capitalized to Obtain Revenue Contracts
The Company capitalizes costs of obtaining revenue contracts that are incremental and recoverable. Incremental costs primarily include sales commissions for new and renewal revenue contracts, certain related incentives,
and associated payroll tax and fringe benefit costs. Capitalized amounts are recoverable through future revenue streams under all customer contracts.
Costs capitalized to obtain new revenue contracts are amortized on a straight-line basis over three years, which reflects the average benefit period, and may be longer than the initial contract period. The Company
determined the average benefit period having considered both qualitative and quantitative factors, including the estimated life of capitalized software development costs resulting from additional functionality to the Yext
platform and estimated customer life, among other such factors. The Company amortizes costs capitalized for contract renewals over the renewal term, reflecting the average benefit period for such renewals, which is typically
one year. Amortization of costs capitalized to obtain revenue contracts is included in sales and marketing expense in the accompanying consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss.
The Company periodically evaluates whether there have been any changes in its business, market conditions, or other events which would indicate that its amortization period should be changed, or if there are potential
indicators of impairment.
During the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022 and 2021, the Company capitalized $47.8 million and $33.2 million of costs to obtain revenue contracts and amortized $39.5 million and $34.6 million to sales and
marketing expense, respectively. Costs capitalized to obtain revenue contracts on the Company's consolidated balance sheet totaled $61.3 million and $53.0 million at January 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. There were no
impairments of costs capitalized to obtain revenue contracts for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.
Cost of Revenue
Cost of revenue is generally expensed as incurred, including personnel-related costs, costs associated with the Company’s Knowledge Network application providers, and data center costs. Capitalized software
development costs incurred in connection with additional functionality to the Yext platform are recognized in cost of revenue as depreciation expense in accordance with the “capitalized software development costs” section of
this Note. Cost of revenue also includes lease expenses, software expense, and depreciation expense, each of which are allocated based on employee headcount.
Stock-Based Compensation
Stock-based compensation for all employee stock-based awards, including restricted stock units, restricted stock and options to purchase common stock, is measured at fair value on the date of grant and recognized over
the service period.
The fair value of restricted stock units and restricted stock are estimated on the date of grant based on the fair value of the Company’s common stock. The fair value of employee stock options is estimated on the date of
grant using a Black-Scholes option-pricing model.
Stock-based compensation expense is generally recognized over the requisite service periods of awards, which is typically one to four years for restricted stock units and restricted stock and four years for options. The
estimated forfeiture rate applied is based on historical forfeiture rates. The estimated number of stock-based awards that will ultimately vest requires judgment, and to the extent actual results, or updated estimates, differ from
the Company’s current estimates, such amounts will be recorded as a cumulative adjustment in the period actual results are realized or estimates are revised.
Stock-based compensation expense associated with the Company's Employee Stock Purchase Plan (“ESPP”) is measured at fair-value using a Black-Scholes option-pricing model at commencement of each offering period
and recognized over that offering period.
In accordance with ASU 2018-07, the Company measures stock-based compensation associated with stock-based awards issued to non-employees at the grant date, based on the estimated fair value of the award, and
recognizes expense on a straight-line basis over the requisite service period. The Company does not apply a forfeiture rate assumption to value such awards, given the nature of the services provided.
62
Advertising and Other Promotional Costs
Advertising and other promotional costs are expensed as incurred. Advertising expenses were $8.4 million, $7.5 million and $6.9 million for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively and are
included within sales and marketing expense in the consolidated statement of operations and comprehensive loss.
Research and Development
Research and development costs are generally expensed as incurred, including personnel-related costs. Research and development costs also include lease expenses and software expense, each of which are allocated based
on employee headcount. Research and development costs exclude capitalized software development costs.
Capitalized Software Development Costs
The Company capitalizes certain software development costs included as software in progress or computer software within property and equipment, net. These costs are incurred in connection with additional functionality
to its platform, as well as internal-use projects during the application development stage and include elements of stock-based compensation. Computer software is recognized on a straight-line basis over an estimated useful life
of 2 to 3 years. Capitalized software development costs incurred in connection with additional functionality to the platform are recognized as depreciation expense in cost of revenue within the consolidated statement of
operations and comprehensive loss. Capitalized software development costs incurred in internal-use projects are recognized as depreciation expense and are allocated based on employee headcount. Capitalized software
development costs, net were $7.2 million and $7.2 million as of January 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively, and primarily related to those costs incurred in connection with additional functionality to its platform. Depreciation
expense associated with capitalized software development costs was $3.7 million, $2.6 million and $2.7 million during the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.
Software costs that meet the cloud computing arrangements criteria are capitalized in accordance with ASC 350 “Intangibles—Goodwill and Other” and are recognized on a straight-line basis over the term of the
arrangement, plus reasonably certain renewals. Capitalized costs included in prepaid expenses and other current assets were $2.4 million and $2.5 million as of January 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively, and $2.1 million and
$0.8 million were amortized during the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. Software costs that do not meet the capitalization criteria, including costs incurred in the maintenance and minor upgrade and
enhancement of software without additional functionality, are expensed as incurred.
The Company evaluates the useful lives of these assets on an annual basis and tests for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount may not be recoverable.
Income Taxes
The Company accounts for income taxes in accordance with ASC Topic 740, “Income Taxes,” under which deferred income taxes are provided for temporary differences between the financial reporting and tax basis of
the Company’s assets and liabilities. The Company classifies all deferred tax assets and liabilities as non-current on the consolidated balance sheet. The effect of a change in tax rates on deferred tax assets and liabilities is
recognized within the (provision for) benefit from income taxes on the consolidated statement of operations and comprehensive loss in the period that includes the enactment date.
The Company reduces deferred tax assets, if necessary, by a valuation allowance if it is more likely than not that the Company will not realize some or all of the deferred tax assets. In making such a determination, the
Company considers all available positive and negative evidence, including results of recent operations, future reversals of existing taxable temporary differences, projected future taxable income and tax-planning strategies. See
Note 11 "Income Taxes" to the Company's consolidated financial statements for additional information on the composition of these valuation allowances.
The Company recognizes the tax benefit from an uncertain tax position only if it is more likely than not that the tax position will be sustained on examination by taxing authorities, based on the technical merits of the
position. The tax benefit recognized is measured as the largest amount of benefit which is greater than 50 percent likely to be realized upon settlement with the taxing authority. The Company recognizes interest and penalties
related to uncertain tax positions within the (provision for) benefit from income taxes on the consolidated statement of operations and comprehensive loss.
Net Loss Per Share
Basic net loss per share is computed by dividing the net loss attributable to common stockholders by the weighted average number of common shares outstanding during the period. Unvested restricted stock and restricted
stock units are excluded from the denominator of basic net loss per share. Diluted net loss per share is computed by dividing the net loss attributable to common stockholders by the weighted average number of common shares
plus the common equivalent shares for the period, including any dilutive effect from such shares. See Note 14 "Net Loss Per Share Attributable to Common Stockholders" for further discussion.
Foreign Currency
The functional currency of the Company’s non-U.S. subsidiaries is generally the local currency. The Company translates the financial statements of its non-U.S. subsidiaries to U.S. dollars using month-end exchange rates
for assets and liabilities, and average exchange rates for revenue, costs and expenses. The Company records translation gains and losses in accumulated other
63
comprehensive loss as a component of stockholders’ equity. Foreign currency transaction gains and losses are included within other expense, net in the consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss.
Concentration of Credit Risk
Certain financial instruments that could be exposed to a concentration of credit risk include cash and cash equivalents and accounts receivable. The Company deposits its cash with financial institutions, and such deposits,
at times, may exceed federally insured limits. The Company has not experienced any losses on its deposits of cash and cash equivalents to date. Collateral is not required for accounts receivable. At January 31, 2022 and 2021,
no single customer accounted for more than 10% of the Company's accounts receivable. No single customer accounted for more than 10% of the Company's revenue for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020,
respectively.
Cash and Cash Equivalents
Cash consists of cash on deposit with banks that is stated at cost, which approximates fair value. The Company considers all highly liquid investments purchased with original maturities of less than three months from the
date of purchase to be cash equivalents.
Accounts Receivable and Allowance for Doubtful Accounts
Accounts receivable are carried at the original invoiced amount less an allowance for doubtful accounts based on the probability of future collection. The Company estimates its allowance for doubtful accounts based on
historical loss patterns, the number of days that billings are past due, current market conditions, and reasonable and supportable forecasts of future economic conditions, in accordance with ASC 326 "Financial Instruments-
Credit Losses." Accounts receivable are written off when deemed uncollectible and collection of the receivable is no longer being actively pursued. The following table summarizes the allowance for doubtful accounts activity:
(in thousands)
Allowance for doubtful accounts as of January 31, 2020
Additions
Deductions - write offs
Allowance for doubtful accounts as of January 31, 2021
Additions
Deductions - write offs
Allowance for doubtful accounts as of January 31, 2022
Property and Equipment, Net
$
$
$
$
$
$
Fair Value
995
2,547
(1,014)
2,528
1,253
(1,739)
2,042
Property and equipment are recorded at cost and depreciated or amortized on a straight-line basis over their estimated useful lives. Furniture and fixtures have an estimated useful life of five years. Office equipment has an
estimated useful life of three years. Computer software, which includes capitalized software development costs, has an estimated useful life of two to three years. Leasehold improvements and assets held under operating leases
are depreciated over the shorter of the term of the lease or their useful life. Upon retirement or sale of assets, the cost and related accumulated depreciation or amortization are removed from the consolidated balance sheet and
the resulting gain or loss is reflected in the consolidated statement of operations and comprehensive loss. Repairs and maintenance costs are expensed as incurred.
Leases
The Company accounts for leases in accordance with ASC Topic 842, "Leases." Lease expense is recognized as a single lease cost on a straight-line basis over the lease term. The lease term consists of non-cancelable
periods, and may include options to extend or terminate the lease term, when it is reasonably certain such options will be exercised.
The Company enters into contracts in the normal course of business and assesses whether any such contracts contain a lease. The Company determines if an arrangement is a lease at inception if it conveys the right to
control the identified asset for a period of time in exchange for consideration. The Company classifies leases as operating or financing in nature, and records the associated lease liability and right-of-use asset on its balance
sheet. The lease liability represents the present value of future lease payments, net of lease incentives, discounted using an incremental borrowing rate, which is a management estimate based on the information available at the
commencement date of a lease arrangement. With respect to operating lease arrangements, the Company accounts for lease components, and non-lease components that are fixed, as a single lease component. Non-lease
components that are variable are expensed as incurred in the statement of operations and comprehensive loss. The Company recognizes costs associated with lease arrangements having an initial term of 12 months or less
("short-term leases") on a straight-line basis over the lease term; such short-term leases are not recorded on the balance sheet.
64
Goodwill and Intangible Assets
Goodwill represents the excess of cost over the fair value of the net tangible and identifiable intangible assets acquired in a business combination. Goodwill is not amortized but is subject to periodic testing for impairment
in accordance with ASC Topic 350, “Intangibles-Goodwill and Other.” The Company’s goodwill is evaluated at the entity level as it is determined there is one reporting unit. The Company performs its annual impairment test
on November 1 of each year, or more frequently if events occur or circumstances change that would more likely than not reduce the fair value of a reporting unit below its carrying amount. The Company considers the
following potential indicators of impairment: significant underperformance relative to historical or projected future operating results, significant changes in the Company’s use of acquired assets or the strategy of the
Company’s overall business, significant negative industry or economic trends and a significant decline in the value of the Company’s enterprise value for a sustained period.
st
Intangible assets are amortized over their estimated useful lives. The Company assesses the impairment of long-lived intangible assets whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount may
not be recoverable. The Company has not recorded impairment charges on intangible assets for the periods presented in these consolidated financial statements. As of January 31, 2022, the Company's intangible assets
included domains with a net book value of $0.2 million.
Deferred Financing Costs
Financing costs incurred with securing a revolving line of credit are deferred and amortized to interest expense over the term of the agreement. Financing costs associated with revolving credit arrangements are deferred,
regardless of whether a balance is outstanding. The Company includes deferred financing costs in prepaid and other current assets or other long term assets on the consolidated balance sheet.
Legal and Other Contingencies
From time to time, the Company may be a party to litigation and subject to claims incident to the ordinary course of business, including intellectual property claims, labor and employment claims, breach of contract claims
and other asserted and unasserted claims. The Company investigates these claims as they arise and accrues estimates for resolution of legal and other contingencies when losses are probable and estimable.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements
In October 2021, the FASB issued ASU 2021-08, Business Combinations (Topic 805): Accounting for Contract Assets and Contract Liabilities from Contracts with Customers. The standard requires an acquirer in a
business combination to recognize and measure contract assets and contract liabilities acquired in a business combination in accordance with ASC 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers, as if the acquirer had originated
the contracts, provided such contracts had been appropriately accounted for under ASC 606 by the acquiree, rather than recognizing them at their estimated fair value on the acquisition date as required under the existing
guidance. The standard is effective for fiscal years, and interim periods within those fiscal years, beginning after December 15, 2022 on a prospective basis, with early adoption permitted. We do not expect the adoption of this
standard to have a significant impact on our consolidated financial statements.
3. Revenue
Geographic Region
The Company disaggregates its revenue from contracts with customers by geographic region, as it believes this best depicts how the nature, amount, timing, and uncertainty of its revenues and cash flows are affected by
economic factors. Revenue by geographic region is determined based on the region of the Company's contracting entity, which may be different than the region of its customers. The following table presents the Company's
revenue by geographic region:
(in thousands)
North America
International
Total revenue
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
$
$
309,938
80,639
390,577
$
$
284,792
69,869
354,661
$
$
2020
245,629
53,200
298,829
North America revenue is predominantly attributable to the United States. International revenue is predominantly attributable to European countries, but also includes Japan.
The Company's revenue attributable to the United States represented 79%, 80%, and 82% for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. Revenue attributable to England, which serves as the
Company's main contracting entity for Europe effective February 1, 2021, represented 19% of total revenue for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022. Revenue attributable to Switzerland, which served as one of the
Company's contracting entities for Europe prior to February 1, 2021, represented 16%, and 14% of total revenue for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2021 and 2020. No other individual country represented more than 10% of
total revenue for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020.
65
Significant Judgments
Significant judgments and estimates may be required to determine the appropriate application of accounting related to revenue, including whether performance obligations are distinct and assessments regarding the
transaction price.
Performance Obligations
The Company has identified that it has two distinct performance obligations. The Company predominantly recognizes revenue through its performance obligation of a subscription and associated support to the Yext
platform. The performance obligation is distinct because a customer's use of the Yext platform is fully functional upon access, does not require any additional development, modification or customization, and is often sold
separately. In certain instances, the Company enters into a contract with a customer that includes a promise to provide certain technical or customized professional services, in addition to a promise to provide its subscription
and associated support. The Company's professional services performance obligation is distinct as it does not significantly change or enhance the functionality of the Yext platform.
In those instances when a contract includes more than one performance obligation, the Company must allocate the transaction price to the performance obligations on a relative standalone selling price basis. SSP
represents the price at which a company would sell a promised product or service separately to a customer.
The Company determines the SSP based on a series of complex factors. The Company's selling prices associated with its subscription and associated support are considered highly variable based on discounting practices,
customer geography, customer size, and other such factors. In contrast, the Company's selling prices associated with its professional services are more observable, predictable and consistent. Accordingly, the Company uses the
residual method, under which the total transaction price and observable SSP of the professional services performance obligation is used to arrive at the estimated SSP of the subscription and associated support performance
obligation.
The Company's revenue is predominantly related to its subscription and associated support to the Yext platform. Professional services revenue accounted for approximately 8%, 7% and 5% of the Company's total revenue
for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.
Contract Liabilities
A contract liability is an obligation to transfer goods or services for which consideration has been received or is due to a customer. The Company's contract liabilities consist primarily of unearned revenue and, to a lesser
extent, customer deposits.
As of January 31, 2022 and 2021, unearned revenue, current was $223.4 million and $191.8 million, while unearned revenue, non-current, which is included within other long term liabilities on the Company's consolidated
balance sheet was $0.5 million and $0.2 million, respectively. Unearned revenue represents amounts billed, or payments received, in advance of revenue recognition for which the Company has an unconditional obligation to
transfer goods or services associated with a non-cancelable contract. Unearned revenue is subsequently recognized as revenue when transfer of control to a customer has occurred. The unearned revenue balance is influenced by
several factors, including seasonality, the compounding effects of renewals, and invoice duration, timing and size. The portion of unearned revenue expected to be recognized during the succeeding twelve-month period is
classified as unearned revenue, current, and the remaining portion is classified within other long term liabilities in the Company’s consolidated balance sheet.
Substantially all of the $191.8 million of unearned revenue, current as of January 31, 2021 was subsequently recognized as revenue during the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022.
Customer deposits represent payments received in advance in instances where a revenue contract is cancelable in nature, and therefore the Company does not have an unconditional obligation to transfer control to a
customer. As of January 31, 2022 and 2021, customer deposits of $0.2 million and $0.2 million were included in accounts payable, accrued expenses and other current liabilities on the Company's consolidated balance sheet,
respectively.
Remaining Performance Obligations
The transaction price allocated to remaining performance obligations represents amounts under non-cancelable contracts expected to be recognized as revenue in future periods, and may be influenced by several factors,
including seasonality, the timing of renewals, and contract terms. As of January 31, 2022, the Company had $404.9 million of remaining performance obligations, of which $379.0 million is expected to be recognized as
revenue over the next twenty-four months, with the remaining balance expected to be recognized thereafter. As of January 31, 2021, the Company had $351.8 million of remaining performance obligations.
66
4. Fair Value of Financial Instruments
Fair value is the exchange price that would be received for an asset or paid to transfer a liability (an exit price) in the principal or most advantageous market for the asset or liability in an orderly transaction between market
participants on the measurement date. Subsequent changes in fair value of these financial assets and liabilities are recognized in earnings or other comprehensive (loss) income when they occur. When determining the fair value
measurements for assets and liabilities which are required to be recorded at fair value, the Company considers the principal or most advantageous market in which the Company would transact and the market-based risk
measurement or assumptions that market participants would use in pricing the assets or liabilities, such as inherent risk, transfer restrictions, and credit risk.
The Company applies the following fair value hierarchy, which prioritizes the inputs used to measure fair value into three levels and bases the categorization within the hierarchy upon the lowest level of input that is
available and significant to the fair value measurement:
Level 1 inputs are based on quoted prices in active markets for identical assets or liabilities.
Level 2 inputs are based on observable inputs other than Level 1 prices such as quoted prices for similar assets or liabilities; quoted prices in markets with insufficient volume or infrequent transactions (less active
markets); or model-derived valuations in which all significant inputs are observable or can be derived principally from or corroborated by observable market data for substantially the full term of the assets or liabilities.
Level 3 inputs are based on unobservable inputs to the valuation methodology that are significant to the measurement of fair value of assets or liabilities, and typically reflect management's estimates of assumptions that
market participants would use in pricing the asset or liability.
As of January 31, 2022 and January 31, 2021, the Company had money market funds included in cash and cash equivalents of $138.5 million and $138.8 million, respectively. These assets were valued using quoted market
prices and were classified as Level 1 accordingly.
5. Goodwill and Intangible Assets
Goodwill
As of January 31, 2022 and 2021, the Company had goodwill of $4.6 million and $4.8 million, respectively. The changes to goodwill during these periods were due to foreign currency translation adjustments.
Goodwill is not amortized but is subject to periodic testing for impairment at the reporting unit level, which is at or one level below the operating segment level. The Company operates as one operating segment, which
represents its one reporting unit. The test for impairment is conducted annually each November 1 , or more frequently if events occur or circumstances change that would more likely than not reduce the fair value of a
reporting unit below its carrying amount.
st
The Company determined that no events occurred or circumstances changed that would more likely than not reduce the fair value of the Company's reporting unit below its carrying amount during the fiscal years ended
January 31, 2022 and 2021. However, if certain events occur or circumstances change, it may be necessary to record impairment charges in the future.
Intangible Assets
As of January 31, 2022 and 2021, the Company had intangible assets, net of $0.2 million and $0.8 million, respectively. Amortization expense related to intangible assets totaled $0.6 million, $0.6 million and $0.6 million
for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.
Intangible assets with finite lives are reviewed for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of such assets may not be recoverable. The Company has no indefinite-lived
intangible assets. The Company determined that no events occurred or circumstances changed during the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022 and 2021 that would indicate that its intangible assets with finite lives may not be
recoverable. However, if certain events occur or circumstances change, it may be necessary to record impairment charges in the future.
67
6. Property and Equipment, Net
Property and equipment are recorded at cost and depreciated or amortized on a straight-line basis over their estimated useful lives. Property and equipment, net consisted of the following:
(in thousands)
Computer software
Office equipment
Furniture and fixtures
Leasehold improvements
Construction in progress
Software in progress
Total property and equipment, gross
Less: accumulated depreciation
Total property and equipment, net
January 31, 2022
January 31, 2021
$
$
18,814
18,854
8,163
62,784
936
1,342
110,893
(36,289)
74,604
$
$
10,719
14,856
7,344
57,799
4,469
5,754
100,941
(20,597)
80,344
As of January 31, 2022 and 2021, the Company's property and equipment, net attributable to the United States was 90% and 88%, respectively. No other individual country represented more than 10% of the total property
and equipment, net as of those periods. Depreciation expense was $16.2 million, $10.0 million and $7.5 million for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.
7. Accounts Payable, Accrued Expenses and Other Current Liabilities
Accounts payable, accrued expenses and other current liabilities consisted of the following:
(in thousands)
Accounts payable
Accrued employee compensation
Accrued Knowledge Network application provider fees
Accrued professional services and associated costs
Accrued employee stock purchase plan withholdings liability
Other current liabilities
Total accounts payable, accrued expenses and other current liabilities
January 31, 2022
January 31, 2021
9,218
17,589
2,885
2,663
2,397
13,680
48,432
$
$
12,974
16,780
3,671
2,202
3,230
15,329
54,186
$
$
As of January 31, 2022 and 2021, capital expenditures of $0.9 million and $4.5 million were included in accounts payable, accrued expenses and other current liabilities, respectively.
8. Stock-Based Compensation
2008 Equity Incentive Plan
The Company's 2008 Equity Incentive Plan (the "2008 Plan"), as amended on March 10, 2016, allowed for the issuance of up to 25,912,531 shares of common stock. Awards granted under the 2008 Plan may be incentive
stock options ("ISOs"), nonqualified stock options ("NQSOs"), restricted stock and restricted stock units. The 2008 Plan is administered by the Company's Board of Directors, which determines the terms of the options granted,
the exercise price, the number of shares subject to option and the option vesting period. No ISO or NQSO is exercisable after 10 years from the date of grant, and option awards will typically vest over a four-year period.
The 2008 Plan was terminated in connection with the adoption of the Company's 2016 Equity Incentive Plan (the "2016 Plan") in December 2016, and since the 2008 Plan termination the Company has not granted and
will not grant any additional awards under the 2008 Plan. However, the 2008 Plan will continue to govern the terms and conditions of the outstanding awards previously granted thereunder.
68
2016 Equity Incentive Plan
In December 2016, the Company's Board of Directors adopted, and its stockholders approved, the 2016 Plan. The number of shares reserved for issuance under the 2016 Plan will increase on the first day of each fiscal
year during the term of the 2016 Plan by the lesser of: (i) 10,000,000 shares, (ii) 4% of the outstanding shares of common stock as of the last day of the immediately preceding fiscal year; or (iii) such other amount as the
Company's Board of Directors may determine. On February 1, 2021, the number of shares of common stock available for issuance under the 2016 Plan was automatically increased according to its terms by 4,959,567 shares. In
addition, the shares reserved for issuance under the 2016 Plan also include shares returned to the 2008 Plan as the result of expiration or termination of options or other awards. As of January 31, 2022, the number of shares
available for future award under the 2016 Plan is 1,425,786.
Stock Options
The following table summarizes the activity related to the Company's stock options:
Balance, January 31, 2021
Granted
Exercised
Forfeited or canceled
Balance, January 31, 2022
Vested and expected to vest
Exercisable at January 31, 2022
Nonvested option activity is as follows:
Outstanding Stock Options
Weighted-Average Exercise
Price
Weighted-Average Remaining
Contractual Life (in years)
Aggregate Intrinsic Value
(in thousands)
Options Outstanding
8,871,890 $
— $
(2,220,276) $
(30,913) $
6,620,701 $
6,578,465 $
6,420,701 $
7.64
—
8.65
11.33
7.28
7.25
7.12
4.94 $
81,906
4.32 $
4.31 $
4.28 $
11,723
11,723
11,723
Nonvested as of January 31, 2021
Granted
Vested
Forfeited
Balance as of January 31, 2022
Options
Weighted-Average Grant Date Fair
Value
544,911
—
(344,515)
(396)
200,000
$
$
$
$
$
5.55
—
5.25
5.95
6.06
The aggregate intrinsic value of options vested and expected to vest and exercisable is calculated based on the difference between the exercise price and the fair value of the Company’s common stock as of January 31,
2022. The fair value of the common stock is the Company’s closing stock price as reported on the New York Stock Exchange.
The aggregate intrinsic value of exercised options was $13.5 million, $31.8 million and $48.0 million for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively, and is calculated based on the difference
between the exercise price and the fair value of the Company’s common stock as of the exercise date.
69
Restricted Stock and Restricted Stock Units
The following table summarizes the activity related to the Company's restricted stock and restricted stock units:
Balance as of January 31, 2021
Granted
Vested and converted to shares
Forfeited or canceled
Balance as of January 31, 2022
Outstanding
Weighted-Average Grant Date
Fair Value
9,545,352 $
7,831,853 $
(4,426,715) $
(2,766,276) $
10,184,214 $
16.71
12.94
15.76
16.09
14.38
The estimated weighted-average grant date fair value of restricted stock and restricted stock units granted was $12.94, $15.52, and $18.71 per share for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021, and 2020,
respectively. The fair value of the common stock is the Company’s closing stock price as reported on the New York Stock Exchange.
The total fair value of restricted stock and restricted stock units vested was $69.8 million, $72.4 million, and $54.7 million for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021, and 2020, respectively.
Employee Stock Purchase Plan
In March 2017, the Company's Board of Directors adopted, and its stockholders approved, the 2017 Employee Stock Purchase Plan ("ESPP"), which became effective on the date it was adopted. The number of shares of
the Company's common stock that will be available for sale to employees under the ESPP increases annually on the first day of each fiscal year, in an amount equal to the lesser of: (i) 2,500,000 shares; (ii) 1% of the
outstanding shares of the Company's common stock as of the last day of the immediately preceding fiscal year; or (iii) such other amount as the administrator may determine. On February 1, 2021, the number of shares of
common stock available for issuance under the ESPP was automatically increased according to its terms by 1,239,891 shares. As of January 31, 2022, a total of 3,543,696 shares of the Company's common stock are available
for sale to employees under the ESPP.
In connection with the offering period which ended on March 15, 2021, 282,119 shares of common stock were purchased under the ESPP at a purchase price of $13.53 per share for total proceeds of $3.8 million. In
connection with the offering period which ended on September 15, 2021, 248,633 shares of common stock were purchased under the ESPP at a purchase price of $10.73 per share for total proceeds of $2.7 million.
A new offering period began on September 15, 2021 and will end on March 15, 2022. As of January 31, 2022, 291,079 shares are estimated to be purchased at the end of the offering period and $2.4 million has been
withheld on behalf of employees for these future purchases under the ESPP and is included in accounts payable, accrued expenses and other current liabilities.
The Black-Scholes option-pricing model assumptions used to calculate the fair value of shares, estimated at commencement to be purchased during an ESPP offering period were as follows:
Expected life (years)
Expected volatility
Dividend yield
Risk-free rate
2022
0.50
45.54% - 59.24%
0.00%
0.05% - 0.06%
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
0.50
51.44% - 65.48%
0.00%
0.12% - 0.29%
2020
0.50
42.41% - 60.86%
0.00%
1.93% - 2.52%
The expected life assumptions were based on each offering period's respective purchase date. The Company estimated the expected volatility assumption based on the historical volatility of its stock price. The risk-free rate
assumptions were based on the U.S. treasury yield curve in effect at commencement of the offering period. The dividend yield assumption was zero as the Company has not historically paid any dividends and does not expect
to declare or pay any dividends in the foreseeable future.
During the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, the Company recorded stock-based compensation expense associated with the ESPP of $2.2 million, $2.8 million and $2.7 million, respectively. As of
January 31, 2022, total unrecognized compensation cost related to ESPP was $0.3 million, net of estimated forfeitures, which will be amortized over a weighted-average remaining period of 0.12 years.
A new offering period commences on the first trading day on or after March 15 and September 15 each year, or on such other date as the administrator will determine and will end on the first trading day, approximately
th
th
six months later, on or after September 15 and March 15 , respectively. Participants may purchase the Company’s common stock through payroll deductions, up to a maximum of 15% of their eligible compensation. Unless
changed by the administrator, the purchase price for each share of
th
th
70
common stock purchased under the ESPP will be 85% of the lower of the fair market value per share on the first trading day of the applicable offering period or the fair market value per share on the last trading day of the
applicable offering period.
Stock-Based Compensation Expense
Stock-based compensation represents the cost related to stock-based awards granted in lieu of monetary payment. The Company measures stock-based compensation associated with stock-based awards issued to
employees at the grant date, based on the estimated fair value of the award, and recognizes expense net of estimated forfeitures over the vesting period of the applicable award using the straight-line method.
The Company's stock-based compensation expense for the periods presented was as follows:
(in thousands)
Cost of revenue
Sales and marketing
Research and development
General and administrative
Total stock-based compensation expense
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
$
$
7,099
26,496
20,654
19,231
73,480
$
$
5,724
32,581
17,071
16,918
72,294
$
$
4,115
31,421
13,212
19,022
67,770
As of January 31, 2022, there was approximately $136.3 million of total unrecognized compensation cost related to unvested stock-based awards. This unrecognized compensation cost is expected to be recognized over an
estimated remaining weighted-average vesting period of approximately 2.64 years. During the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, the Company capitalized $1.3 million, $2.1 million and $1.4 million,
respectively of stock-based compensation related to software development.
9. Equity
Preferred Stock
Effective April 2017, the Company’s Board of Directors is authorized to issue up to 50,000,000 shares of preferred stock, $0.001 par value, in one or more series without stockholder approval. The Company's Board of
Directors has the discretion to determine the rights, preferences, privileges and restrictions, including voting rights, dividend rights, conversion rights, redemption privileges and liquidation preferences, of each series of
preferred stock. The issuance of preferred stock could have the effect of restricting dividends on the Company’s common stock, diluting the voting power of its common stock, impairing the liquidation rights of its common
stock, or delaying or preventing changes in control or management of the Company. As of January 31, 2022 and 2021, no shares of preferred stock were issued or outstanding.
Common Stock
As of January 31, 2022 and 2021, the Company had authorized 500,000,000 shares of voting $0.001 par value common stock. Each holder of the Company's common stock is entitled to one vote for each share on all
matters to be voted upon by the stockholders and there are no cumulative rights. Subject to any preferential rights of any outstanding preferred stock, holders of the Company's common stock are entitled to receive ratably the
dividends, if any, as may be declared from time to time by the Company's Board of Directors out of legally available funds. If there is a liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the Company, holders of the Company's
common stock would be entitled to share in the Company's assets remaining after the payment of liabilities and any preferential rights of any outstanding preferred stock.
Holders of the Company's common stock have no preemptive or conversion rights or other subscription rights, and there are no redemption or sinking fund provisions applicable to the common stock. All outstanding
shares of the Company's common stock will be fully paid and non-assessable. The rights, preferences and privileges of the holders of the Company's common stock are subject to, and may be adversely affected by, the rights
of the holders of shares of any series of preferred stock which the Company may designate and issue in the future.
Treasury Stock
As of January 31, 2022 and 2021, the Company had 6,505,334 shares of treasury stock which are carried at its cost basis of $11.9 million on the Company's consolidated balance sheets.
10. Debt
On March 11, 2020, the Company entered into a credit agreement with Silicon Valley Bank (the “Credit Agreement”). No significant debt issuance costs were incurred in association with the Credit Agreement. In January
2021, the Company amended the Credit Agreement which modified the conditions pursuant to which subsidiaries are required to become guarantors.
The Credit Agreement provides for a senior secured revolving loan facility of up to $50.0 million that matures three years after the effective date, with the right subject to certain conditions to add an incremental revolving
loan facility of up to $50.0 million in the
71
aggregate. The three-year revolving loan facility provides for borrowings up to the amount of the facility with sub-limits of up to (i) $30.0 million to be available for the issuance of letters of credit and (ii) $10.0 million to be
available for swingline loans.
Under the Credit Agreement, loans bear interest, at the Company's option, at an annual rate based on LIBOR or a base rate. Loans based on LIBOR shall bear interest at a rate between LIBOR plus 2.50% and LIBOR plus
3.00%, depending on the Company's average daily usage of the revolving loan facility. Loans based on the base rate shall bear interest at a rate between the base rate minus 0.50% and the base rate plus 0.00%, depending on
the Company's average daily usage of the revolving loan facility.
The obligations under the Credit Agreement are secured by a lien on substantially all of the tangible and intangible property of the Company and by a pledge of all of the equity interests of the Company's material direct
and indirect domestic subsidiaries and 66% of each class of capital stock of any material first-tier foreign subsidiaries, subject to limited exceptions.
The Credit Agreement contains customary affirmative and negative covenants and restrictions, as well as financial covenants that require the Company to maintain the year-over-year growth rate of its ordinary course
recurring revenue for a trailing four fiscal quarter period above specified rates when certain liquidity thresholds are not met and to maintain a consolidated quick ratio of at least 1.50 to 1.00 tested on a monthly basis.
As of January 31, 2022, the Company was in compliance with all debt covenants. As of such date, the $50.0 million revolving loan facility had $35.7 million available and $14.3 million in letters of credit allocated as
security in connection with office space.
11. Income Taxes
The domestic and international components of the Company's loss from operations before income taxes are as follows:
(in thousands)
Domestic
International
Loss from operations before income taxes
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
(95,062)
3,080
(91,982)
$
$
(69,953)
(24,642)
(94,595)
$
$
$
$
2020
(63,390)
(57,057)
(120,447)
The Company's (provision for) benefit from income taxes is comprised of the following:
(in thousands)
Current:
Federal
State
International
Total current
Deferred:
Federal
State
International
Total deferred
Total (provision for) benefit from income taxes
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
$
$
(9)
(184)
(884)
(1,077)
(4)
(4)
(192)
(200)
(1,277)
$
$
313
(198)
(1,070)
(955)
(28)
(31)
917
858
(97)
$
$
(19)
(120)
(1,051)
(1,190)
—
—
93
93
(1,097)
The Company’s current tax provision is primarily attributable to profitable jurisdictions outside of the United States and U.S. state income taxes. In the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, the Company released a portion
of its valuation allowance against certain foreign deferred tax assets resulting in an income tax benefit of $0.7 million, and recorded a U.S. tax benefit of $0.2 million due to the expiration of certain statutes of limitations of
unrecognized tax benefits.
72
The Company reconciled its income taxes at the federal statutory income tax rate to the (provision for) benefit from income taxes included within its consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss. The
Company elected to account its Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income as an expense in the period it is incurred. The reconciliation is as follows:
(in thousands)
U.S. federal tax (provision) benefit at statutory rate
State taxes, net of federal (provision) benefit
Foreign tax rate differential
Non-deductible expenses
Change in valuation allowance
Rate change
Stock-based compensation expense
Net excess tax benefits from stock-based compensation
Return to provision adjustment
Global intangible low-taxed income
Intra-entity asset transfer
Other, net
Total (provision for) benefit from income taxes
Deferred Income Taxes
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
$
$
19,316
4,344
(132)
(1,244)
(22,027)
(66)
(1,489)
(990)
1,718
—
—
(707)
(1,277)
$
$
19,865
5,000
(2,130)
(329)
(23,900)
131
(1,929)
3,444
16
(6,129)
3,944
1,920
(97)
$
$
25,294
4,124
970
(903)
(24,377)
(7,017)
(2,064)
6,519
(2,323)
—
—
(1,320)
(1,097)
Deferred income taxes reflect the net tax effects of (a) temporary differences between the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities for financial reporting purposes and the amounts used for income tax purposes, and (b)
operating loss carryforwards. The components of the Company's deferred income taxes were as follows:
(in thousands)
Deferred tax assets:
Net operating loss carryforwards
Stock-based compensation
Allowance for doubtful accounts
Operating lease liability
Accrued expenses
Unearned revenue
Intangible assets
Other
Total deferred tax assets
Less: valuation allowance
Deferred tax assets, net of valuation allowance
Deferred tax liabilities:
Property and equipment
Costs to obtain revenue contracts
Operating lease right-of-use assets
Other
Total deferred tax liabilities
Net deferred tax asset (liability)
As of January 31,
2022
2021
136,226
7,271
523
32,156
2,372
61
10,625
339
189,573
(151,205)
38,368
(2,440)
(11,041)
(23,259)
(874)
(37,614)
754
$
$
111,583
7,884
650
33,350
2,903
52
11,570
216
168,208
(129,178)
39,030
(2,062)
(9,904)
(25,082)
(1,028)
(38,076)
954
$
$
As of January 31, 2022, for federal income tax purposes, the Company had $501.0 million of gross U.S. federal NOL carryforwards, with pre-2018 NOL expiring starting in fiscal year 2028 and others indefinitely carried
forward.
73
As of January 31, 2022, for state income tax purposes, the Company had $23.6 million of post-apportioned, tax-effected NOL carryforwards, which expire in fiscal year 2023 through fiscal year 2040. As of January 31,
2022, the Company had $7.5 million of tax-effected foreign NOL carryforwards which expires starting in fiscal year 2026.
Utilization of the Company’s NOL carryforwards in the future will be dependent upon its ability to generate taxable income and could be limited due to ownership changes, as defined under the provisions of Section 382
of the Code and similar state provisions. Utilization of the Company’s foreign NOL carryforwards in the future will be dependent upon the local tax law and regulation.
The Company regularly evaluates the realizability of its deferred tax assets and establishes a valuation allowance if it is more likely than not that some or all the deferred tax assets will not be realized. In making such a
determination, the Company considers all available positive and negative evidence, including future reversals of existing taxable temporary differences, projected future taxable income, loss carryback and tax-planning
strategies. Generally, more weight is given to objectively verifiable evidence, such as the cumulative loss in recent years, as a significant piece of negative evidence to overcome. During the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022,
the valuation allowance had a net increase of $22.0 million from approximately $129.2 million to $151.2 million, primarily due to the impact of the NOL carryforwards established in the current period net with other changes
in U.S. deferred tax assets. During the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, the valuation allowance increased $23.9 million from approximately $105.3 million to $129.2 million, primarily due to the impact of the NOL
carryforwards established in the current period and other increases in U.S. deferred tax assets. The increase in the valuation allowance was partially offset by the use of the NOL in the local jurisdiction due to the intra-entity
asset transfer. The Company also released a portion of the valuation allowance in certain foreign jurisdictions, as these jurisdictions demonstrated a sustained profitability evidenced by three consecutive years of positive
earnings as well as forecasted continuing profitability. The Company will continue to assess the realizability of the deferred tax assets in each applicable jurisdiction going forward.
Other Considerations
The Company may be subject to state income taxes and withholding taxes upon distribution of non-U.S. earnings in the form of dividends. The Company does not believe these taxes are material.
A reconciliation of the beginning and ending balance of total unrecognized tax benefits for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021, and 2020 is as follows:
(in thousands)
Beginning of period
Tax positions taken in prior period:
Gross increases
Gross decreases
Tax positions taken in current period
Gross increases
Lapse of statute of limitations
Currency translation effect
End of period
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
267
$
493
$
—
—
20
—
1
288
$
—
(13)
—
(233)
20
267
$
233
262
(8)
13
—
(7)
493
$
$
The Company recognizes accrued interest and penalties related to unrecognized tax benefits in the (provision for) benefit from income taxes and recognized less than $0.1 million for interest and penalties in each of the
fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021, and 2020. As of January 31, 2022, 2021, and 2020 accrued unrecognized tax benefits were $0.3 million, $0.3 million, and $0.5 million, respectively, and if recognized would reduce
the (provision for) benefit from income taxes, and the Company's effective tax rate. The Company anticipates it is reasonably possible that a decrease of unrecognized tax benefits of up to $0.3 million may occur in the next
twelve months.
The Company is subject to income tax examinations in the United States and various state and foreign jurisdictions. The Company’s most significant operations are in the United States and the earliest open tax year
subject to potential examination in the United States is 2008.
12. Leases
The Company's operating lease arrangements are principally for office space. As of January 31, 2022, the Company had $18.8 million of operating lease liabilities, current, $113.8 million of operating lease liabilities, non-
current, $97.1 million of operating lease right-of-use assets, and no financing leases, on its consolidated balance sheet. The operating lease arrangements included in the measurement of lease liabilities do not include short-
term leases as discussed in Note 2, "Summary of Significant Accounting Policies", and had a weighted-average remaining lease term of 8.7 years and a weighted-average discount rate of 5.9%, as of January 31, 2022. During
the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, the Company paid $18.9 million for amounts included in the measurement of lease liabilities and obtained $2.6 million of operating lease right-of-use assets in exchange for lease
obligations.
74
During the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021, and 2020, the Company recognized lease expense, which consisted of the following:
(in thousands)
Operating lease expense
Short-term lease expense
Variable lease expense
Total lease expense
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
$
$
17,037
763
8,943
26,743
$
$
20,134
1,053
4,475
25,662
$
$
16,820
2,259
2,153
21,232
Operating lease expense is recognized on a straight-line basis over the term of the arrangement beginning on the lease commencement date for lease arrangements that have an initial term greater than twelve months and
therefore are recorded on the balance sheet. Short-term lease expense is recognized on a straight-line basis over the lease term for lease arrangements that have an initial term of 12 months or less and therefore are not recorded
on the balance sheet. Variable lease expense is recognized as incurred and consists of real estate taxes and utilities, among other office space related expenses. For the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, variable lease expense
reflected the increased costs of the Company's use of its new offices spaces and certain associated real estate taxes.
The total remaining operating lease payments included in the measurement of lease liabilities on the Company's consolidated balance sheet as of January 31, 2022, was as follows (in thousands):
Fiscal year ending January 31:
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028 and thereafter
Total gross operating lease payments
Less: tenant allowances
Total net operating lease payments
Less: imputed interest
Total lease liabilities, reflecting the present value of net lease payments
Operating Lease Payments
$
$
19,417
19,086
18,576
19,337
19,433
75,492
171,341
—
171,341
(38,720)
132,621
13. Commitments and Contingencies
Contractual Obligations
The Company is obligated to make payments under certain non-cancelable contractual obligations in the normal course of business. The Company's contractual obligations primarily relate to its operating lease
arrangements for office space. Its other contractual obligations include contracts with its Knowledge Network application providers, which generally have a term of one year, although some have a term of several years, and its
software vendors, among others. These obligations represent minimum contractual payments, or the Company's best estimate for variable elements based on historical payments. The Company's contractual obligations have
various expiry dates between fiscal years 2023 and 2035.
As of January 31, 2022, the Company's contractual obligations are as follows (in thousands):
Fiscal year ending January 31:
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028 and thereafter
Total
Operating Leases
Other
$
$
19,643
19,086
18,576
19,337
19,433
75,492
171,567
$
$
35,460
16,094
8,926
1,825
1,538
401
64,244
75
Legal Proceedings
The Company is and may be involved in various legal proceedings arising in the normal course of business. Although the results of litigation and claims cannot be predicted with certainty, currently, in the opinion of the
Company, the likelihood of any material adverse impact on the Company's results of operations, cash flows or the Company's financial position for any such litigation or claims is deemed to be remote. Regardless of the
outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on the Company because of defense costs, diversion of management resources and other factors.
Warranties and Indemnifications
The Yext platform is in some cases warranted to perform in a manner consistent with general industry standards that are reasonably applicable and materially in accordance with the Company's product specifications.
The Company's arrangements generally include certain provisions for indemnifying customers against liabilities if its products or services infringe a third-party's intellectual property rights and/or if the Company breaches
its contractual agreements with a customer or in instances of negligence, fraud or willful misconduct by the Company. To date, the Company has not incurred any material costs as a result of such obligations and has not
accrued any liabilities related to such obligations in the accompanying consolidated financial statements.
The Company has also agreed to indemnify certain of its directors and executive officers for costs associated with any fees, expenses, judgments, fines and settlement amounts incurred by any of these persons in any
action or proceeding to which any of those persons is, or is threatened to be, made a party by reason of the person's service as a director or officer, including any action by the Company, arising out of that person's services as
the Company's director or officer or that person's services provided to any other company or enterprise at the Company's request. The Company maintains director and officer insurance coverage that would generally enable the
Company to recover a portion of future amounts paid. The Company may also be subject to indemnification obligations by law with respect to the actions of its employees under certain circumstances and in certain
jurisdictions.
14. Net Loss Per Share Attributable to Common Stockholders
The following table sets forth the computation of the basic and diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders:
(in thousands, except share and per share data)
Numerator:
Net loss attributable to common stockholders
Denominator:
Weighted-average common shares outstanding
Net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted
2022
Fiscal year ended January 31,
2021
2020
$
$
(93,259)
127,814,447
(0.73)
$
$
(94,692)
119,690,378
(0.79)
$
$
(121,544)
111,758,946
(1.09)
Basic net loss per share is computed by dividing the net loss attributable to common stockholders by the weighted average number of common shares outstanding during the period. Unvested restricted stock and restricted
stock units are excluded from the denominator of basic net loss per share. Diluted net loss per share is computed by dividing the net loss attributable to common stockholders by the weighted average number of common shares
plus common equivalent shares for the period, including any dilutive effect from such shares.
Since the Company was in a net loss position for all periods presented, net loss per share attributable to common stockholders was the same on a basic and diluted basis, as the inclusion of all potential common equivalent
shares outstanding would have been anti-dilutive. Anti-dilutive common equivalent shares were as follows:
Options to purchase common stock
Restricted stock and restricted stock units
Shares estimated to be purchased under ESPP
Total anti-dilutive common equivalent shares
2022
6,620,701
10,184,214
291,079
17,095,994
As of January 31,
2021
8,871,890
9,545,352
315,718
18,732,960
2020
12,371,254
9,910,729
284,222
22,566,205
76
15. Selected Quarterly Financial Data (Unaudited)
Selected summarized quarterly financial information for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022 and 2021 was as follows:
(in thousands, except per share data)
Revenue
Gross profit
Loss from operations
Net loss
Net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and
diluted
(in thousands, except per share data)
Revenue
Gross profit
Loss from operations
Net loss
Net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and
diluted
Jan. 31, 2022
Oct. 31, 2021
Jul. 31, 2021
Apr. 30, 2021
Three months ended
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
99,529
74,274
(24,354)
(24,926)
(0.19)
$
$
$
$
$
98,124
71,509
(26,412)
(27,592)
(0.22)
Three months ended
Oct. 31, 2020
Jul. 31, 2020
89,061
67,422
(21,760)
(22,041)
(0.18)
$
$
$
$
$
88,055
66,071
(24,240)
(25,116)
(0.21)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
91,992
70,138
(17,232)
(17,631)
(0.14)
Apr. 30, 2020
85,351
64,167
(29,189)
(29,224)
(0.25)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
100,932
76,357
(21,961)
(23,110)
(0.18)
Jan. 31, 2021
92,194
70,597
(19,143)
(18,311)
(0.15)
77
Item 9. Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure
None.
Item 9A. Controls and Procedures
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of the design and operation of
our disclosure controls and procedures, as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act").
Disclosure controls and procedures are controls and other procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed or submitted under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed,
summarized and reported, within the time periods specified in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules and forms. Disclosure controls and procedures include controls and procedures designed to ensure that
information required to be disclosed in our company’s reports filed under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, to allow
timely decisions regarding required disclosure. Based on the evaluation of our disclosure controls and procedures, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures
were effective as of January 31, 2022.
Management's Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f). Under the supervision and with
the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of January 31,
2022 based on the guidelines established in the Internal Control—Integrated Framework (2013 framework) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). Internal control over
financial reporting includes policies and procedures that provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external reporting purposes in accordance
with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. Based on the results of our evaluation, we concluded that as of January 31, 2022 we have maintained effective internal control over financial reporting.
The effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting has been audited by Ernst & Young LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, and as part of the audit, has issued an unqualified opinion on
the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of January 31, 2022, which is included in Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting
In connection with the audit of the fiscal year 2021 consolidated financial statements, we and our independent registered public accounting firm identified a material weakness related to our processes to calculate, record
and account for sales commissions.
In fiscal year 2022, we remediated the identified deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting identified above as described below:
•
•
•
•
•
Improved governance of our incentive compensation plans
Implemented new information technology systems to calculate, record and account for sales commissions
Implemented IT general controls, including logical security and application change management controls for these new information technology systems
Implemented new automated controls to calculate, record and account for sales commissions
Implemented new manual controls and strengthened existing controls across the process to calculate, record and account for sales commissions, including management review controls to detect errors in calculated sales
commissions
We have tested and evaluated the implementation of these new and revised processes and internal controls to ascertain whether they are designed and operating effectively to provide reasonable assurance that they will
prevent or detect a material error in our financial statements and have concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of January 31, 2022.
Except as noted above, there were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting identified in connection with the evaluation required by Rules 13a-15(d) and 15d-15(d) of the Exchange Act that occurred
during the three months ended January 31, 2022 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
Limitations on the Effectiveness of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, does not expect that our disclosure controls and procedures or internal control over financial reporting will prevent all errors and all
fraud. A control system, no matter how well designed and implemented, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the control system’s objectives will be met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect
the fact that there are resource constraints and the benefits of controls must be
78
considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues within a company are detected. The inherent limitations
include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty and that breakdowns can occur because of simple errors or mistakes. Controls can also be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion
of two or more people, or by management override of the controls. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and may not be detected. Also,
projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may
deteriorate.
Item 9B. Other Information
None.
79
Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance
PART III
Information about our directors and persons nominated to become directors can be found under the caption “Directors and Corporate Governance – Board Composition” in our Proxy Statement for the 2022 Annual
Meeting of Stockholders to be filed with the SEC within 120 days of the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 ("Proxy Statement") and is incorporated herein by reference.
Information about our named executive officers is reported under the caption “Executive Officers ” in our Proxy Statement and is incorporated herein by reference.
Information on beneficial ownership reporting compliance can be found under the caption “Delinquent Section 16(a) Reports” in our Proxy Statement and is incorporated herein by reference.
Our Board of Directors has adopted a Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, which establishes the standards of ethical conduct applicable to all directors, officers and employees of our Company, including our Chief
Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer. The code addresses, among other things, conflicts of interest, compliance with disclosure controls and procedures and internal controls over financial
reporting, corporate opportunities and confidentiality requirements. Our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at investors.yext.com. We intend to disclose any
amendments to the code, or any waivers of its requirements, on our website to the extent required by SEC applicable rules and regulations. The inclusion of our website address in this annual report does not include or
incorporate by reference into this annual report the information on or accessible through our website.
Information about the procedures by which security holders may recommend nominees to our Board of Directors can be found in our Proxy Statement under the caption “Directors and Corporate Governance – Identifying
and Evaluating Director Nominees” and is incorporated herein by reference.
Information concerning the composition of the audit committee and our audit committee financial expert is contained in our Proxy Statement under the caption “Directors and Corporate Governance – Board Committee
and Meetings – Audit Committee” and is incorporated herein by reference.
Item 11. Executive Compensation
Information about the compensation of our directors and named executive officers, compensation committee interlocks and the compensation committee report can be found in our Proxy Statement under the caption
“Directors and Corporate Governance – Compensation of Non-Employee Directors,” “– Compensation Committee Interlocks,” “– Compensation Risk Management” and “Executive Compensation” and is incorporated herein
by reference.
Information about the Compensation Committee Report can be found in our Proxy Statement under the caption "Compensation Committee Report" and is incorporated herein by reference.
Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters
Information with respect to securities authorized for issuance under equity compensation plans can be found under “Item 5. Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of
Equity Securities – Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans” and is incorporated herein by reference.
Information about the security ownership of certain beneficial owners and of directors and named executive officers, can be found in our Proxy Statement under the caption “Beneficial Ownership of Shares of Common
Stock”.
Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence
Information with respect to certain relationships and related person transactions and director independence can be found in our Proxy Statement under “Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions” and
“Directors and Corporate Governance – Director Independence” and is incorporated herein by reference.
Item 14. Principal Accountant Fees and Services
Information with respect to the audit committee's pre-approval policies and procedures for audit and other services and information on our principal accountant fees and services can be found in our Proxy Statement under
“Item 2 — Ratification of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm — Audit and Non-Audit Fees” and “— Policy on Audit Committee Pre-Approval of Audit and Permissible Non-Audit Services of Independent
Registered Public Accounting Firm” and is incorporated herein by reference.
80
Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules
(a) The following documents are filed as a part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K:
PART IV
1. Financial Statements: The information concerning our financial statements, and Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm required by this Item is incorporated by reference herein to the section of
this Annual Report on Form 10-K in Item 8, entitled “Consolidated Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.”
2. Financial Statement Schedules: The Financial Statement Schedules have been omitted because they are not applicable or are not required or the information required to be set forth herein is included in the
Consolidated Financial Statements or Notes thereto.
3. Exhibits: The documents listed in the accompanying exhibit index are filed or incorporated by reference as part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Exhibit Index
Incorporated by Reference
Number
Exhibit Title
3.1
3.2
4.1
4.2
4.3
10.1
10.2
10.3
10.4
10.5
10.6
10.7
10.8
10.9
10.10
10.11
10.12
10.13
10.14
10.15
Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation
Amended and Restated Bylaws
Form of Common Stock Certificate
Fifth Amended and Restated Investors' Rights Agreement, dated May 28, 2014, as
subsequently amended, by and among the Registrant and certain security holders of
the Registrant.
Description of Registrant's Securities registered pursuant to Section 12 of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Form of Indemnification Agreement entered into between the Registrant and its
directors and executive officers.
2016 Equity Incentive Plan.
Form of Stock Option Grant Notice and Stock Option Agreement under 2016
Equity Incentive Plan.
Form of Restricted Stock Unit Agreement under 2016 Equity Incentive Plan.
Form of Restricted Stock Agreement under 2016 Equity Incentive Plan.
2017 Employee Stock Purchase Plan.
2008 Equity Incentive Plan.
Form of Stock Option Grant Notice and Stock Option Agreement under 2008
Equity Incentive Plan.
Form of Restricted Stock Unit Agreement under 2008 Equity Incentive Plan.
Employee Incentive Plan.
Outside Director Compensation Policy.
Change of Control and Severance Policy.
Form of Employment Agreement with the executive officers of the Company.
Advisor Agreement between the Company and James Steele, dated as of September
30, 2020
Agreement of Lease, dated May 24, 2012, by and between the Registrant and 1
Madison Office Fee LLC.
Form
S-1/A
S-1/A
S-1/A
File No.
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
S-1
333-216642
S-1/A
S-1
S-1/A
S-1/A
S-1/A
S-1/A
S-1
S-1
S-1
S-1
S-1/A
S-1
S-1/A
8-K
S-1
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
333-216642
001-38056
333-216642
81
Filed
Herewith
x
Exhibit
3.2
3.4
4.1
4.2
10.1
10.2
10.3
10.4
10.5
10.6
10.7
10.8
10.9
10.10
10.13
10.14
10.15
10.1
10.11
Filing
Date
3/17/2017
3/17/2017
3/28/2017
3/13/2017
3/17/2017
3/13/2017
3/17/2017
3/17/2017
3/17/2017
3/17/2017
3/13/2017
3/13/2017
3/13/2017
3/13/2017
3/17/2017
3/13/2017
3/17/2017
9/3/2020
3/13/2017
10.16
10.17
10.18
10.19
10.20
21.1
23.1
24.1
31.1
31.2
32.1
32.2
101
104
Lease dated May 15, 2014 by and between the Registrant and Credit Suisse (USA) Inc.
Surrender Agreement, dated as of the May 29, 2020 between 1 Madison Office Fee LLC,
as landlord under the original lease and as sublandlord under the sublease and Yext, Inc.,
as tenant under the original lease and as subtenant under the sublease.
Sublease dated as of April 23, 2019 by and between Aetna Life Insurance Company and
Yext, Inc.
Credit Agreement, dated as of March 11, 2020, by and among Yext, Inc., as borrower, the
lenders from time to time party thereto, and Silicon Valley Bank, as administrative agent,
collateral agent, issuing lender and swingline lender.
First Amendment to Credit Agreement and Guarantee and Collateral Agreement, dated as
of January 29, 2021, among Yext, Inc., as borrower and Silicon Valley Bank, as
administrative agent and lender.
List of subsidiaries of Yext, Inc.
Consent of Ernst & Young LLP, independent registered public accounting firm.
Power of Attorney (contained in the signature page to this Annual Report on Form 10-K).
Certification of Principal Executive Officer pursuant to Section 302 of the Sarbanes-
Oxley Act of 2002
Certification of Principal Financial Officer pursuant to Section 302 of the Sarbanes-
Oxley Act of 2002
Certification of Principal Executive Officer pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, as
adopted pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.*
Certification of Principal Financial Officer pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, as
adopted pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.*
Interactive Data Files Pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T formatted in Inline XBRL
(Extensible Business Reporting Language): (i) Consolidated Balance Sheets as of
January 31, 2022 and 2021, (ii) Consolidated Statements of Operations and
Comprehensive Loss for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, (iii)
Consolidated Statements of Stockholders' Equity as of January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020
(iv) Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022,
2021 and 2020 and (v) Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements
The cover page from the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year
ended January 31, 2022, formatted in Inline XBRL (included in Exhibit 101).
S-1
333-216642
10.12
3/13/2017
8-K
10-Q
8-K
001-38056
001-38056
001-38056
10-K
001-38056
10.1
10.1
10.1
10.2
6/4/2020
5/31/2019
3/12/2020
3/16/2021
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
* These exhibits are furnished with this Annual Report on Form 10-K and are not deemed filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are not incorporated by reference in any filing of Yext, Inc. under the Securities Act of 1933, as
amended, or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, whether made before or after the date hereof and irrespective of any general incorporation language contained in such filings.
Item 16. Form 10-K Summary
None.
82
Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized.
SIGNATURES
Date: March 18, 2022
Yext, Inc.
By:
POWER OF ATTORNEY
/s/ Steven Cakebread
Steven Cakebread
Chief Financial Officer
(Principal Financial Officer)
KNOW ALL PERSONS BY THESE PRESENTS, that each person whose signature appears below hereby constitutes and appoints Howard Lerman, Steven Cakebread, Michael Walrath and Darryl Bond, and each of
them, as his or her true and lawful attorney-in-fact and agent with full power of substitution, for him or her in any and all capacities, to sign any and all amendments to this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and to file the same,
with all exhibits thereto and other documents in connection therewith, with the SEC, granting unto said attorney-in-fact and agent full power and authority to do and perform each and every act and thing requisite and necessary
to be done in connection therewith, as fully for all intents and purposes as he or she might or could do in person, hereby ratifying and confirming all that said attorney-in-fact and agent, or his substitute, may lawfully do or
cause to be done by virtue hereof.
83
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the registrant in the capacities and on the dates indicated.
Signature
/s/ Howard Lerman
Howard Lerman
/s/ Steven Cakebread
Steven Cakebread
/s/ Darryl Bond
Darryl Bond
/s/ Brian Distelburger
Brian Distelburger
/s/ Jesse Lipson
Jesse Lipson
/s/ Julie Richardson
Julie Richardson
/s/ Andrew Sheehan
Andrew Sheehan
/s/ Hillary Smith
Hillary Smith
/s/ Michael Walrath
Michael Walrath
/s/ Seth Waugh
Seth Waugh
/s/ Tamar Yehoshua
Tamar Yehoshua
/s/ Shane Battier
Shane Battier
Title
Chief Executive Officer and Director
(Principal Executive Officer)
Chief Financial Officer
(Principal Financial Officer)
Chief Accounting Officer
(Principal Accounting Officer)
President and Director
Director
Director
Director
Director
Director
Director
Director
Director
84
Date
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
EXHIBIT 4.3
DESCRIPTION OF REGISTRANT’S SECURITIES
REGISTERED PURSUANT TO SECTION 12 OF THE
SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
DESCRIPTION OF COMMON STOCK
As of January 31, 2022, Yext, Inc. had one class of securities registered pursuant to Section 12 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, our common
stock, par value $0.001 per share. The following summary does not purport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by the provisions of our amended and restated
certificate of incorporation, amended and restated bylaws and investors’ rights agreement, copies of which are filed as exhibits to the Annual Report on Form 10-K of which this
Exhibit 4.3 is a part. References in this exhibit to “the company,” “we,” “us” and “our” refer to Yext, Inc. and not to any of its subsidiaries.
Authorized Capital Stock
Our authorized capital stock consists of 550,000,000 shares, with a par value of $0.001 per share, of which:
• 500,000,000 shares are designated as common stock; and
• 50,000,000 shares are designated as preferred stock.
Common Stock
Voting Rights
The holders of our common stock are entitled to one vote per share on all matters to be voted on by the stockholders and there are no cumulative voting rights.
Dividends
Subject to preferences that may be applicable to any outstanding shares of preferred stock, holders of common stock are entitled to receive ratably such dividends, if
any, as may be declared by our board of directors out of funds legally available therefor.
Liquidation
In the event we liquidate, dissolve or wind up, holders of common stock are entitled to share in all assets remaining after payment of liabilities and the liquidation
preferences of any outstanding shares of preferred stock.
Rights and Preferences
Holders of common stock have no preemptive, conversion or subscription rights. There are no redemption or sinking fund provisions applicable to the common stock.
All outstanding shares of common stock are fully paid and nonassessable.
Preferred Stock
No shares of our preferred stock are currently outstanding. Under our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, our board of directors has the authority,
without further action by the stockholders, to issue from time to time the preferred stock in one or more series, to fix the number of shares of any such series and the designation
thereof and to fix the rights, preferences, privileges and restrictions granted to or imposed upon such preferred stock, including dividend rights, conversion rights, voting rights,
redemption privileges and liquidation preference, any or all of which may be greater than or senior to the rights of the common stock. The issuance of preferred stock could
adversely affect the voting power of holders of common stock and reduce the likelihood that such holders will receive dividend payments and payments upon liquidation. Such
issuance could have the effect of decreasing the market price of our common stock. The issuance of preferred stock or even the ability to issue preferred stock could have the
effect of delaying, deferring or preventing a change in control. We have no present plans to issue any shares of preferred stock.
Anti‑Takeover Effects of Delaware Law and Our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws contain certain provisions that could have the effect of delaying, deferring
or discouraging another party from acquiring control of us. These provisions, which are summarized below, are designed, in part, to encourage persons seeking to acquire
control of us to first negotiate with our board of directors.
Undesignated Preferred Stock
As discussed above, our board of directors has the ability to issue preferred stock with voting or other rights or preferences that could impede the success of any
attempt to change control of us. These and other provisions may have the effect of deferring hostile takeovers or delaying changes in control or management of our company.
Calling of Special Meetings of Stockholders
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that special meetings of the stockholders may be called only by the chairperson of our board of
directors, our Chief Executive Officer, our President (in the absence of our Chief Executive Officer) or our board of directors.
Requirements for Advance Notification of Stockholder Nominations and Proposals
Our amended and restated bylaws include advance notice procedures with respect to stockholder proposals and the nomination of candidates for election as directors,
other than nominations made by or at the direction of our board of directors or a committee of our board of directors.
Board Classification
Our board of directors is divided into three classes, one class of which is elected each year by our stockholders. The directors in each class serve for a three‑year term.
A third party may be discouraged from making a tender offer or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us as it is more difficult and time consuming for stockholders to
replace a majority of the directors on a classified board.
Limits on Ability of Stockholders to Act by Written Consent
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that our stockholders may not act by written consent. This limit on the ability of our stockholders to act
by written consent may lengthen the amount of time required to take stockholder actions. As a result, a holder controlling a majority of our capital stock would not be able to
amend our bylaws or remove directors without holding a meeting of our stockholders called in accordance with our amended and restated bylaws.
Amendment of Certificate of Incorporation or Bylaws
The amendment of the above provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws requires approval by holders of at
least two‑thirds of our outstanding capital stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors.
Directors Removed Only for Cause
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that directors may be removed by stockholders only for cause.
Delaware Anti‑takeover Statute
We are subject to the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law regulating corporate takeovers. In general, Section 203 prohibits a publicly
held Delaware corporation from engaging, under certain circumstances, in a business combination with an interested stockholder for a period of three years following the date
on which the person became an interested stockholder unless:
• prior to the date of the transaction, the board of directors of the corporation approved either the business combination or the transaction that resulted in the
stockholder becoming an interested stockholder;
• upon completion of the transaction that resulted in the stockholder becoming an interested stockholder, the interested stockholder owned at least 85% of the voting
stock of the corporation outstanding at the time the transaction commenced, excluding for purposes of determining the voting stock outstanding, but not the
outstanding voting stock owned by the interested stockholder, shares owned by persons who are directors and also officers and shares owned by employee stock
plans in some instances; or
• at or subsequent to the date of the transaction, the business combination is approved by the board of directors of the corporation and authorized at an annual or special
meeting of stockholders by the affirmative vote of at least two‑thirds of the outstanding voting stock that is not owned by the interested stockholder.
Section 203 defines a business combination to include:
• any merger or consolidation involving the corporation and the interested stockholder;
• any sale, transfer, lease, pledge or other disposition involving the interested stockholder of 10% or more of the assets of the corporation;
• subject to exceptions, any transaction that results in the issuance or transfer by the corporation of any stock of the corporation to the interested stockholder;
• subject to exceptions, any transaction involving the corporation that has the effect of increasing the proportionate share of the stock of any class or series of the
corporation beneficially owned by the interested stockholder; and
• the receipt by the interested stockholder of the benefit of any loans, advances, guarantees, pledges or other financial benefits provided by or through the corporation.
In general, Section 203 defines an interested stockholder as any entity or person beneficially owning 15% or more of the outstanding voting stock of the corporation
and any entity or person affiliated with or controlling or controlled by the entity or person.
Registration Rights
We and certain of our stockholders are party to an investors’ rights agreement. The registration rights provisions of this agreement provide those stockholders with
certain registration rights with respect to certain shares of their common stock. Howard Lerman and Brian Distelburger cannot initiate a request for registration, but they
have limited rights to include their shares of common stock in a registration in which all holders of registrable securities pursuant to the investors’ rights agreement are
permitted to participate.
Registration on Form S‑3
Certain holders of shares of our common stock are entitled, upon their request, to have such shares registered by us on a Form S‑3 registration statement. This
registration on Form S‑3 is subject to specific conditions and limitations, including that such requested registration has an anticipated aggregate offering size to the public of at
least $3.0 million and we have not already effected two registrations on Form S‑3 within the preceding twelve‑month period. Upon such a request, we will be required to use our
commercially reasonable efforts to effect the registration as soon as reasonably possible. As of January 31, 2022, holders of an aggregate of 11,949,980 shares of common stock
are entitled to these Form S‑3 registration rights, including Messrs. Lerman and Distelburger.
Piggyback Registration Rights
If we propose to register any of our securities under the Securities Act either for our own account or for the account of other stockholders, certain holders of shares of
our common stock will each be entitled to notice of the registration and will be entitled to include their shares of common stock in the registration statement. These piggyback
registration rights are subject to specified conditions and limitations, including the right of the underwriters to limit the number of shares included in any such registration under
specific circumstances. As of January 31, 2022, holders of an aggregate of 11,949,980 shares of common stock are entitled to these piggyback registration rights, including
Messrs. Lerman and Distelburger.
Expenses of Registration
We will pay all expenses relating to any Form S‑3 or piggyback registrations, other than underwriting discounts, commissions and stock transfer taxes, subject to
specified conditions and limitations.
Termination of Registration Rights
The registration rights granted under the investors’ rights agreement, including the limited rights granted to Messrs. Lerman and Distelburger, will terminate upon the
earliest to occur of (i) such date when all of a holder’s registrable securities could be sold without restriction under Rule 144 and (ii) April 19, 2022.
Transfer Agent and Registrar
The transfer agent and registrar for our common stock is Broadridge Corporate Issuer Solutions, Inc. The transfer agent’s address is 1717 Arch Street, Suite 1300,
Philadelphia, PA 19103.
The New York Stock Exchange Listing
Our common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “YEXT.”
EXHIBIT 21.1
Name
Yext Australia Pty Ltd
Yext, B.V.
Yext (Canada) Corp.
Yext GmbH
Yext Holdings, LLC
Yext Hong Kong Limited
Yext India Private Limited
Yext KK
Yext Limited
Yext Sarl
Yext SAS
Yext (Shanghai) Software Company Limited
Yext Technologies, S.L.
SUBSIDIARIES OF YEXT, INC.
Jurisdiction of Incorporation
Australia
Netherlands
Canada
Germany
Delaware
Hong Kong
India
Japan
United Kingdom
Switzerland
France
China
Spain
EXHIBIT 23.1
We consent to the incorporation by reference in the Registration Statements (Forms S-8 Nos. 333-263369, 333-254358, 333-237330, 333-230344, 333-223732 and 333-217280)
pertaining to the Yext, Inc. 2016 Equity Incentive Plan, 2017 Employee Stock Purchase Plan and Stand-Alone Inducement Restricted Stock Unit Agreement of our reports
dated March 18, 2022, with respect to the consolidated financial statements of Yext, Inc. and the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting of Yext, Inc., included
in this Annual Report (Form 10-K) of Yext, Inc. for the year ended January 31, 2022.
Consent of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm
/s/ Ernst & Young, LLP
New York, New York
March 18, 2022
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EXHIBIT 31.1
Certification of Principal Executive Officer Pursuant to Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
I, Howard Lerman, certify that:
1.
I have reviewed this annual report on Form 10-K of Yext, Inc.;
2. Based on my knowledge, this report does not contain any untrue statement of a material fact or omit to state a material fact necessary to make
the statements made, in light of the circumstances under which such statements were made, not misleading with respect to the period covered by this
report;
3. Based on my knowledge, the financial statements, and other financial information included in this report, fairly present in all material
respects the financial condition, results of operations and cash flows of the registrant as of, and for, the periods presented in this report;
4. The registrant’s other certifying officer and I are responsible for establishing and maintaining disclosure controls and procedures (as defined
in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e)) and internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-
15(f)) for the registrant and have:
(a) Designed such disclosure controls and procedures, or caused such disclosure controls and procedures to be designed under our
supervision, to ensure that material information relating to the registrant, including its consolidated subsidiaries, is made known to us by others within
those entities, particularly during the period in which this report is being prepared;
(b) Designed such internal control over financial reporting, or caused such internal control over financial reporting to be designed
under our supervision, to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for
external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles;
(c) Evaluated the effectiveness of the registrant’s disclosure controls and procedures and presented in this report our conclusions about
the effectiveness of the disclosure controls and procedures, as of the end of the period covered by this report based on such evaluation; and
(d) Disclosed in this report any change in the registrant’s internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the registrant’s
most recent fiscal quarter that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, the registrant’s internal control over financial reporting;
and
5. The registrant’s other certifying officer and I have disclosed, based on our most recent evaluation of internal control over financial reporting,
to the registrant’s auditors and the audit committee of the registrant’s board of directors (or persons performing the equivalent functions):
(a) All significant deficiencies and material weaknesses in the design or operation of internal control over financial reporting which are
reasonably likely to adversely affect the registrant’s ability to record, process, summarize and report financial information; and
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(b) Any fraud, whether or not material, that involves management or other employees who have a significant role in the registrant’s
internal control over financial reporting.
[SIGNATURE PAGE FOLLOWS]
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Date: March 18, 2022
/s/ Howard Lerman
Name: Howard Lerman
Title: Chief Executive Officer
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EXHIBIT 31.2
Certification of Principal Financial Officer Pursuant to Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
I, Steven Cakebread, certify that:
1.
I have reviewed this annual report on Form 10-K of Yext, Inc.;
2. Based on my knowledge, this report does not contain any untrue statement of a material fact or omit to state a material fact necessary to make
the statements made, in light of the circumstances under which such statements were made, not misleading with respect to the period covered by this
report;
3. Based on my knowledge, the financial statements, and other financial information included in this report, fairly present in all material
respects the financial condition, results of operations and cash flows of the registrant as of, and for, the periods presented in this report;
4. The registrant’s other certifying officer and I are responsible for establishing and maintaining disclosure controls and procedures (as defined
in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e)) and internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-
15(f)) for the registrant and have:
(a) Designed such disclosure controls and procedures, or caused such disclosure controls and procedures to be designed under our
supervision, to ensure that material information relating to the registrant, including its consolidated subsidiaries, is made known to us by others within
those entities, particularly during the period in which this report is being prepared;
(b) Designed such internal control over financial reporting, or caused such internal control over financial reporting to be designed under
our supervision, to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external
purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles;
(c) Evaluated the effectiveness of the registrant’s disclosure controls and procedures and presented in this report our conclusions about
the effectiveness of the disclosure controls and procedures, as of the end of the period covered by this report based on such evaluation; and
(d) Disclosed in this report any change in the registrant’s internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the registrant’s
most recent fiscal quarter that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, the registrant’s internal control over financial reporting;
and
5. The registrant’s other certifying officer and I have disclosed, based on our most recent evaluation of internal control over financial reporting,
to the registrant’s auditors and the audit committee of the registrant’s board of directors (or persons performing the equivalent functions):
(a) All significant deficiencies and material weaknesses in the design or operation of internal control over financial reporting which are
reasonably likely to adversely affect the registrant’s ability to record, process, summarize and report financial information; and
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(b) Any fraud, whether or not material, that involves management or other employees who have a significant role in the registrant’s
internal control over financial reporting.
[SIGNATURE PAGE FOLLOWS]
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Date: March 18, 2022
/s/ Steven Cakebread
Name: Steven Cakebread
Title: Chief Financial Officer
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EXHIBIT 32.1
Certification of the Principal Executive Officer Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350 as Adopted
Pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, as adopted pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, I, Howard Lerman, the
Chief Executive Officer of Yext, Inc. (the “Company”), hereby certify, that, to my knowledge:
1.
The annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 (the “ Report”) of the Company fully complies with
the requirements of Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; and
2. The information contained in the Report fairly presents, in all material respects, the financial condition and results of operations of
the Company.
[signature page follows]
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Date: March 18, 2022
/s/ Howard Lerman
Name: Howard Lerman
Title: Chief Executive Officer
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EXHIBIT 32.2
Certification of the Principal Financial Officer Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350 as Adopted
Pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, as adopted pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, I, Steven Cakebread, the
Chief Financial Officer of Yext, Inc. (the “Company”), hereby certify, that, to my knowledge:
1.
The annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 (the “ Report”) of the Company fully complies with
the requirements of Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; and
2. The information contained in the Report fairly presents, in all material respects, the financial condition and results of operations of
the Company.
[signature page follows]
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Date: March 18, 2022
/s/ Steven Cakebread
Name: Steven Cakebread
Title: Chief Financial Officer
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