AvePoint, Inc.: Form 10-K for the period ended Dec 31, 2023

Company Overview

AvePoint provides a cloud-native data management software platform that organizations rely on to manage and protect critical data, optimize IT operations, achieve meaningful cost savings, and efficiently secure the digital workplace. Companies around the world have now fully adopted a hybrid work model, and they are now tasked with delivering a seamless and secure workplace experience for knowledge workers, centered around an extensive portfolio of Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) solutions and productivity applications.

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

In addition, many organizations are beginning to realize the potential of generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) to drive competitive advantage and value creation, including (1) extracting greater value from complex datasets, (2) making more informed business decisions, (3) reducing employee workloads, and (4) improving the overall customer experience. While these data-driven improvements are expected to lead to stronger revenue growth and operational efficiency, successfully leveraging this new technology is in turn dependent on first addressing data management challenges that all organizations face. Specifically, for AI-driven projects to succeed, companies must apply robust strategies across the data estate to manage the information lifecycle, properly govern and secure their data, and ensure its compliance. These are the core business problems that AvePoint has been solving for more than two decades, and why we believe AvePoint is well positioned to be a key enabler of generative AI adoption within enterprises in the coming years.

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

Platform Overview

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

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

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

• The Control Suite. Focused on the governance and management of the digital workplace, the Control Suite provides a ready-made framework for automated governance and policy enforcement. This allows infrastructure and operations teams to protect business-critical information across collaborative workspaces.
• The Resilience Suite. Focused on security and enhanced data protection, the Resilience Suite enables organizations to efficiently and effectively comply with data protection regulations, preserve critical records, and ensure business continuity. This provides regulatory, audit, and risk management teams with the assurance that the organization is meeting its compliance obligations.
• The Modernization Suite. Focused on employee productivity and experience, the Modernization Suite transforms legacy data to allow it use by modern SaaS platforms and transforms legacy business processes into modern end-user business applications. It empowers modernization and change management teams to drive digital transformation with AI ready solutions across the organization, and to measure and accelerate the impact of this transformation on employee experience and engagement.

Built with security and scale in mind, AvePoint’s cloud-native platform is available across 14 global data centers. Our multi-tenant architecture is designed to immediately provide customers the latest enhancements and upgrades, and the platform is ISO 27001:2013, ISO 27017:2015 and ISO 27701:2019 certified, has achieved compliance with HITRUST CSF v11.0.1, and has received systems and organization controls (“SOC”) 2 Type II accreditation and FedRAMP (Moderate) Authorization.

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

• The Control Suite contains products which offer the following capabilities:
• Operationalize collaborative workspaces: centralize the management of SaaS solutions and productivity applications, with the flexibility to configure and delegate control for different end-users;
• Regulatory compliance automation: Implement, enforce, and prove that access and configuration policies across collaborative workspaces comply with internal or regulatory requirements;
• Access and risk management: gain insight into who has access to critical data and where the company is at risk; and
• Cost optimization: maximize the return on SaaS subscription investments through real-time management and allocation of entitlements;
• The Resilience Suite contains products which offer the following capabilities:
• Backup-as-a-Service: support workloads in cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service and PaaS, including protection against ransomware, accidental deletions and user error in a variety of SaaS applications, as well as support for a range of on-premises workloads;
• Data classification: automate data tagging, classification and protection to prevent loss;
• Storage optimization: archive stale content from active systems to reduce costs and improve workspace quality and user experience; and
• Information lifecycle management: manage information and ensure compliance, optimize cloud storage, streamline processes, and unlock data driven insights.
• The Modernization Suite contains products which offer the following capabilities:
• Data modernization and restructuring: seamlessly move and transform legacy data to allow its use by modern SaaS platforms, and ensure that unstructured data can be easily restructured to reflect ongoing changes in the business;
• Process modernization: transform manual processes with built-in data insights and process automation for Line of Business and role-based applications; and
• Workforce transformation measurement: enable employees to thrive in the digital workplace by ensuring organizational leaders understand employee engagement and sentiment.

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Our Growth Strategy

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

• Expand the AvePoint Confidence Platform Offerings. We have built a differentiated platform that enables organizations to integrate modern applications, and our goal is to continually invest in technologies that improve the digital workplace experience. We plan to introduce new and adjacent products to extend our current operational and data management story and to improve the functionality of existing products and features, with a particular focus on AI ready solutions that transform and enrich data. We will also continue investing to support Microsoft, Salesforce, Google, AWS, Box, DropBox and other ecosystems for our customers, many of whom leverage multiple cloud vendors.
• Expand our Market Presence. The market we are targeting is rapidly growing and largely unpenetrated. We sell to organizations of all sizes, in all regions of the world, and across a broad array of industries. While historically we primarily focused on larger, more highly regulated enterprises, the offering of our platform as a SaaS solution makes it more accessible to and in demand from small and medium-sized organizations. We intend to drive new customer growth by leveraging our global partner ecosystem and through the expansion of our direct sales force both in regions where we have an established presence and in new markets where cloud adoption is growing.
• Increase Customer Lifetime Value with Customer Success. We constantly seek to increase customer satisfaction, decrease time to value, reduce customer churn and set up successful land and expand opportunities. To do so, we have made significant investments in our customer success program and in technology which provides additional telemetry to enhance our understanding of how customers use our solutions, which we believe will deepen our relationships with existing customers.
• Grow and Cultivate our Partner and Channel Network. We believe that building and cultivating strategic relationships with partners will enable us to penetrate those markets in which we previously lacked presence and those in which we have a presence that can be expanded. Our partner and channel network today touches all aspects of our business, but we believe there is a particular opportunity with our small and mid-sized customers and prospects. We expect that the continued scaling of this ecosystem will be a critical component of our ability to drive profitable growth going forward.
• Opportunistically Pursue Strategic Acquisitions and Investments. While the large majority of our current offerings were built organically, we expect that acquisitions and investments will be an important growth driver for our business. We completed four acquisitions in 2022, and we expect to continue acquiring and investing in businesses and technologies or entering into joint ventures and strategic alliances as part of our long-term business strategy. This may include acquiring or investing in complementary products, technologies, and/or businesses that incorporate enhanced functionality into and complement our existing product offerings, reduce the time or costs required to develop new technologies, augment our engineering workforce, improve our internal business and operating systems, and enhance our technological capabilities.

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Sales, Marketing and Customers

Sales

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

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

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

• Channel Ecosystem. We leverage the resources of our partner and channel community across customers of all segments. We expect that partner sourced revenue will account for a growing portion of our revenue for the foreseeable future.
• Partner Marketplaces. Our solutions are available in more than 100 marketplaces around the world through our distribution and marketplace partners. We leverage marketplaces to create operational efficiencies with automation in procurement and provisioning, and to grow and scale our acquisition of the small business market, primarily through managed service providers (“MSPs”).
• Microsoft Partnership. We are a top global partner of Microsoft with a holistic alliance that incorporates technology, sales, and marketing initiatives to ensure that we enable organizations worldwide to maximize their Microsoft Cloud investments.

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

Marketing

Our global marketing organization focuses on enhancing the AvePoint brand, establishing trust and capturing mindshare, and building awareness and demand generation through multi-platform campaigns that leverage our expertise, content, technical resources and customer stories. These campaigns are tailored to ensure that they reach customers at any stage of their buying journey, from a prospect assessing market trends and seeking broader strategic insights, to an existing customer with whom we can build incremental loyalty and to whom we can sell a more comprehensive set of solutions. We rely on multiple marketing and sales automation tools, as well as product and industry specific criteria, to efficiently identify and market to the correct individuals at companies in each customer segment, and constantly seek to refine and optimize our approach through the review of multiple performance metrics and ongoing feedback from our sales teams.

Customers

We sell to organizations of all sizes, in all regions of the world, and across a broad array of industries. Our customers are located in more than 100 countries and, as of December 31, 2023, numbered more than 21,000.

We classify our customer base by size and geography:

• Small Business (“SMB”) segment. Companies with fewer than 500 user seats.
• Mid-Market segment. Companies with greater than 500 but fewer than 5,000 user seats.
• Enterprise segment. Companies with greater than 5,000 user seats.
• Geography. Classification is based on the customer’s billing address and is divided into (1) North America; (2) Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (“EMEA”); and (3) Asia-Pacific (“APAC”).

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Research And Development

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

Intellectual Property

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

Competition

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

The competition we see is primarily standalone point solutions that aim to replicate the value provided by our suites or one of the products contained therein. We believe our platform offering provides a meaningful competitive advantage, due to breadth of functionality, ease of use, scalability, rigor of security protocols, integration with third-party applications and data sources, time to value and total cost of ownership.

Seasonality

Our quarterly revenue can fluctuate and does not necessarily grow sequentially when measuring any one fiscal quarter’s revenue against another. Historically, our third and fourth quarters have been our highest revenue quarters, however those results are not necessarily indicative of future quarterly revenue or full year results. Additionally, the timing of new product and service introductions can significantly impact revenue. Lastly, the mix of revenues in any given quarter can cause fluctuations in our reported results, due to differing revenue recognition principles, as discussed further below. Our operating expenses have historically increased in connection with the expansion of our business, which we expect will continue.

Human Capital Resources

The success of our people is the success of our Company, making our talent strategy a core focus of our operations. We received accolades designating us as a “best place to work” in 2023. Our key human capital objectives in managing our business includes attracting and developing top talent, engaging our team in an environment where they thrive, and integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into our core operating practices.

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

• Agility: We value quick, informed decision-making to meet and exceed customer expectations. We subscribe to a growth mindset, which contributes to our entrepreneurial and learning spirit.
• Passion: Drive and energy are contagious here; we are not just going through the motions. We do things that are impactful and, as a result, amplify our customers’ success.
• Teamwork: We are invested in the success of our colleagues, partners, customers, and communities. We do this by promoting global collaboration and taking pride in helping, sharing, mentoring, and coaching each other.

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Team

As of December 31, 2023, we had 2,543 employees globally. A large percentage of our employees have technical and professional backgrounds and undergraduate and/or advanced degrees. Our professional staff includes programmers, data and computer scientists, electrical and mechanical engineers, software and hardware specialists, project managers, sales and marketing professionals, attorneys, and CPAs. None of our employees are represented by a labor union with respect to their employment. We are not aware of any employment circumstances that are likely to disrupt our work efforts. See the section titled “Risk Factors” (Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report) for a discussion of the risks related to the loss of key personnel or our inability to attract and retain qualified personnel.

Recruitment and Internal Mobility

We want to attract a pool of diverse and exceptional candidates and support their career growth once they join our team. We seek to hire based on talent, providing opportunities for capable workers from various backgrounds to learn valuable skills in critical operations such as business development, sales, customer support, and customer service. In our evaluation and career development efforts, we emphasize internal mobility opportunities as a core strategy to drive professional development. Our goal is a long-term, upward-bound career for every colleague, which also drives our retention efforts. Our talent acquisition team directly recruits highly skilled and talented people, and we encourage and incentivize employee referrals for open positions.

Rewards

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

Environmental, Social and Governance Matters

We recognize the importance of environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) matters and how they impact our customers, employees, community partners, and stockholders. We believe appropriately prioritizing ESG issues is an important component of corporate social responsibility and comprehensive fiscal management. In addition, we believe that strong ESG programs and practices are critical to attracting the best talent, executing on our corporate strategies, maintaining a robust supplier and channel partner base, and innovating to meet our consumers’ evolving expectations.

In 2023, our internal ESG Committee, chartered by the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of AvePoint’s Board of Directors (the “Board”), began meeting to address ESG priorities. The ESG Committee was divided into sub-committees to address each element of ESG matters and each subcommittee set forth goals for 2023. The disclosure below describes the goals of our ESG program to allow our stakeholders to be informed about our progress and future direction.

1. Environmental

Across our twenty-five offices, we strive to reduce our environmental footprint, operate more efficiently, and engage our personnel in social initiatives that directly impact their lives. To fulfill our aim of integrating environmental sustainability into everything we do, we have implemented numerous projects across our operations to limit our environmental impact, such as implementing paperless campaigns, the encouragement of recycling and elimination of paper products, the sourcing of office resources from sustainable sources, and the recycling of physical IT assets. In addition, we also strive to make operational decisions with attention to environmental impact and have LEED certified offices in the United States and maintain other energy certifications and maximization projects in our offices abroad.

As a software company, we were an early mover to transition from traditional on-premises software solutions to software-as-a-service and hybrid deployments. Not only does cloud computing help meet the needs of our customers, but it also has tremendous benefits to the environment, including greater energy efficiency, lower carbon emissions, and reduced carbon footprints. In furtherance of our goals to reduce unnecessary use, we review the data on the environmental impact of physical server providers and only use server providers who publish such data.

2. Social

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

Philanthropy

As a global organization, we strive to create pathways to success for individuals and communities through education. At the heart of our work—volunteering, partnerships, donations, and advocacy—is the vision of a world where everyone, no matter where they live, which resources they have, or what challenging circumstances they face, has a path to self-reliance and resilience. We empower our people to volunteer as individuals and as teams in support of community not-for-profit groups around the world. Our partners range from organizations that advance education for underrepresented minorities across our industry, to those that champion public policies aimed at fostering innovation and growth. In 2023, we continued our partnership with Girls Who Code, an organization that is committed to building the largest pipeline of future female engineers and has engaged over 500,000 girls, women, and nonbinary individuals through in-person programming. We also continued to work with Voices for Innovation, which enables us to champion policies that enable technology to address societal challenges, including protecting data privacy, strengthening cyber defenses, and ensuring people have affordable and accessible high speed internet.

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Allyship

Our organization is proud to employ talent from many different backgrounds, experiences, and identities. Diversity and inclusion drive our success and is at the core of how we hire, communicate and collaborate to deliver value and excellence. We are committed to fostering an environment where people can bring their whole selves to work and feel a sense of belonging. Through our employee resource groups, internal mobility opportunities across the countries in which we operate, and external partnerships with underrepresented minority networks, we continue to work toward creating a workforce that represents the diversity of our customers and communities. In 2023, through our IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Allyship) Committee, we continued to support the growth and impact our employee resource groups have in driving greater awareness and understanding within our company as well as make a positive impact in our local communities. We furthered our commitment to inclusion through initiatives such as providing a scholarship for an underrepresented student to pursue higher education at Virginia Commonwealth University, a minority-serving institution, leading philanthropic efforts to aid the National Center for Children and Families, and expanding our Women in Technology employee resource group globally to open new chapters in our EMEA and APAC offices.

Supporting Agents of Change: Our Talent

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

Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence

At AvePoint, we recognize that AI continues to rapidly transform the business landscape. As such, we are committed to the safe, ethical, and responsible use of AI both within our company and for the broader technology industry. We have implemented robust training, policies, and procedures to ensure our employees are educated on the responsible use of AI. Further demonstrating our commitment, AvePoint is a founding member of the AI Trust Foundation, a non-profit membership organization designed to be the leading voice for promoting beneficial AI through education and outreach at all levels of society. Through internal governance and external collaboration, we aim to set the standard for acceptable and responsible use of AI.

3. Corporate Governance

Social Responsibility Support from the Top

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

We are committed to managing our affairs consistent with the highest principles of business ethics and with the corporate governance requirements of both Nasdaq and applicable law. In keeping with these principles:

• A majority of our Board members are independent of AvePoint and its management;
• All members of our three Board committees—the Audit Committee, the Compensation Committee, and the Nominating and Governance Committee—are independent of AvePoint and its management;
• We have a transparent and publicly available Code of Ethics and Business Conduct that outlines our corporate policies to which all employees, officers and directors must adhere;
• We have a corporate compliance training program which requires and monitors trainings given on an annual basis; and
• The charters of our Board committees clearly establish their respective roles and responsibilities.

Management of Corporate Governance Resources

In 2023, we took significant steps to reinforce our commitment to corporate governance and ethical practices, aligning with our strategic priorities. We first undertook a comprehensive review of our corporate governance policies, ensuring they were in line with current industry standards and regulatory requirements. This thorough examination laid the groundwork for subsequent enhancements and developments.

One notable outcome of this review was the complete overhaul of our corporate governance site, a crucial resource for stakeholders seeking insight into the company’s policies and procedures. By making our extensive list of policies publicly available at a designated web address, https://ir.avepoint.com/governance/governance-documents/default.aspx, we demonstrated transparency and accountability, fostering trust and confidence among investors, customers, and the broader community.

In addition, we introduced several new policies aimed at addressing emerging issues and reflecting our values. These included a Gifting Policy, Global Human Rights Policy, Supplier Diversity Policy, Environmental Policy Statement, and a Compensation Recovery Policy. Each of these policies underscored our commitment to responsible business practices, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship.

In tandem with these policy developments, we updated our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct to incorporate additional key policies and mechanisms for reporting violations. This ensures that employees and other stakeholders are equipped with clear guidelines and avenues for addressing ethical concerns, thereby promoting integrity and accountability throughout the organization.

Recognizing the importance of ongoing education and awareness, we introduced a new training program focused on the giving and receiving of gifts and business courtesies. By providing employees with guidance on navigating potentially sensitive situations, the company aimed to mitigate risks and uphold its ethical standards in all business dealings. In addition, we prioritized accessibility and relevance in our corporate compliance trainings, revising and simplifying the content to make it more applicable to employees at all levels and the compliance issues they may encounter. This approach aimed to empower all employees to understand and adhere to company policies, furthering our goal of fostering a culture of compliance and ethical conduct across the organization.

Our initiatives in 2023 underscored our commitment to robust corporate governance, ethical business practices, and employee empowerment. By proactively reviewing, updating, and communicating its policies, the company demonstrated its dedication to transparency, accountability, and responsible stewardship in pursuit of its strategic objectives.

Earning the World’s Trust

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

Commitment to powering proactive data security programs

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

Aligning to clear privacy principles

We have a policy of transparency regarding our data collection, use, retention and sharing practices. It is our commitment to implement appropriate technical security measures to protect all AvePoint stakeholders and manage third party risk. We use this foundation and discipline to develop market-leading privacy and security products and deliver world class customer service. Our software, processes and services have obtained industry-leading security and privacy certifications.

We have obtained three ISO certifications that attest to our compliance with the highest standards of information security and privacy. These certifications are based on the ISO 27001, ISO 27017, and ISO 27701 standards, which cover the requirements for an information security management system (ISMS), cloud security, and privacy information management system (PIMS), respectively. Further attestations include SOC 2 Type II, compliance with HITRUST CSF v11.0.1., Information Security Registered Assessors (IRAP) Program, FedRAMP, and more.

Our achievement of these certifications and attestations showcases our dedication to protecting personal data and complying with privacy regulations. This certification solidifies our position as a trusted partner for organizations seeking robust privacy information management systems. By adopting ISO standards, we empower businesses to navigate privacy requirements across jurisdictions effectively, ensuring the security of sensitive information and fostering trust in the digital realm.

We also seek to align our supply chain to similar standards of privacy and security. To that end, we have implemented a rigorous program to assess the privacy and security policies and procedures of our own vendors and suppliers so that our stakeholders receive a consistent approach to privacy and security matters.

Advancing cybersecurity

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

Strengthening our offerings by first strengthening ourselves

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

Compliance with Material Government Regulations

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

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

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

The foregoing description does not include an exhaustive list of the laws and regulations governing or impacting our business. See the discussion contained in the “Risk Factors” section (Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report) for information regarding how actions by regulatory authorities or changes in legislation and regulation in the jurisdictions in which we operate may have a material adverse effect on our business.

Information About Our Executive Officers

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

Tianyi Jiang was appointed as our Chief Executive Officer and a director in July of 2021. Prior to that, Dr. Jiang served as our predecessor company’s Co-Chief Executive Officer alongside Mr. Gong from 2008 to 2021 and director from 2005 to 2021. Dr. Jiang holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in Data Mining from New York University, in addition to a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University.

Brian Michael Brown was appointed as our Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, Secretary of the Board and a director in July of 2021. Prior to that, Mr. Brown served as our predecessor company’s General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer from 2004 to 2021 and director from 2008 to 2021. Mr. Brown holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a Juris Doctor from Michigan State University.

James Caci was appointed as our Chief Financial Officer in August of 2021 and previously served as our predecessor company’s Chief Financial Officer from 2010 to 2013. From April 2020 to August of 2021, Mr. Caci held the position of Chief Financial Officer at Brand Value Accelerator, LLC, an industry leading digital commerce services firm. From March 2016 to April 2020, Mr. Caci served as the Chief Financial Officer of Nicopure Labs. Mr. Caci brings more than 25 years of experience leading the strategic finance operations at both public and privately held SaaS and IT service companies. Mr. Caci holds a bachelor’s degree from Montclair State University and is a certified public accountant.

Additional information regarding our Executive Officers is set forth in the Proxy Statement to be filed in connection with our 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders within 120 days after the end of the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023.

Corporate Information

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

“AvePoint,” the “A” logo, the “Pyramid” logo, “DocAve,” “MaivenPoint,” and all other names, logos, and icons identifying AvePoint and/or AvePoint’s products and services and our other registered and common law trade names, trademarks, and service marks are property of AvePoint, Inc. This Annual Report contains additional trade names, trademarks, and service marks of others, which are the property of their respective owners. Solely for convenience, trademarks and trade names referred to in this Annual Report may appear without the ® or ™ symbols but those references are not intended to indicate that AvePoint will not assert, to the fullest extent under the applicable law, our rights to these trademarks, service marks, and trade names.

Available Information

Our Internet address is https://www.avepoint.com/. At our Investor Relations website, https://ir.avepoint.com/, we make available free of charge a variety of information for investors. Our goal is to maintain the Investor Relations website as a portal through which investors can easily find or navigate to pertinent information about us, including, but not limited to:

• Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file that material with or furnish it to the SEC at www.sec.gov (http://www.sec.gov).
• Announcements of investor conferences, speeches, presentations, and events at which our executives discuss our products, services, competitive strategies, and other aspects of our business.
• Press releases on quarterly results, product and service announcements, legal developments, and national and international news.
• Corporate governance information including our articles of incorporation, bylaws, governance guidelines, committee charters, code of ethics and business conduct, whistleblower “open door” policy for reporting accounting and legal allegations, global corporate social responsibility initiatives, and other governance-related policies.
• Other news and announcements that we may post from time to time that investors might find useful or interesting, including news with respect to our business strategies, financial results, and metrics for investors.

In addition to these channels, we use social media to communicate to the public. It is possible that the information we post on social media could be deemed to be material to investors. We encourage investors, the media, and others interested in AvePoint to review the information we post on the social media channels listed on our Investor Relations website.

The information found on our main website or our Investor Relations website is not part of this or any other report we file with, or furnish to, the SEC, for the purposes of Section 18 of the Exchange Act or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section, nor shall it be deemed incorporated by reference in any filing under the Securities Act except as shall be expressly set forth by specific reference in such filing, and you should not consider any information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website as part of this Annual Report or in deciding whether to purchase our common stock.

2021 Consummation of the Apex Business Combination

AvePoint, Inc., incorporated as a New Jersey corporation on July 24, 2001 (“Legacy AvePoint”), was redomiciled as a Delaware corporation in 2006, and changed its name to “AvePoint Operations, Inc.” in June 2021. On July 1, 2021, Legacy AvePoint and certain members of Apex Technology Acquisition Corporation (“Apex”) consummated the transactions contemplated by a business combination agreement (the “Apex Business Combination”) and a number of qualified institutional buyers and accredited investors consummated their respective purchases of shares as contemplated by related subscription agreements, with Apex being renamed “AvePoint, Inc.” On July 2, 2021, shares of common stock were officially listed under the ticker “AVPT” on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Subsequent to the consummation of the Apex Business Combination, on July 26, 2021, Legacy AvePoint’s successor by merger AvePoint US LLC merged with and into AvePoint, Inc. with AvePoint surviving.

Certain factors may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. You should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, in addition to other information contained in this Annual Report, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties that we are unaware of, or that we currently believe are not material, may also become important factors that adversely affect our business. If any of the following risks actually occurs, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and future prospects could be materially and adversely affected. In that event, the trading price of our common stock could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Business

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Effectively recruit, integrate, train and motivate a large number of new employees, including our sales force, technical solutions professionals, customer success managers and engineers, while retaining existing employees, maintaining the beneficial aspects of our corporate culture and effectively executing our business plan;
• Attract new customers and retain and increase sales to existing customers;
• Maintain and expand our relationships with our partners, including effectively managing existing channel partnerships and cultivating new ones;
• Successfully implement our products and services, increase our existing customers’ use of our products and services, and provide our customers with excellent customer support and the ability of our partners to do the same;
• Develop our existing products and services and introduce new products or new functionality to our products and services;
• Expand into new market segments and internationally;
• Earn revenue share and customer referrals from our partner ecosystem;
• Improve our key business applications and processes to support our business needs;
• Enhance our internal controls to ensure timely and accurate reporting of all of our operations and financial results;
• Protect and further develop our strategic assets, including our intellectual property rights; and
• Make sound business decisions considering the scrutiny associated with operating as a public company.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Risks Related to Our Operations and Financial Condition

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

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

As our customer base continues to grow, we will need to expand our services and other personnel and maintain and enhance our partnerships to provide a high level of customer service.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Changes in a country’s or region’s political or economic conditions;
• Economic uncertainty around the world and adverse effects arising from economic interdependencies across countries and regions;
• The need to adapt and localize products and services for specific countries;
• Greater difficulty in receiving payments from different geographies, including difficulties associated with currency fluctuations, transfer of funds, longer payment cycles and collecting accounts receivable, especially in emerging markets;

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Our Chief Risk, Privacy and Information Security Officer (“CISO”) leads the company’s privacy, data protection and security program. An expert in cyber and data security trends, our CISO has over twenty years of experience in the data protection field, was a founding member of the Women Leading Privacy Advisory Board and former member of the Education Advisory Board for the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and in 2023, was named a finalist for the Women in IT Awards in the Security Leader of the Year category, included in the SIA Women in Security Power Forum 100 and named a Top Global CISO by Cyber Defense Magazine. In addition, our CISO oversees teams across the company supporting our security and privacy functions of identify, prevent, detect, respond, and recover. These teams are comprised of personnel with a broad range of experience across the private and public sectors, the technology industry, and different geographic regions. Our cybersecurity teams monitor the prevention, detection, mitigation, and remediation of cybersecurity incidents through a variety of technical and operational measures, and regularly report to our CISO. Our CISO reports directly to our Chief Executive Officer and is a member of the company’s senior management team, and is responsible for identifying, assessing, and managing material cybersecurity risks on an ongoing basis, establishing processes to ensure that such potential cybersecurity risk exposures are monitored, putting in place appropriate mitigation measures, and maintaining cybersecurity policies and procedures. Additionally, our CISO and Chief Compliance Officer regularly update our senior leadership team, our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, and the full Board, on the company’s privacy and cybersecurity program, including privacy and cybersecurity risks, incidents, and mitigation strategies.

Disclosure of the Board’s Roles and Responsibilities

Our Board of Directors oversees risks from cybersecurity threats using a multi-faceted approach that involves the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee and various executive roles. Additionally, our CISO and Chief Compliance Officer regularly report on cybersecurity matters to the Board, as discussed above.

Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee

Our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee oversees risks associated with data privacy and information security, which encompasses cybersecurity. Our CISO and Chief Compliance Officer, among other executives, provide periodic reports to our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee and also meet with our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee to discuss any material events when they arise. The periodic reports are designed to keep our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee abreast of the Company’s cybersecurity practices, as well as risks and trends in cybersecurity threats. Our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee also has discussions with management focused on evaluating our exposure to cybersecurity risks and cybersecurity practices in place to mitigate such risks. These discussions enable our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee to be informed of the steps management is taking to detect, monitor and manage cybersecurity risks. These reports to our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee typically include information on any incidents that have occurred, how they were managed, and any changes to the risk profile of the Company. Our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee seeks these updates to facilitate proactive governance and to address emerging cybersecurity issues with management.

In 2023, we did not identify any privacy or cybersecurity threats that materially affected or are reasonably likely to materially affect our business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition. However, despite our efforts, we cannot eliminate all risks from cybersecurity threats, or provide assurances that we have not experienced undetected cybersecurity incidents. For additional information about these risks, see Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Items 2, 3, and 4

We and our subsidiaries are obligated under various non-cancelable operating leases for office space. The initial terms of the leases expire on various dates through 2030. As of December 31, 2023, we had approximately 271,713 square feet of leased office space across the United States, Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

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

(Square feet in thousands)

Our Principal Offices

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

Use of Facilities

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

Additional Space

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

In the normal course of our business, we may be involved in various claims, negotiations, and legal actions. Except for such claims that arise in the normal course of business, as of and for the fiscal quarter and the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, we are not a party to any material asserted, ongoing, threatened, or pending claims, suits, assessments, proceedings, or other litigation.

45

Results of Operations

The below period-to-period comparison of operating results are not necessarily indicative of results for future periods.

Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2023, and December 31, 2022

Revenue

The components of AvePoint’s revenue during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

(in thousands, except percentages)

Total revenue increased 17.0% to $271.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 , primarily as a result of an increase in SaaS revenue. For the year ended December 31, 2023 , SaaS revenue increased 37.4% to $161.0 million, as we continued to see strong customer demand for this offering. The increase in SaaS revenue was partially offset by an expected decrease in both term license and support and maintenance revenue. Term license and support revenue is expected to continue declining as some existing customers are moving from on-prem term license subscriptions to SaaS subscriptions. Maintenance revenue is expected to continue declining as revenues from the sales of legacy perpetual licenses are immaterial. As a result, there will be limited opportunities to sell maintenance contracts to new customers. At the same time, some existing maintenance customers have transitioned and will continue to transition to SaaS and term licenses, which will continue the decline in maintenance revenue. Lastly, s ervices revenue is expected to fluctuate as the offerings are not inherently recurring in nature.

Revenue by geographic area during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 was as follows:

(in thousands, except percentages)

For the year ended December 31, 2023, North America revenues increased 16.1% to $118.5 million, driven by a 29.2%, or $15.9 million, increase in SaaS revenue and a $2.2 million combined increase in services revenue and term license and support revenue, partially offset by a $1.6 million decrease in maintenance revenue. EMEA revenues increased by 14.1% to $81.8 million, driven by a 43.7%, or $18.1 million, increase in SaaS revenue, partially offset by a $8.0 million combined decrease in term license and support, services and maintenance revenue. APAC revenues increased 22.0% to $71.6 million, driven by a 45.9%, or $9.7 million increase in SaaS revenue and a 20.9%, or $4.9 million, increase in services revenue, partially offset by a $1.7 million combined decrease in term license and support and maintenance revenue.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

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

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

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

Cost of Revenue, Gross Profit, and Gross Margin

Cost of revenue, gross profit, and gross margin during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

(in thousands, except percentages)

Cost of revenue increased 16.9% to $77.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, driven by a $6.6 million increase in aggregated hosting costs and a $4.1 million increase in personnel costs. Both hosting and personnel costs increased to support the larger number of AvePoint software licenses used by customers.

Operating Expenses

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

(in thousands, except percentages)

Sales and marketing expenses increased 1.3% to $112.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, primarily due to a $0.9 million increase in personnel costs and a $0.6 million increase in travel costs. The minimal increase in overall sales and marketing expenses reflects the Company’s enhanced focus on cost management as well as the continued scaling of the Company’s channel partner strategy.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

(in thousands, except percentages)

General and administrative expenses decreased 5.9% to $61.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2023. The decrease in overall general and administrative expenses reflects the Company’s enhanced focus on cost management.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

(in thousands, except percentages)

Research and development expenses increased 15.9% to $36.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, primarily driven by a $4.3 million increase in personnel costs, as the Company continues to invest in the development of new offerings and enhancements to existing offerings.

Income Tax Provision

Income tax provision during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 was as follows:

(in thousands, except percentages)

Income tax expense for the year ended December 31, 2023 was $2.9 million as compared to $5.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. The effective tax rate, which equals the income tax provision divided by pretax loss from continuing operations, was (15.5)% for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to (15.0)% for the year ended December 31, 2022. The change in effective tax rates for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022, was primarily due to the mix of pre-tax income (loss) results by jurisdictions taxed at different rates than 21%, a permanent item recorded for stock-based compensation and changes in the valuation allowance in the U.S. and certain foreign jurisdictions.

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

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

(in thousands, except percentages)

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

GAAP operating margin for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 was (5.6)% and (17.7)% respectively. Non-GAAP operating margin for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 was 8.1% and (1.2)%, respectively. The increase in non-GAAP operating margin was primarily attributable to the Company’s enhanced focus on expense management and continued scaling of the Company’s channel partner strategy.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

As of December 31, 2023, we had $223.2 million in cash and cash equivalents, $3.7 million in short-term investments and no outstanding debt.

Our short-term liquidity needs primarily include working capital for sales and marketing, research and development, and continued innovation. Our long-term capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our growth rate, levels of revenue, the expansion of sales and marketing activities, market acceptance of our platform, the results of business initiatives, and the timing of new product introductions. Refer to “Note 12 - Commitments and Contingencies” for more information regarding the purchase commitments.

On November 3, 2023, the Company entered into a new (i) Loan and Security Agreement (the “Loan Agreement”), (ii) a Pledge Agreement (the “Pledge Agreement”) and (iii) a Revolving Note (the “Revolving Note”) with HSBC Bank USA, National Association (“HSBC”), replacing the Company’s previous line of credit with HSBC Venture Bank USA, Inc.

The Loan Agreement provides for a revolving line of credit of up to $30.0 million, with an additional $20.0 million accordion feature for additional capital which the Company may draw upon at its request. Borrowings under the line bear interest at a rate equal to term SOFR plus 3.00% to 3.25% depending on the Consolidated Total Leverage Ratio (as defined in the Loan Agreement). The line carries an annual unused fee ranging from 0.50% to 0.55% depending on the Consolidated Total Leverage Ratio. The proceeds of borrowings under the Loan Agreement will be used for general corporate purposes. Currently, there is no outstanding balance under the revolving line of credit. The Company, on a consolidated basis with its subsidiaries, is required to maintain a minimum Consolidated Fixed Charge Coverage Ratio (as defined in the Loan Agreement) as well as a maximum Consolidated Total Leverage Ratio, tested by HSBC each quarter. Pursuant to the Loan Agreement, the Company pledged, assigned and granted HSBC a security interest in all shares of its subsidiaries, future proceeds, and assets as security for its obligations under the Loan Agreement. The line will mature on November 3, 2026.

As of December 31, 2023, the Company was compliant with all covenants and had no borrowings outstanding under the Loan Agreement.

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

Cash Flows

The following table sets forth a summary of our cash flows for the periods indicated.

(in thousands)

51

Operating Activities

Net cash provided by operating activities for the year ended December 31, 2023, was $34.7 million, reflecting our net loss of $21.5 million, adjusted for non-cash items of $58.6 million and net cash outflows of $2.4 million from changes in our operating assets and liabilities. The main considerations for non-cash items were stock-based compensation, which reflects ongoing compensation charges for the entity’s equity- and pre-merger liability-classified awards, operating lease right-of-use asset expense and mark to market adjustments on earnout and warrant liabilities. The main considerations of changes in operating assets and liabilities that resulted in cash outflows related to an increase in deferred contract costs and operating lease liabilities. This was partially offset by cash inflows related to an increase in deferred revenue that is partially offset by an increase in accounts receivable as a result of business growth.

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

Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2023, was $5.6 million, consisting of $2.1 million of purchases of property and equipment, as well as $2.6 million in maturities of short-term investments and $3.5 million in the purchase of investments.

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

Financing Activities

Net cash used in financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2023, was $33.7 million. The primary driver of cash flows from financing activities was due to $39.0 million in purchases of common stock, partially offset by $5.6 million of proceeds from the exercising of stock options.

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

Indebtedness

Credit Facility

We maintain a line of credit under the Loan Agreement with HSBC, as lender. See “Note 9 – Line of Credit” in Part II, Item 8 “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this Annual Report.

The Loan Agreement provides for a revolving line of credit of up to $30.0 million, with an additional $20.0 million accordion feature for additional capital we may draw upon at our request. Borrowings under the line bear interest at a rate equal to term SOFR plus 3.00% to 3.25% depending on the Consolidated Total Leverage Ratio. The line carries an unused fee ranging from 0.50% to 0.55% depending on the Consolidated Total Leverage Ratio. Any proceeds of borrowings under the Loan Agreement will be used for general corporate purposes.

On a consolidated basis with our subsidiaries, we are required to maintain a minimum Consolidated Fixed Charge Coverage Ratio as well as a maximum Consolidated Total Leverage Ratio, tested by HSBC each quarter. Pursuant to the Loan Agreement, we pledged, assigned, and granted HSBC a security interest in all shares of our subsidiaries, future proceeds, and certain assets as security for our obligations under the Loan Agreement. Our line of credit under the Loan Agreement will mature on November 3, 2026.

To date, we are in compliance with all covenants under the Loan Agreement. We have not at any time, including as of and for the fiscal year ending as of December 31, 2023, borrowed under the Loan Agreement. The description of the Loan Agreement is qualified in its entirety by the full text of such agreement, a copy of which is attached as an exhibit to this Annual Report.

Leasing Obligations

We are obligated under various non-cancelable operating leases for office space. The initial terms of the leases expire on various dates through 2030. During the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, total rent expense for facilities amounted to $6.8 million and $6.8 million, respectively. As of December 31, 2023, letters of credit have been issued in the amount of $1.0 million as security for operating leases. The letters of credit are secured by certificates of deposit.

Operating Segment Information

We operate in one segment. Our products and services are sold throughout the world, through direct and indirect sales channels. Our chief operating decision maker (the “CODM”) is our Chief Executive Officer. The CODM makes operating performance assessment and resource allocation decisions on a global basis. The CODM does not receive discrete financial information about asset allocation, expense allocation, or profitability by product or geography. See “Note 17 – Segment Information” (Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report) for more information.

Critical Accounting Estimates

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

While our significant accounting policies are described in more detail in the section titled “Note - 2 Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” (Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report), we believe the following critical accounting policies are most important to understanding and evaluating our reported financial results.

Revenue Recognition

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

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

Company Earn-Out Shares

In evaluation of the Company Earn-Out Shares and Company Earn-Out RSUs, management determined that the Company Earn-Out Shares represent derivatives to be marked to market at each reporting period, while the Company Earn-Out RSUs represent equity under ASC 718. Refer to "Note 15 — Stock-Based Compensation" for more information regarding the Company Earn-Out RSUs.

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

Economic Conditions, Challenges, and Risks

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

Our success is highly dependent on our ability to attract and retain qualified employees. We hire a mix of university and industry talent worldwide. We compete for talented individuals globally by offering an exceptional working environment, broad customer reach, scale in resources, the ability to grow one’s career across many different products and businesses, and competitive compensation and benefits.

Additionally, demand for our software and service is correlated to global macroeconomic and geopolitical factors, which remain dynamic and currently include multiple ongoing conflicts where the outcomes and consequences are not possible to predict, but could include regional instability and geopolitical shifts, and could materially adversely affect global trade, currency exchange rates, regional economies and the global economy. These in turn could increase our costs, disrupt our supply chain, reduce our sales and earnings, impair our ability to raise additional capital when needed on acceptable terms, if at all, or otherwise adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our international operations provide a significant portion of our total revenues and expenses. Many of these revenues and expenses are denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. As a result, changes in foreign exchange rates may significantly affect revenue and expenses. Refer to the section titled “Risk Factors” (Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report) for a discussion of these factors and other risks.

Seasonality

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

Recently Issued and Adopted Accounting Pronouncements

For information about recent accounting pronouncements, see Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements of this Annual Report.

Interest Rate Risk

We had cash and cash equivalents, marketable securities, and short-term deposits of $226.9 million as of December 31, 2023. We hold cash and cash equivalents, marketable securities, and short-term deposits for working capital purposes. Our cash and cash equivalents are held in cash deposits and money market funds. Due to the short-term nature of these instruments, we believe that it does not have any material exposure to changes in the fair value of our investment portfolio due to changes in interest rates. Declines in interest rates, however, would reduce our future interest income. The effect of a hypothetical 10% change in interest rates would not have a material negative impact on our consolidated financial statements. As of December 31, 2023, we had no outstanding obligations under our line of credit with HSBC under the Loan Agreement. To the extent we enter into other long-term debt arrangements in the future, we would be subject to fluctuations in interest rates which could have a material impact on our future financial condition and results of operation.

Foreign Currency Exchange Risk

Fluctuations in foreign currencies impact the amount of total assets and liabilities that we report for our foreign subsidiaries upon the translation of these amounts into U.S. Dollars. In particular, the amount of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities that we report in U.S. Dollars for a significant portion of the cash held by these subsidiaries is subject to translation variance caused by changes in foreign currency exchange rates as of the end of each respective reporting period, the offset to which is substantially recorded to accumulated other comprehensive income on our consolidated balance sheets and is also presented as a line item in its consolidated statements of comprehensive income.

If overall foreign currency exchange rates in comparison to the U.S. Dollar uniformly would have been weaker by 10% as of December 31, 2023, and December 31, 2022, the amount of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities AvePoint would have reported in U.S. Dollars would have decreased by approximately $3.4 million and $2.7 million, respectively, assuming constant foreign currency cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balances.

Concentration of Credit Risk

We deposit our cash with financial institutions, and, at times, such balances may exceed federally insured limits. Additionally, no customer accounted for more than 10% of billings for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, and no customers made up more than 10% of accounts receivable for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022.

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our Chief Executive Officer (in his capacity as “Principal Executive Officer”) and our Chief Financial Officer (in his capacity as “Principal Financial and Accounting Officer”), we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rule 13a-15(e) and Rule 15d-15(e)) under the Exchange Act, as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report. Based upon that evaluation, our Principal Executive Officer and Principal Financial and Accounting Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of December 31, 2023, due to the material weakness described below.

Notwithstanding such material weakness in internal control over financial reporting, our Principal Executive Officer and Principal Financial and Accounting Officer have concluded that our audited consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report present fairly, in all material respects, our financial position, results of operations, and cash flows for the periods presented in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”).

Previously Disclosed Material Weaknesses

During fiscal years 2021 and 2022, with the oversight of the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors, the Company began in 2021 implementing a remediation plan (the “Remediation Plan”), to address the material weaknesses identified in 2021 and remained as of December 31, 2022. The Remediation Plan coincided with and is incorporated into our overarching Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 compliance implementation plan, include, but are not limited to:

• the hiring of personnel with technical accounting and financial reporting experience to further enhance our ability to accurately and expediently respond to increased accounting and financial complexities, and to aid in further identification and oversight with respect to disclosure control activities in response;
• the engagement of external consultants in the assistance of the evaluation of complex accounting matters; and
• the establishment of formalized internal controls to review and maintain segregation of duties between appropriate control operators.

As a result of the above remediation efforts, we consider the following previously disclosed material weaknesses to be remediated as of December 31, 2023:

• the identification, review and accounting for nonroutine transactions and/or complex accounting transactions; and
• segregation of duties with respect to the processing of financial transactions.

Items 9A

Despite the progress discussed above, during 2022 and 2023 we were unable to remediate all of the material weaknesses that were identified in the prior year as our initial design of certain controls, particularly around ensuring accuracy and completeness of the information used in a control, upon testing were determined insufficient. Newly designed controls required additional time to demonstrate operating effectiveness.

While we believe that our efforts have improved our internal control over financial reporting and resulted in the remediation of certain of the material weaknesses identified as of December 31, 2022, remediation of the material weakness identified as of December 31, 2023 will require further validation and testing of the design and operating effectiveness of internal controls over a sustained period of financial reporting cycles.

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 Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) of the Exchange Act. Our system of internal control was designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes, in accordance with GAAP. Management conducted an assessment of the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on the criteria set forth in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (the “COSO framework”). Based on management’s assessment, our principal executive officer and principal financial and accounting officer concluded that the Company did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023, due to the material weakness described below.

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 a company’s annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.

The Company has identified deficiencies in a principle associated with the control activities component of the COSO framework. These control deficiencies constitute a material weakness in the aggregate, related to selecting and developing control activities that contribute to the mitigation of risks and support the achievement of objectives. Specifically, the Company did not design and implement control activities to address the accuracy and completeness of certain information that is relevant for control owners to perform their control activities over financial accounting, reporting and disclosures.

The Company’s independent registered public accounting firm, Deloitte & Touche LLP, who audited the consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K issued an adverse opinion on the effectiveness of the Company's internal control over financial reporting. Deloitte & Touche LLP’s report appears on page 109 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Items 9A

2024 Remediation Plan

Our management has been and continues to be committed to remediating this material weakness and has identified and implemented several steps to enhance our internal controls over financial reporting. We have implemented a remediation plan (the “2024 Remediation Plan”), which includes actions not limited to:

• enhance the design of controls that address the accuracy and completeness of reports being utilized in the execution of internal controls; and
• establishing additional training related to address the accuracy and completeness of data used controls and the level of documentation required to evidence control activities.

We have implemented documented policies and procedures for, and are in the process of testing the implementation and operating effectiveness of, the newly designed controls. The material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting will not be considered remediated until the newly designed controls operate for a sufficient period of time. In addition, we may discover additional material weaknesses that require additional time and resources to remediate, and we may decide to take additional measures to address the material weaknesses or modify the remediation steps described above.

Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

Other than described above, there have been no changes in our internal control over financial reporting during the quarter ended December 31, 2023, that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

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Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

To the shareholders and the Board of Directors of AvePoint, Inc and its subsidiaries

Opinion on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

We have audited the internal control over financial reporting of AvePoint, Inc. and subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2023, based on criteria established in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). In our opinion, because of the effect of the material weakness identified below on the achievement of the objectives of the control criteria, the Company has not maintained effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023, based on criteria established in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013) issued by COSO.

We have also audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2023, of the Company and our report dated February 29, 2024, expressed an unqualified opinion on those financial statements.

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.

Material Weakness

A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the company’s annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. The following material weakness has been identified and included in management's assessment:

The Company has identified deficiencies in a principle associated with the control activities component of the COSO Framework. These control deficiencies constitute a material weakness in the aggregate related to selecting and developing control activities that contribute to the mitigation of risks and support the achievement of objectives. Specifically, the Company did not design and implement control activities to address the accuracy and completeness of certain information that is relevant for control owners to perform their control activities over financial accounting, reporting and disclosures.

This material weakness was considered in determining the nature, timing, and extent of audit tests applied in our audit of the consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2023, of the Company, and this report does not affect our report on such financial statements.

/s/ Deloitte & Touche LLP

New York, New York

February 29, 2024

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