UNITED STATES  

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

Form 10-K

 

(Mark One)

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016

OR

For transition period from                     to                    

Commission File Number: 001-36089

 

RingCentral, Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

20 Davis Drive

Belmont, California 94002

(Address of principal executive offices)

(650) 472-4100

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

Securities registered pursuant to section 12(g) of the Act:

None

 

Indicate by a check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405 of this chapter)  is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of Registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

 

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ☐    No   ☒

The aggregate market value of voting stock held by non-affiliates of the Registrant on June 30, 2016, based on the closing price of $19.72 for shares of the Registrant’s common stock as reported by the New York Stock Exchange, was approximately $1.2 billion. Shares of common stock held by each executive officer, director, and their affiliated holders have been excluded in that such persons may be deemed to be affiliates. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.

As of February 23, 2017, there were 61,436,671 shares of Class A common stock and 13,089,918 shares of Class B common stock outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Information required in response to Part III of Form 10-K (Items 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14) is hereby incorporated by reference to portions of the Registrant’s Proxy Statement for the Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be held in 2017. Such Proxy Statement will be filed by the Registrant with the Securities and Exchange Commission no later than 120 days after the end of the Registrant’s fiscal year ended December 31, 2016.

 

 

 

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

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PART I.

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements that are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts and can be identified by terms such as “anticipates”, “believes”, “could”, “seeks”, “estimates”, “expects”, “intends”, “may”, “plans”, “potential”, “predicts”, “projects”, “should”, “will”, “would” or similar expressions and the negatives of those terms. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about:

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Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be significantly different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. We discuss these risks in greater detail in the section entitled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Also, forward-looking statements represent our management’s beliefs and assumptions only as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. You should read this Annual Report on Form 10-K completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be significantly different from what we expect.

Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ significantly from those anticipated in these forward looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

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Overview

We are a leading provider of software-as-a-service, or SaaS, solutions for businesses to support modern communications for their increasingly mobile and distributed workforces. We believe that our innovative, cloud-based approach disrupts the large market for business communications solutions by providing flexible and cost-effective solutions that support distributed workforces, mobile employees and the proliferation of smart phones and tablets. We enable convenient and effective communications for our customers, across all their locations, all their employees, all the time, thus enabling a more productive and dynamic workforce.

Traditionally, business communications is comprised of a series of inflexible, expensive, and disparate systems: on-premise hardware based private branch exchanges, or PBX systems, which are still prevalent in businesses today. The emergence of the cloud and the SaaS business model, combined with the proliferation of smart phones and tablets as well as the corresponding new paradigms in user experiences, is enabling a revolution in how people communicate. We believe RingCentral is poised to benefit from this industry shift. RingCentral’s software cloud communications platform is designed from the ground-up, specifically for today’s dispersed and mobile workforce. We unify the way employees communicate through mobile and desktop devices, text messaging, audio, video and web conferencing as well as collaborating on projects with document sharing and team messaging from a single, easy-to-use carrier-grade SaaS platform. Further, through our development of application programming interfaces (API’s), we enable integration of our platform with other cloud solutions to provide many off-the-shelf integrations to help today’s workforce be more productive.

We primarily generate revenues from software subscriptions for our cloud-based services. We focus on acquiring and retaining our customers and increasing their spending with us through adding additional users, upselling current customers to premium subscription editions, and providing additional features and functionality. We market and sell our subscriptions directly, through both our website and inside sales teams, as well as indirectly through a network of over 4,000 sales agents and resellers who are active in selling our solutions and with whom we have direct relationships, including AT&T, which we refer to collectively as resellers.  Our network of resellers includes master agents who manage other sales agents and resellers, resulting in an even larger reseller network.  In addition, TELUS Communications Company, or TELUS, is a reseller of our cloud solutions in Canada and British Telecom, or BT, is a reseller of our cloud solutions in the United Kingdom (U.K.).  

Our Solutions

Our cloud-based business communications solutions provide a single user identity across multiple locations and devices, including smartphones, tablets, PCs and desk phones, and allow for communication across multiple modes, including HD voice, video, SMS, messaging and collaboration, conferencing, online meetings, and fax. Our proprietary solutions enable a more productive and dynamic workforce, and are architected using industry standards to meet modern business communications requirements, including workforce mobility, “bring-your-own” communications device environments and multiple communications methods.

Our solutions are delivered using a highly available and scalable infrastructure, and are generally designed for easy self-service activation, provisioning and management with minimal technical expertise or training required. Our solutions scale easily and rapidly, allowing our customers to add new users regardless of where they are located. They are generally affordable, requiring little to no upfront infrastructure hardware costs or ongoing maintenance and upgrade costs commonly associated with on-premise systems and can be integrated with other existing communication systems. RingCentral Office, our flagship offering, is a multi-tenant, multi-location, enterprise-grade communications solution. We also offer RingCentral Professional, primarily an inbound call routing subscription with additional text and fax capabilities targeting smaller deployments; RingCentral Fax, an Internet fax subscription that permits sending and receiving faxes over the Internet; RingCentral Contact Center, an integrated and automated communications solution that improves communications between business and its customers; and RingCentral Glip, a team messaging and collaboration tool that allows teams to share tasks, files, and more.

We believe that our solutions go beyond the core functionality of existing on-premise communications solutions by providing additional key benefits that address the changing requirements of business to allow business communications using voice, SMS, team messaging, collaboration, fax and HD video web conferencing. The key benefits of our solutions include:

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Our Products

We currently offer five products: RingCentral Office, RingCentral Professional, RingCentral Fax, RingCentral Contact Center, and RingCentral Glip.

 

RingCentral Office.    RingCentral Office, our flagship product, is a multi-location, multi-user, enterprise-grade communications solution that enables employees to communicate via different channels and on multiple devices. This subscription is designed primarily for businesses that require a communications solution, regardless of location, type of device, expertise, size, or budget. Businesses are able to seamlessly connect users working in multiple office locations on smartphones, tablets, PCs and desk phones. We sell RingCentral Office in three editions: Standard, Premium, and Enterprise. Our Standard Edition of RingCentral Office includes call management, mobile applications, voice, business SMS, team messaging and collaboration, business analytics and reporting, audio, video, web conferencing capabilities, and out-of-the-box integrations with other cloud-based business applications such as Box, Dropbox, Google for Work, Office365, and Outlook. Our Premium and Enterprise Editions include the Standard Edition functionality together with additional software integrations with business applications such as Salesforce CRM, Zendesk, and Desk.com, the ability to create, develop and deploy custom applications using our Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), high-definition voice, more advanced call routing for our larger customers with multiple business units, and automatic call recording. All editions also vary in the number of included toll-free minutes and number of concurrent video and web conference meeting attendees. RingCentral Office customers also have available to them RingCentral Global Office.

Key features of RingCentral Office include:

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RingCentral Professional.    Our RingCentral Professional solution provides a subset of our RingCentral Office solution capabilities designed primarily for smaller businesses. RingCentral Professional is principally used as an inbound call routing subscription with text and fax capabilities.

RingCentral Fax.    Our RingCentral Fax solution provides Internet fax capabilities that allow businesses to send and receive fax documents without the need for a fax machine.

RingCentral Contact Center.    Our RingCentral Contact Center solution provides a cloud based contact center solution that delivers omni-channel capabilities so businesses can allow customers to engage in the manner they prefer. The solution leverages technology from inContact, Inc., and has a comprehensive feature set that integrates with RingCentral Office. This enables businesses to build customer loyalty and increase productivity by resolving customer issues faster and more effectively.

RingCentral Glip.    Our RingCentral Glip team messaging and collaboration solution allows diverse teams to stay connected through multiple modes of communication through an integration with RingCentral Office. In addition to using Glip for team messaging and communications, teams can share tasks, notes, group calendars, and files. Glip is designed for distributed and mobile teams and offers out-of-the-box integrations with a number of leading cloud business applications such as Asana, Dropbox, Evernote, JIRA, Github, Google, and others.  

Our Customers

We have a diverse and growing customer base across a wide range of industries, including advertising, financial services, healthcare, legal services, non-profit organizations, real estate, retail, technology, insurance, education, waste management, construction, security services, restaurant, software, solar, automotive dealership, managed care, and publishing. For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014, AT&T, one of our resellers, accounted for 14%, 13%, and 12% of our total revenues and 13%, 12%, and 11% of our software subscription revenues, respectively. Prior to 2014, we focused our principal efforts on the market for small- and medium-sized businesses, defined by IDC as less than 1,000 employees, in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. In 2014, we began targeting larger customers through our product development and marketing, and sales and support teams, and in 2015, we began selling to enterprise customers. We believe that there are additional growth opportunities in international markets.

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Marketing, Sales and Support

We use a variety of marketing, sales and support activities to generate and cultivate ongoing customer demand for our subscriptions, acquire new customers, and engage with our existing customers. We sell through both direct and indirect channels. We provide on-boarding implementation support to help our customers set up and configure their newly purchased communications system, as well as ongoing self-service, phone support, online chat support, and training. We also closely track and monitor customer acquisition costs to assess how we are deploying our marketing, sales, and customer support spending.

Research and Development

We believe that continued investment in research and development is critical to expanding our leadership position within the cloud-based business communications solutions market. We devote the majority of our research and development resources to software development. Our engineering team has significant experience in various disciplines related to our platform, such as voice, text, team messaging and collaboration, video and fax processing, mobile application development, IP networking and infrastructure, user experience, security, and robust multi-tenant cloud-based system architecture.

Our development methodology, in combination with our SaaS delivery model, allows us to provide new and enhanced capabilities on a regular basis. Based on feedback from our customers and prospects and our review of the broader business communications and SaaS markets, we continuously develop new functionality while maintaining and enhancing our existing solution.

Our research and development expenses were $65.5 million, $52.9 million, and $44.6 million in fiscal years 2016, 2015, and 2014, respectively.

Technology and Operations

Our platform is built on a highly scalable and flexible infrastructure comprised of commercially available hardware and software components. We believe that both hardware and software components of our platform can be replaced, upgraded or added with minimal or no interruption in service. The system is designed to have no single point-of-failure.

We host our products and serve our customers in North America from two third-party U.S. based data center facilities in San Jose, California and Vienna, Virginia, and we host our products and serve our customers in the United Kingdom from two third-party data center facilities in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Zurich, Switzerland.  As a part of our global expansion strategy, we use third-party data center facilities in the U.K., Singapore and Australia, and we plan to add third-party data center facilities in Canada, Brazil, and Japan by the end of 2017, to facilitate local media processing in these regions.  Our data centers are designed to host mission-critical computer and communications systems with redundant, fault-tolerant subsystems and compartmentalized security zones. We maintain a security program designed to ensure the security and integrity of customer data, protect against security threats or data breaches, and prevent unauthorized access to our customers’ data. We limit access to on-demand servers and networks at our production and remote backup facilities.

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We serve North American customers out of two Points of Presence, known as POPs, one in San Jose, California and the other in Vienna, Virginia. RingCentral subscribers are divided into Parts of Data, or PODs, each comprised of two symmetrical, synchronized units. POPs and PODs are redundant with switchover and failover capabilities between POPs. In addition to the symmetric PODs and POPs, we have also deployed POPs in the U.K., Singapore, and Australia, and we plan to deploy POPs in Canada, Brazil, and Japan by the end of 2017, which serve as an extension of our architecture to help facilitate local media processing for global customers while maintaining core services and data in our POPs in North America and Europe.  This architecture enables us to deliver our subscriptions in a scalable and reliable manner. We can manage our customer growth by adding additional PODs and POPs into our delivery infrastructure as required. We leverage third-party network service providers, including Level 3 Communications, Inc. (pending acquisition by CenturyLink, Inc. announced in October 2016), Bandwidth.com, Inc., Novatel Wireless, Inc. and AT&T Inc., for network connectivity. We also obtain connectivity and network services in certain regions from our subsidiary, RCLEC, Inc.

Intellectual Property

We rely on a combination of patent, copyright, and trade secret laws in the U.S. and other jurisdictions, as well as license agreements and other contractual protections, to protect our proprietary technology. We also rely on a number of registered and unregistered trademarks to protect our brand. In addition, we seek to protect our intellectual property rights by implementing a policy that requires our employees and independent contractors involved in the development of intellectual property on our behalf to enter into agreements acknowledging that all works or other intellectual property generated or conceived by them on our behalf are our property, and assigning to us any rights, including intellectual property rights, that they may claim or otherwise have in those works or property, to the extent allowable under applicable law.

Our intellectual property portfolio includes 106 issued U.S. patents, which expire between 2026 and 2035. We also have 54 patent applications pending for examination in the U.S. and 20 patent applications pending for examination in foreign jurisdictions, all of which are related to U.S. applications. In general our patents and patent applications apply to certain aspects of our SaaS and mobile applications and underlying communications infrastructure. We are also a party to various license agreements with third parties that typically grant us the right to use certain third-party technology in conjunction with our products and software subscriptions.

Competition

The market for business communications solutions is very large, rapidly evolving, complex, fragmented and defined by changing technology, and customer needs. We expect competition to continue to increase in the future. We believe that the principal competitive factors in our market include:

We believe that we generally compete favorably on the basis of the factors listed above.

We face competition from a broad range of providers of business communications solutions. Some of these competitors include:

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Employees and Contractors

As of December 31, 2016, we had 1,037 full-time employees, including 262 in research and development, 479 in sales and marketing, 67 in operations, 83 in customer support, and 146 in general and administrative. As of such date, we had 830 employees located in the U.S. and 207 internationally, including 158 in China. None of our employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. We believe that our employee relations are good and we have never experienced any work stoppages.

 

We also contract with third-party contractors whose employees or subcontractors’ employees perform services for us. We refer to our third-party contractors’ employees and subcontractors’ employees as our contractors. As of December 31, 2016, we had 1,546 of these contractors, including 429 in research and development, 421 in sales and marketing, 86 in operations, 478 in customer support, and 132 in general and administrative. As of such date, we had 63 contractors located in the U.S. and 1,483 internationally, including 937 in the Philippines, 544 in Russia and Ukraine, and 2 in other countries.

Regulatory

As a provider of Internet communications services, we are subject to regulation in the U.S. by the FCC. Some of these regulatory obligations include contributing to the Federal Universal Service Fund, Telecommunications Relay Service Fund, and federal programs related to phone number administration; providing access to E-911 services; protecting customer information; and porting phone numbers upon a valid customer request. We are also required to pay state and local 911 fees and contribute to state universal service funds in those states that assess Internet voice communications services. In addition, we have certified a wholly owned subsidiary as a competitive local exchange carrier in eighteen states and currently intend to obtain certificates for our subsidiary in several additional states. This subsidiary, RCLEC, is subject to the same FCC regulations applicable to telecommunications companies, as well as regulation by the public utility commissions in states where the subsidiary provides services. Specific regulations vary on a state-by-state basis, but generally include the requirement for our subsidiary to register or seek certification to provide its services, to file and update tariffs setting forth the terms, conditions and prices for our intrastate services and to comply with various reporting, record-keeping, surcharge collection, and consumer protection requirements.

As we expand internationally, we will be subject to laws and regulations in the countries in which we offer our subscriptions. Regulatory treatment of Internet communications services outside the U.S. varies from country to country, is often unclear, and may be more onerous than imposed on our subscriptions in the U.S. In the United Kingdom, for example, our subscriptions are regulated by Ofcom, which, among other things, requires electronic communications providers such as our company to provide all users access to both 112 (EU-mandated) and 999 (U.K.-mandated) emergency service numbers at no charge. Similarly in Canada, our subscriptions are regulated by the CRTC, which, among other things, imposes requirements similar to the U.S. related to the provision of E-911 services in all areas of Canada where the wireline incumbent carrier offers such 911 services. Our regulatory obligations in foreign jurisdictions could have a material adverse effect on the use of our subscriptions in international locations. See the section entitled “Risk Factors” for more information.

Geographic Information

For a description of our revenue by geographic location, see Note 13 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements under Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Available Information

Our principal executive offices are located at 20 Davis Drive, Belmont, CA 94002. The telephone number of our principal executive offices is (888) 528-7464, and our main corporate website is www.ringcentral.com. Information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website, does not constitute part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and inclusion of our website address in this Annual Report on Form 10-K is an inactive textual reference only.

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We make available our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or Section 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, free of charge on our website, www.ringcentral.com as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC. Additionally, copies of materials filed by us with the SEC may be accessed at the SEC's Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549 or at the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. For information about the SEC's Public Reference Room, contact 1-800-SEC-0330.

The Company announces material information to the public about the Company, its products and services and other matters through a variety of means, including the Company’s website (www.ringcentral.com), the investor relations section of its website (ir.ringcentral.com), press releases, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and public conference calls, in order to achieve broad, non-exclusionary distribution of information to the public. The Company encourages investors and others to review the information it makes public in these locations, as such information could be deemed to be material information. Please note that this list may be updated from time to time.

 

 

This Report contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth below. The risks and uncertainties described in this Report are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe are immaterial may also affect our business. If any of these known or unknown risks or uncertainties actually occurs and have a material adverse effect on us, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be seriously harmed.

Risks Related to Our Business and Our Industry

We have incurred significant losses and negative cash flows in the past and anticipate continuing to incur losses for at least the foreseeable future, and we may therefore not be able to achieve or sustain profitability in the future.

We have incurred substantial net losses since our inception, including net losses of $29.3 million for fiscal 2016, $32.1 million for fiscal 2015, and $48.3 million for fiscal 2014, and had an accumulated deficit of $239.5 million as of December 31, 2016. Over the past few years, we have spent considerable amounts of time and money to develop new business communications solutions and enhanced versions of our existing business communications solutions to position us for future growth. Additionally, we have incurred substantial losses and expended significant resources upfront to market, promote and sell our solutions and expect to continue to do so in the future. We also expect to continue to invest for future growth, including for advertising, customer acquisition, technology infrastructure, storage capacity, services development and international expansion. In addition, as a public company, we incur significant accounting, legal, and other expenses.

Although our net losses have decreased in recent years, we expect to continue to incur losses for at least the foreseeable future and will have to generate and sustain increased revenues to achieve future profitability. Achieving profitability will require us to increase revenues, manage our cost structure, and avoid significant liabilities. Revenue growth may slow, revenues may decline, or we may incur significant losses in the future for a number of possible reasons, including general macroeconomic conditions, increasing competition (including competitive pricing pressures), a decrease in the growth of the markets in which we compete, in particular the SaaS market, or if we fail for any reason to continue to capitalize on growth opportunities. Additionally, we may encounter unforeseen operating expenses, difficulties, complications, delays, service delivery, and quality problems and other unknown factors that may result in losses in future periods. If these losses exceed our expectations or our revenue growth expectations are not met in future periods, our financial performance will be harmed and our stock price could be volatile or decline.

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Our relatively limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our current business and future prospects, which may increase the risk of investing in our stock.

Although we were incorporated in 1999, we did not formally introduce RingCentral Office, our current flagship product, until 2009. We have encountered and expect to continue to encounter risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing markets. If our assumptions regarding these uncertainties are incorrect or change in reaction to changes in our markets, or if we do not manage or address these risks successfully, our results of operations could differ materially from our expectations, and our business could suffer. Any success that we may experience in the future will depend, in large part, on our ability to, among other things:

Our quarterly and annual results of operations have fluctuated in the past and may continue to do so in the future. As a result, we may fail to meet or to exceed the expectations of research analysts or investors, which could cause our stock price to fluctuate.

Our quarterly and annual results of operations have varied historically from period to period, and we expect that they will continue to fluctuate due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control, including:

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Any one of the factors above, or the cumulative effect of some or all of the factors referred to above, may result in significant fluctuations in our quarterly and annual results of operations. This variability and unpredictability could result in our failure to meet our publicly announced guidance or the expectations of securities analysts or investors for any period, which could cause our stock price to decline. In addition, a significant percentage of our operating expenses is fixed in nature and is based on forecasted revenues trends. Accordingly, in the event of revenue shortfalls, we may not be able to mitigate the negative impact on net income (loss) and margins in the short term. If we fail to meet or exceed the expectations of research analysts or investors, the market price of our shares could fall substantially, and we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class-action suits.

We face intense competition in our markets and may lack sufficient financial or other resources to compete successfully.

The cloud-based business communications industry is competitive, and we expect competition to increase in the future. We face intense competition from other providers of business communications systems and solutions. Our competitors include traditional on-premise, hardware business communications providers such as Alcatel-Lucent, S.A., Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Mitel Networks Corporation, ShoreTel, Inc., Siemens Enterprise Networks, LLC, their resellers and others; as well as companies such as Broadsoft, Inc. and their resellers that license their software. In addition, certain of our resellers are also our competitors.  AT&T, BT, and TELUS, for example, each serve as resellers to us but they are also competitors for business communications. These companies have significantly greater resources than us and currently, or may in the future, develop and/or host their own or other solutions through the cloud. Such competitors may cease reselling our solutions to their customers and ultimately be able to transition some or all of those customers onto their competing solutions, which could materially and adversely affect our revenues and growth.  In this regard, in August 2016, AT&T announced its launch of a competing hosted business communications solution.  In recent months, new subscriptions for our solution by AT&T have declined and could continue to decline or cease altogether in the current fiscal year or future periods. In addition, AT&T may transition some or all of its existing customers from our solution.  We also face competition from other cloud companies such as 8x8, Inc., DialPad, Inc., Fuze (formerly Thinking Phone Networks), Intermedia.net, Inc., j2 Global, Inc., Jive Communications, Inc., Microsoft Corporation (Skype for Business), Nextiva, Inc., Vonage Holdings Corp., and West Corporation as well as from established communications providers, such as AT&T, Verizon Communications Inc., and Comcast Corporation in the United States, TELUS and others in Canada, and BT, Vodafone, and others in the U.K., that resell on-premise hardware, software and hosted solutions, and they may develop and/or host their own solutions. We may also face competition from other large Internet companies, such as Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., and Oracle, any of which might launch its own cloud-based business communications services or acquire other cloud-based business communications companies in the future.  In addition, in 2016 we began selling a contact center solution.  We face competition with respect to this solution from contact center providers such as Aspect Software, Inc., Avaya, Inc., Five9, Inc., Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, Inc., and NewVoiceMedia.

Many of our current and potential competitors have longer operating histories, significantly greater resources and name recognition, more diversified product offerings, and larger customer bases than we have. As a result, these competitors may have greater credibility with our existing and potential customers and may be better able to withstand an extended period of downward pricing pressure. In addition, certain of our competitors have partnered with, or been acquired by, and may in the future partner with or acquire, other competitors to offer services, leveraging their collective competitive positions, which makes it more difficult to compete with them and could significantly and adversely affect our results of operations. They also may be able to adopt more aggressive pricing policies and devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their services than we can to ours. Some of these service providers have in the past and may choose in the future to sacrifice revenues in order to gain market share by offering their services at lower prices or for free. Our competitors may also offer bundled service arrangements offering a more complete service offering, despite the technical merits or advantages of our subscriptions. Competition could force us to decrease our prices, slow our growth, increase our customer turnover, reduce our sales, or decrease our market share. The adverse impact of a shortfall in our revenues may be magnified if we are unable to adjust spending adequately to compensate for such shortfall.

To deliver our subscriptions, we rely on third parties for our network connectivity and co-location facilities, and for certain of the features in our subscriptions.

We currently use the infrastructure of third-party network service providers and, in particular, the services of Level 3 Communications, Inc. (pending its acquisition by CenturyLink, Inc. announced in October 2016) and Bandwidth.com, Inc., to deliver our subscriptions over their networks. Our third-party network service providers provide access to their Internet protocol, or IP, networks, and public switched telephone networks, or PSTN, and provide call termination and origination services, including 911 emergency calling in the U.S. and equivalent services in Canada and the U.K., and local number portability for our customers. We expect that we will continue to rely heavily on third-party network service providers to provide these subscriptions for the foreseeable future. We also obtain certain connectivity and network services from our wholly owned subsidiary, RCLEC, Inc., or RCLEC, in certain geographic markets; however

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RCLEC also uses the infrastructure of third-party network service providers to deliver its services. Historically, our reliance on third-party networks has reduced our operating flexibility and ability to make timely service changes and control quality of service, and we expect that this will continue for the foreseeable future. If any of these network service providers stop providing us with access to their infrastructure, fail to provide these services to us on a cost-effective basis, cease operations, or otherwise terminate these services, the delay caused by qualifying and switching to another third-party network service provider, if one is available, could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

In addition, we currently use and may in the future use third-party service providers to deliver certain features of our subscriptions. For example, we rely on Free Conference Call Global, LLC for some conference calling features, Zoom Video Communications for our HD video and web conferencing and screen sharing features, Layered Communications for our texting capabilities, and inContact, Inc. (acquired by NICE, Ltd.) for our contact center capabilities. We do not, and may not in the future, have long-term contracts with certain of these third-party providers, including Zoom Video Communications and Layered Communications. If any of these service providers elects to stop providing us with access to their services, fails to provide these services to us on a cost-effective basis, ceases operations, or otherwise terminates these services, the delay caused by qualifying and switching to another third-party service provider, if one is available, or building a proprietary replacement solution could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

Finally, if problems occur with any of these third-party network or service providers, it may cause errors or poor call quality in our subscriptions, and we could encounter difficulty identifying the source of the problem. The occurrence of errors or poor call quality in our subscriptions, whether caused by our systems or a third-party network or service provider, may result in the loss of our existing customers, delay or loss of market acceptance of our subscriptions, termination of our relationships and agreements with our resellers or liability for failure to meet service level agreements, and may seriously harm our business and results of operations.

Interruptions or delays in service from our third-party data center hosting facilities and co-location facilities could impair the delivery of our subscriptions, require us to issue credits or pay penalties and harm our business.

We currently serve our North American customers from two data center hosting facilities located in northern California and northern Virginia, where we lease space from Equinix, Inc. and we also serve our customers in the U.K. and other European countries from two third-party data center hosting facilities in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Zurich, Switzerland.  We also use third-party co-location facilities in the U.K., Australia, and Singapore, and we plan to add third-party co-location facilities in Canada, Brazil, and Japan by the end of 2017, to serve our customers in these regions. In addition, RCLEC uses seven third-party co-location facilities to provide us with network services, and we expect RCLEC to use additional third-party co-location facilities in the future. Any damage to, or failure of, these facilities, the communications network providers with whom we or they contract, or with the systems by which our communications providers allocate capacity among their customers, including us, could result in interruptions in our services. Additionally, in connection with the expansion or consolidation of our existing data center facilities, we may move or transfer our data and our customers’ data to other data centers. Despite precautions that we take during this process, any unsuccessful data transfers may impair or cause disruptions in the delivery of our subscriptions. Interruptions in our subscriptions may reduce our revenues, may require us to issue credits or pay penalties, subject us to claims and litigation, cause customers to terminate their subscriptions and adversely affect our renewal rates and our ability to attract new customers. Our ability to attract and retain customers depends on our ability to provide customers with a highly reliable subscription and even minor interruptions in our subscriptions could harm our brand and reputation and have a material adverse effect on our business.

As part of our current disaster recovery arrangements, our North American infrastructure and all of our North American customers’ data is currently replicated in near real-time at our two data center facilities in the U.S., and our European production environment and all of our U.K. and other European customers’ data is also currently replicated in near real-time at our two European data center facilities. We do not control the operation of these facilities or of our other data center facilities or RCLEC’s co-location facilities, and they are vulnerable to damage or interruption from earthquakes, floods, fires, power loss, telecommunications failures, and similar events. They may also be subject to human error or to break-ins, sabotage, acts of vandalism, and similar misconduct. Despite precautions taken at these facilities, the occurrence of a natural disaster, human error, or an act of terrorism or other unanticipated problems at these facilities could result in lengthy interruptions in our subscriptions. Even with the disaster recovery arrangements in place, our subscriptions could be interrupted.

We may also be required to transfer our servers to new data center facilities in the event that we are unable to renew our leases on acceptable terms, if at all, or the owners of the facilities decide to close their facilities, and we may incur significant costs and possible subscription interruption in connection with doing so. In addition, any financial difficulties, such as bankruptcy or foreclosure, faced by our third-party data center operators, or any of the service providers with which we or they contract may have negative effects on our business, the nature and extent of which are difficult to predict. Additionally, if our data centers are unable to keep up with our increasing needs for capacity, our ability to grow our business could be materially and adversely impacted.

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Failures in Internet infrastructure or interference with broadband access could cause current or potential users to believe that our systems are unreliable, possibly leading our customers to switch to our competitors or to avoid using our subscriptions.

Unlike traditional communications services, our subscriptions depend on our customers’ high-speed broadband access to the Internet, usually provided through a cable or digital subscriber line, or DSL, connection. Increasing numbers of users and increasing bandwidth requirements may degrade the performance of our subscriptions and applications due to capacity constraints and other Internet infrastructure limitations. As our customer base grows and their usage of communications capacity increases, we will be required to make additional investments in network capacity to maintain adequate data transmission speeds, the availability of which may be limited, or the cost of which may be on terms unacceptable to us. If adequate capacity is not available to us as our customers’ usage increases, our network may be unable to achieve or maintain sufficiently high data transmission capacity, reliability or performance. In addition, if Internet service providers and other third parties providing Internet services have outages or deteriorations in their quality of service, our customers will not have access to our subscriptions or may experience a decrease in the quality of our subscriptions. Furthermore, as the rate of adoption of new technologies increases, the networks on which our subscriptions and applications rely may not be able to sufficiently adapt to the increased demand for these services, including ours. Frequent or persistent interruptions could cause current or potential users to believe that our systems or subscriptions are unreliable, leading them to switch to our competitors or to avoid our subscriptions, and could permanently harm our reputation and brands.

In addition, users who access our subscriptions and applications through mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, must have a high-speed connection, such as Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G or LTE, to use our subscriptions and applications. Currently, this access is provided by companies that have significant and increasing market power in the broadband and Internet access marketplace, including incumbent phone companies, cable companies, and wireless companies. Some of these providers offer products and subscriptions that directly compete with our own offerings, which can potentially give them a competitive advantage. Also, these providers could take measures that degrade, disrupt or increase the cost of user access to third-party services, including our subscriptions, by restricting or prohibiting the use of their infrastructure to support or facilitate third-party services or by charging increased fees to third parties or the users of third-party services, any of which would make our subscriptions less attractive to users, and reduce our revenues.

On March 12, 2015, the FCC released an order reclassifying both wired and wireless broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service, subject to certain provisions of Title II of the Communications Act, including most significantly prohibiting unjust or unreasonable practices or discrimination but not regulating rates. The new rules, which went into effect on June 12, 2015, specifically prohibit broadband providers from blocking access to legal content, applications, services or non-harmful devices; impairing or degrading lawful Internet traffic on the basis of content, application, services, or non-harmful devices; and engaging in the practice of paid prioritization, e.g., the favoring of some lawful Internet traffic over other traffic in exchange for higher payments. A number of companies and trade associations filed legal appeals seeking to overturn the new rules. On June 14, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (DC Circuit) issued a 2-1 decision upholding the FCC’s order.  On July 29, 2016, a number of telecommunications companies and trade associations asked the full DC Circuit to rehear the case.  In addition, the new chairman of the FCC has repeatedly stated his opposition to the reclassification of broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service. We cannot predict whether the new rules will be overturned or vacated by legal action of the court or FCC. If so, broadband internet access providers may be able to charge web-based services such as ours for priority access to customers, which could result in increased costs and a loss of existing users, impair our ability to attract new users, and materially and adversely affect our business and opportunities for growth.

Most of our customers may terminate their subscriptions for our service at any time without penalty, and increased customer turnover, or costs we incur to retain our customers and encourage them to add users and, in the future, to purchase additional functionalities and premium subscription editions, could materially and adversely affect our financial performance.

Although we have recently begun to enter into long-term contracts with larger customers, our customers generally do not have long-term contracts with us and these customers may terminate their subscriptions at any time without penalty or early termination charges. We cannot accurately predict the rate of customer terminations or average monthly subscription cancellations or failures to renew, which we refer to as turnover. Our customers with subscription agreements have no obligation to renew their subscriptions for our service after the expiration of their initial subscription period, which is typically between one and three years. In the event that these customers do renew their subscriptions, they may choose to renew for fewer users, shorter contract lengths, or for a less expensive subscription plan or edition. We cannot predict the renewal rates for customers that have entered into subscription contracts with us.

Customer turnover, as well as reductions in the number of users for which a customer subscribes, each could have a significant impact on our results of operations, as does the cost we incur in our efforts to retain our customers and encourage them to upgrade their subscriptions and increase their number of users. Our turnover rate could increase in the future if customers are not satisfied with our subscriptions, the value proposition of our subscriptions or our ability to otherwise meet their needs and expectations. Turnover and reductions in the number of users for whom a customer subscribes may also increase due to factors beyond our control, including the failure or unwillingness of customers to pay their monthly subscription fees due to financial constraints and the impact of a

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slowing economy. Due to turnover and reductions in the number of users for whom a customer subscribes, we have to acquire new customers, or acquire new users within our existing customer base, on an ongoing basis simply to maintain our existing level of customers and revenues. If a significant number of customers terminate, reduce, or fail to renew their subscriptions, we may be required to incur significantly higher marketing expenditures than we currently anticipate in order to increase the number of new customers or to upsell existing customers, and such additional marketing expenditures could harm our business and results of operations.

Our future success also depends in part on our ability to sell additional subscriptions and additional functionalities to our current customers. This may require increasingly sophisticated and more costly sales efforts and a longer sales cycle. Any increase in the costs necessary to upgrade, expand and retain existing customers could materially and adversely affect our financial performance. If our efforts to convince customers to add users and, in the future, to purchase additional functionalities are not successful, our business may suffer. In addition, such increased costs could cause us to increase our subscription rates, which could increase our turnover rate.

If we are unable to attract new customers to our subscriptions or upsell to those customers on a cost-effective basis, our business will be materially and adversely affected.

In order to grow our business, we must continue to attract new customers and expand the number of users in, and services provided to, our existing customer base on a cost-effective basis. We use and periodically adjust the mix of advertising and marketing programs to promote our subscriptions. Significant increases in the pricing of one or more of our advertising channels would increase our advertising costs or may cause us to choose less expensive and perhaps less effective channels to promote our subscriptions. As we add to or change the mix of our advertising and marketing strategies, we may need to expand into channels with significantly higher costs than our current programs, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations. We will incur advertising and marketing expenses in advance of when we anticipate recognizing any revenues generated by such expenses, and we may fail to otherwise experience an increase in revenues or brand awareness as a result of such expenditures. We have made in the past, and may make in the future, significant expenditures and investments in new advertising campaigns, and we cannot assure you that any such investments will lead to the cost-effective acquisition of additional customers. If we are unable to maintain effective advertising programs, our ability to attract new customers could be materially and adversely affected, our advertising and marketing expenses could increase substantially, and our results of operations may suffer.

Some of our potential customers learn about us through leading search engines, such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. While we employ search engine optimization and search engine marketing strategies, our ability to maintain and increase the number of visitors directed to our website is not entirely within our control. If search engine companies modify their search algorithms in a manner that reduces the prominence of our listing, or if our competitors’ search engine optimization efforts are more successful than ours, or if search engine companies restrict or prohibit us from using their services, fewer potential customers may click through to our website. In addition, the cost of purchased listings has increased in the past and may increase in the future. A decrease in website traffic or an increase in search costs could materially and adversely affect our customer acquisition efforts and our results of operations.

Most of our revenues today come from small and medium-sized businesses, which may have fewer financial resources to weather an economic downturn.

Most of our revenues today come from small and medium-sized businesses. These customers may be materially and adversely affected by economic downturns to a greater extent than larger, more established businesses. These businesses typically have more limited financial resources, including capital-borrowing capacity, than larger entities. As the majority of our customers pay for our subscriptions through credit and debit cards, weakness in certain segments of the credit markets and in the U.S. and global economies has resulted in and may in the future result in increased numbers of rejected credit and debit card payments, which could materially affect our business by increasing customer cancellations and impacting our ability to engage new small and medium-sized customers. If small and medium-sized businesses experience financial hardship as a result of a weak economy, industry consolidation or for any other reason, the overall demand for our subscriptions could be materially and adversely affected.

We face significant risks in our strategy to target medium-sized and larger businesses for sales of our subscriptions and, if we do not manage these efforts effectively, our business and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Sales to medium-sized and larger businesses continue to grow in both absolute dollars and as a percentage of our total sales. As we continue to target more of our sales efforts to medium-sized and larger businesses, we expect to incur higher costs and longer sales cycles and we may be less effective at predicting when we will complete these sales. In these market segments, the decision to purchase our subscriptions generally requires the approval of more technical personnel and management levels within a potential customer’s organization, and therefore, these types of sales require us to invest more time educating these potential customers about the benefits of our subscriptions. In addition, larger customers may demand more features, integration services, and customization. Our investment in marketing our subscriptions to these potential customers may not be successful, which could significantly and adversely affect our results of operations and our overall ability to grow our customer base. We also have only limited experience in

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developing and managing sales channels and distribution arrangements for larger businesses. Furthermore, many medium-sized and larger businesses that we target for sales may already purchase business communications and solutions from our larger competitors. As a result of these factors, these sales opportunities may require us to devote greater research and development resources and sales, support to individual customers, resulting in increased costs and could likely lengthen our typical sales cycle, which could strain our limited sales and support resources. Moreover, these larger transactions may require us to delay recognizing the associated revenues we derive from these customers until any technical or implementation requirements have been met. Furthermore, as we have limited experience selling to larger businesses, our investment in marketing our subscriptions to these potential customers may not be successful, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations and our overall ability to grow our customer base.

We rely significantly on a network of resellers to sell our subscriptions; our failure to effectively develop, manage, and maintain our indirect sales channels could materially and adversely affect our revenues.

Our future success depends on our continued ability to establish and maintain a network of channel relationships, and we expect that we will need to expand our network in order to support and expand our historical base of smaller enterprises as well as attract and support larger customers and expand into international markets. An increasing portion of our revenues are derived from our network of sales agents and resellers, which we refer to collectively as resellers, many of which sell or may in the future decide to sell their own services or services from other business communications providers.  We generally do not have long-term contracts with these resellers, and the loss of or reduction in sales through these third parties could materially reduce our revenues. Our competitors may in some cases be effective in causing our current or potential resellers to favor their services or prevent or reduce sales of our subscriptions.  Furthermore, while AT&T, BT and TELUS serve as resellers to us, they are also competitors for business communications. These companies have significantly greater resources than us and currently, or may in the future, develop and/or host their own or other solutions through the cloud.  Such competitors may cease reselling our solutions to their customers and ultimately be able to transition some or all of those customers onto their competing solutions, which could materially and adversely affect our revenues and growth.  In this regard, in August 2016, AT&T announced its launch of a competing hosted business communications solution.  In recent months, new subscriptions for our solution by AT&T have declined and could continue to decline or cease altogether in the current fiscal year or future periods. In addition, AT&T may transition some or all of its existing customers from our solution.  If we fail to maintain relationships with our resellers, fail to develop relationships with new resellers in new markets or expand the number of resellers in our network in existing markets, or if we fail to manage, train, or provide appropriate incentives to our existing resellers, or if our resellers are not successful in their sales efforts, sales of our subscriptions may decrease and our operating results would suffer. If we are unable to maintain our relationships with AT&T, BT or TELUS, or if these resellers reduce resources committed to reselling the service, our results of operations may suffer.

Recruiting and retaining qualified resellers in our network and training them in our technology and subscription offerings requires significant time and resources. To develop and expand our indirect sales channels, we must continue to scale and improve our processes and procedures to support these channels, including investment in systems and training. Many resellers may not be willing to invest the time and resources required to train their staff to effectively market our subscriptions.

Support for smartphones and tablets are an integral part of our solutions. If we are unable to develop robust mobile applications that operate on mobile platforms that our customers use, our business and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Our solutions allow our customers to use and manage our cloud-based business communications solution on smart devices. As new smart devices and operating systems are released, we may encounter difficulties supporting these devices and services, and we may need to devote significant resources to the creation, support, and maintenance of our mobile applications. In addition, if we experience difficulties in the future integrating our mobile applications into smart devices or if problems arise with our relationships with providers of mobile operating systems, such as those of Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc. (the parent company of Google Inc.), our future growth and our results of operations could suffer.

If we are unable to develop, license, or acquire new services or applications on a timely and cost-effective basis, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

The cloud-based business communications industry is an emerging market that is characterized by rapid changes in customer requirements, frequent introductions of new and enhanced services, and continuing and rapid technological advancement. We cannot predict the effect of technological changes on our business. To compete successfully in this emerging market, we must anticipate and adapt to technological changes and evolving industry standards, and continue to design, develop, manufacture, and sell new and enhanced services that provide increasingly higher levels of performance and reliability at lower cost. Currently, we derive a majority of our revenues from subscriptions to RingCentral Office, and we expect this will continue for the foreseeable future. However, our future success will also depend on our ability to introduce and sell new services, features, and functionality that enhance or are beyond the voice, fax, and text communications subscriptions we currently offer, as well as to improve usability and support and increase customer satisfaction. Our failure to develop solutions that satisfy customer preferences in a timely and cost-effective manner may

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harm our ability to renew our subscriptions with existing customers and create or increase demand for our subscriptions, and may materially and adversely impact our results of operations.

The introduction of new services by competitors or the development of entirely new technologies to replace existing offerings could make our solutions obsolete or adversely affect our business and results of operations. Announcements of future releases and new services and technologies by our competitors or us could cause customers to defer purchases of our existing subscriptions, which also could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. We may experience difficulties with software development, operations, design, or marketing that could delay or prevent our development, introduction, or implementation of new or enhanced services and applications. We have in the past experienced delays in the planned release dates of new features and upgrades, and have discovered defects in new services and applications after their introduction. We cannot assure you that new features or upgrades will be released according to schedule, or that, when released, they will not contain defects. Either of these situations could result in adverse publicity, loss of revenues, delay in market acceptance, or claims by customers brought against us, all of which could harm our reputation, business, results of operations, and financial condition. Moreover, the development of new or enhanced services or applications may require substantial investment, and we must continue to invest a significant amount of resources in our research and development efforts to develop these services and applications to remain competitive. We do not know whether these investments will be successful. If customers do not widely adopt any new or enhanced services and applications, we may not be able to realize a return on our investment. If we are unable to develop, license, or acquire new or enhanced services and applications on a timely and cost-effective basis, or if such new or enhanced services and applications do not achieve market acceptance, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

A cyber attack, information security breach or denial of service could delay or interrupt service to our customers, harm our reputation, or subject us to significant liability.

Our operations depend on our ability to protect our production services from interruption or damage from unauthorized entry, computer viruses or other events beyond our control. We have from time to time been subject to communications fraud and cyber-attacks by malicious actors, and denial of service, or DoS, and we may be subject to similar attacks in the future. We cannot assure you that our backup systems, regular data backups, security protocols and other procedures currently in place, or that may be in place in the future, will be adequate to prevent significant damage, system failure, or data loss. Also, our subscriptions are web-based, the amount of data we store for our users on our servers has been increasing as our business has grown, we now host services, which includes hosting customer data, both in co-located data centers and public cloud services such as AWS, and our RingCentral Glip product allows users to store files and conversations indefinitely on our service.  As a result of maintaining larger volumes of data and user files and/or as a result of our continued move upmarket and acquisition of larger and more recognized customers, RingCentral may become a more attractive target for hackers and other malicious actors. In addition, we use third-party vendors which in some cases have access to our data and our customers’ data. Despite the implementation of security measures by us or our vendors, our computing devices, infrastructure or networks, or our vendors’ computing devices, infrastructure or networks may be vulnerable to hackers, computer viruses, worms, other malicious software programs or similar disruptive problems that are caused by or through our or our vendors, customers, employees, business partners, consultants or other Internet users who attempt to invade our or our vendors’ public and private computers, tablets, mobile devices, software, data networks, or voice networks. Further, in some cases we do not have in place disaster recovery facilities for certain ancillary services, such as email delivery of messages. We rely on encryption and authentication technology to ensure secure transmission of and access to confidential information, including customer credit card numbers, debit card numbers, direct debit information, customer communications, and files uploaded by our customers. Advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries in the field of cryptography, discovery of software bugs, social engineering activities, or other developments may result in a compromise or breach of the technology we use to protect RingCentral and customer data, or of the data itself.

Additionally, third parties have attempted in the past, and may attempt in the future, to fraudulently induce domestic and international employees, consultants, or customers into disclosing sensitive information, such as user names, passwords or customer proprietary network information, or CPNI, or other information in order to gain access to our customers’ user accounts or data, or to our data. CPNI includes information such as the phone numbers called by a consumer, the frequency, duration, and timing of such calls, and any services purchased by the consumer, such as call waiting, call forwarding, and caller ID, in addition to other information that may appear on a consumer’s bill. Third parties may also attempt to induce employees, consultants, or customers into disclosing sensitive information regarding our intellectual property and other confidential business information, our customers or customer information, or our information technology systems. In addition, the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, to perform hacking, phishing and social engineering, or to sabotage systems, change and evolve frequently and may not be recognized until launched against a target.  We may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. Any system failure or security breach that causes interruptions or data loss in our operations or in the computer systems of our customers or leads to the misappropriation of our or our customers’ confidential or personal information, or CPNI, could result in significant liability to us, cause our subscriptions to be perceived as not being secure, cause considerable harm to us and our reputation (including requiring notification to customers, regulators or the media), and deter current and potential customers from using our subscriptions. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

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We also maintain sensitive data related to our employees, strategic partners, and customers including intellectual property, proprietary business information and personally identifiable information on our own systems. We employ layered security measures; however, we may face threats and security incidents across our infrastructure including unauthorized access, security breaches, and other system disruptions.

It is critical to our business that our employees’, strategic partners’ and customers’ sensitive information remains secure and that our customers perceive that this information is secure. An information security incident could result in unauthorized access to, loss of, or unauthorized disclosure of such information. A cybersecurity breach could expose us to litigation, indemnity obligations, government investigations and other possible liabilities. Additionally, a cyber attack or other information security incident, whether actual or perceived, could result in negative publicity which could harm our reputation and reduce our customers’ confidence in the effectiveness of our solutions, which could materially and adversely affect our business and operating results. A breach of our security systems could also expose us to increased costs including remediation costs, disruption of operations, or increased cybersecurity protection costs that may have a material adverse effect on our business. In addition, a cybersecurity breach of our customers’ systems can also result in exposure of their authentication credentials, unauthorized access to their accounts, exposure of their account information (including CPNI), and fraudulent calls on their accounts, which can subsequently have similar actual or perceived impacts to RingCentral as described above.

We rely on third parties, including third parties outside the U.S., for some of our software development, quality assurance, operations, and customer support.

We currently depend on various third parties for some of our software development efforts, quality assurance, operations, and customer support services. Specifically, we outsource some of our software development and design, quality assurance, and operations activities to third-party contractors that have employees and consultants located in St. Petersburg, Russia, Odessa, Ukraine, and Manila, the Philippines. In addition, we outsource a portion of our customer support, inside sales and network operation control functions to third-party contractors located in Manila, the Philippines. Our dependence on third-party contractors creates a number of risks, in particular, the risk that we may not maintain service quality, control or effective management with respect to these business operations. In addition, the political and military events in the Ukraine over the last few years, including political demonstrations, the annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine by Russia, the hostile relations between Russia and the Ukraine, and disruptions caused by pro-Russian separatists in the Ukraine, could have an adverse impact on our third-party software development and quality assurance operations in Odessa, Ukraine. Further, the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Russia and sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union, or EU, against Russia could adversely impact our third-party software development and quality assurance operations in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Our agreements with these third-party contractors are either not terminable by them (other than at the end of the term or upon an uncured breach by us) or require at least 60 days’ prior written notice of termination. If we experience problems with our third-party contractors, the costs charged by our third-party contractors increase or our agreements with our third-party contractors are terminated, we may not be able to develop new solutions, enhance or operate existing solutions, or provide customer support in an alternate manner that is equally or more efficient and cost-effective.

We anticipate that we will continue to depend on these and other third-party relationships in order to grow our business for the foreseeable future. If we are unsuccessful in maintaining existing and, if needed, establishing new relationships with third parties, our ability to efficiently operate existing services or develop new services and provide adequate customer support could be impaired, and, as a result, our competitive position or our results of operations could suffer.

Growth may place significant demands on our management and our infrastructure.

We have recently experienced substantial growth in our business. This growth has placed and may continue to place significant demands on our management and our operational and financial infrastructure. As our operations grow in size, scope, and complexity, we will need to increase our sales and marketing efforts and add additional sales and marketing personnel in various regions worldwide, and improve and upgrade our systems and infrastructure to attract, service, and retain an increasing number of customers. For example, we expect the volume of simultaneous calls to increase significantly as our customer base grows. Our network hardware and software may not be able to accommodate this additional simultaneous call volume. The expansion of our systems and infrastructure will require us to commit substantial financial, operational, and technical resources in advance of an increase in the volume of business, with no assurance that the volume of business will increase. Any such additional capital investments will increase our cost base. Continued growth could also strain our ability to maintain reliable service levels for our customers and resellers, develop and improve our operational, financial and management controls, enhance our billing and reporting systems and procedures and recruit, train and retain highly skilled personnel. If we fail to achieve the necessary level of efficiency in our organization as we grow, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.

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Accusations of infringement of third-party intellectual property rights could materially and adversely affect our business.

There has been substantial litigation in the areas in which we operate regarding intellectual property rights. For instance, we have in the past been sued by other third parties claiming infringement of their intellectual property rights and we may be sued for infringement from time to time in the future. In the past, we have settled infringement litigation brought against us; however, we cannot assure you that we will be able to settle any future claims or, if we are able to settle any such claims, that the settlement will be on terms favorable to us. Our broad range of technology may increase the likelihood that third parties will claim that we infringe their intellectual property rights.

We have in the past received, and may in the future receive, notices of claims of infringement, misappropriation or misuse of other parties’ proprietary rights. Furthermore, regardless of their merits, accusations and lawsuits like these may require significant time and expense to defend, may negatively affect customer relationships, may divert management’s attention away from other aspects of our operations and, upon resolution, may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and cash flows.

Certain technology necessary for us to provide our subscriptions may, in fact, be patented by other parties either now or in the future. If such technology were validly patented by another person, we would have to negotiate a license for the use of that technology. We may not be able to negotiate such a license at a price that is acceptable to us or at all. The existence of such a patent, or our inability to negotiate a license for any such technology on acceptable terms, could force us to cease using the technology and cease offering subscriptions incorporating the technology, which could materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

If we were found to be infringing on the intellectual property rights of any third-party, we could be subject to liability for such infringement, which could be material. We could also be prohibited from using or selling certain subscriptions, prohibited from using certain processes, or required to redesign certain subscriptions, each of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

These and other outcomes may:

Our limited ability to protect our intellectual property rights could materially and adversely affect our business.

We rely, in part, on patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret law to protect our intellectual property in the U.S. and abroad. We seek to protect our technology, software, documentation and other information under trade secret and copyright law, which afford only limited protection. For example, we typically enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, third-party contractors, customers, and vendors in an effort to control access to use and distribution of our technology, software, documentation, and other information. These agreements may not effectively prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of confidential information and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of such unauthorized use or disclosure, and it may be possible for a third-party to legally reverse engineer, copy or otherwise obtain and use our technology without authorization. In addition, improper disclosure of trade secret information by our current or former employees, consultants, third-party contractors, customers, or vendors to the public or others who could make use of the trade secret information would likely preclude that information from being protected as a trade secret.

We also rely, in part, on patent law to protect our intellectual property in the U.S. and internationally. Our intellectual property portfolio includes 106 issued U.S. patents, which expire between 2026 and 2035. We also have 54 patent applications pending examination in the U.S., and 20 patent applications pending examination in foreign jurisdictions all of which are related to U.S.

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applications. We cannot predict whether such pending patent applications will result in issued patents or whether any issued patents will effectively protect our intellectual property. Even if a pending patent application results in an issued patent, the patent may be circumvented or its validity may be challenged in various proceedings in United States District Court or before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, such as Post Grant Review or Inter Partes Review, which may require legal representation and involve substantial costs and diversion of management time and resources. In addition, we cannot assure you that every significant feature of our solutions is protected by our patents, or that we will mark our products with any or all patents they embody. As a result, we may be prevented from seeking injunctive relief or damages, in whole or in part for infringement of our patents.

The unlicensed use of our brand, including domain names, by third parties could harm our reputation, cause confusion among our customers and impair our ability to market our products and subscriptions. To that end, we have registered numerous trademarks and service marks and have applied for registration of additional trademarks and service marks and have acquired a large number of domain names in and outside the U.S. to establish and protect our brand names as part of our intellectual property strategy. If our applications receive objections or are successfully opposed by third parties, it will be difficult for us to prevent third parties from using our brand without our permission. Moreover, successful opposition to our applications might encourage third parties to make additional oppositions or commence trademark infringement proceedings against us, which could be costly and time consuming to defend against. If we are not successful in protecting our trademarks, our trademark rights may be diluted and subject to challenge or invalidation, which could materially and adversely affect our brand.

Despite our efforts to implement our intellectual property strategy, we may not be able to protect or enforce our proprietary rights in the U.S. or internationally (where effective intellectual property protection may be unavailable or limited). For example, we have entered into agreements containing confidentiality and invention assignment provisions in connection with the outsourcing of certain software development and quality assurance activities to third-party contractors located in St. Petersburg, Russia and Odessa, Ukraine. We have also entered into an agreement containing a confidentiality provision with a third-party contractor located in Manila, the Philippines, where we have outsourced a significant portion of our customer support function. We cannot assure you that agreements with these third-party contractors or their agreements with their employees and contractors will adequately protect our proprietary rights in the applicable jurisdictions and foreign countries, as their respective laws may not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the U.S. In addition, our competitors may independently develop technologies that are similar or superior to our technology, duplicate our technology in a manner that does not infringe our intellectual property rights or design around any of our patents. Furthermore, detecting and policing unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and resource-intensive. Moreover, litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights, to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others, or to defend against claims of infringement or invalidity. Such litigation, whether successful or not, could result in substantial costs and diversion of management time and resources and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our success depends on the public acceptance of our products and applications.

Our future success depends on our ability to significantly increase revenues generated from our cloud-based business communications solutions. The market for cloud-based business communications is evolving rapidly and is characterized by an increasing number of market entrants. As is typical of a rapidly evolving industry, the demand for, and market acceptance of, these applications is uncertain. If the market for cloud-based business communications fails to develop, develops more slowly than we anticipate, or develops in a manner different than we expect, our products could fail to achieve market acceptance, which in turn could materially and adversely affect our business.

Our growth depends on the continued use of voice communications by businesses, as compared to email and other data-based methods. A decline in the overall rate of voice communications by businesses would harm our business. Furthermore, our continued growth depends on future demand for and adoption of Internet voice communications systems and services. Although the number of broadband subscribers worldwide has grown significantly in recent years, a small percentage of businesses have adopted Internet voice communications services to date. For demand and adoption of Internet voice communications services by businesses to increase, Internet voice communications networks must improve the quality of their service for real-time communications by managing the effects of and reducing packet loss, packet delay and packet jitter, as well as unreliable bandwidth, so that toll-quality service can be consistently provided. Additionally, the cost and feature benefits of Internet voice communications must be sufficient to cause customers to switch from traditional phone service providers. We must devote substantial resources to educate customers and their end users about the benefits of Internet voice communications solutions, in general, and our subscriptions in particular. If any or all of these factors fail to occur, our business may be materially and adversely affected.

Interruptions in our services caused by undetected errors, failures or bugs in our subscriptions could harm our reputation, result in significant costs to us, and impair our ability to sell our subscriptions.

Due to the fact our subscriptions are complex and we have incorporated a variety of new computer hardware, as well as software that is developed in-house or licensed or acquired from third-party vendors, our subscriptions may have errors or defects that customers

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identify after they begin using them that could result in unanticipated interruptions of service. Internet-based services frequently contain undetected errors and bugs when first introduced or when new versions or enhancements are released. While the substantial majority of our customers are small and medium-sized businesses, the use of our subscriptions in complicated, large-scale network environments may increase our exposure to undetected errors, failures, or bugs in our subscriptions. Although we test our subscriptions to detect and correct errors and defects before their general release, we have from time to time experienced significant interruptions in our subscriptions as a result of such errors or defects and may experience future interruptions of service if we fail to detect and correct these errors and defects. The costs incurred in correcting such defects or errors may be substantial and could harm our results of operations. In addition, we rely on hardware purchased or leased and software licensed from third parties to offer our subscriptions.

Any defects in, or unavailability of, our or third-party software or hardware that cause interruptions of our subscriptions could, among other things:

If we fail to continue to develop our brand or our reputation is harmed, our business may suffer.

We believe that continuing to strengthen our current brand will be critical to achieving widespread acceptance of our subscriptions and will require continued focus on active marketing efforts. The demand for and cost of online and traditional advertising have been increasing and may continue to increase. Accordingly, we may need to increase our investment in, and devote greater resources to, advertising, marketing, and other efforts to create and maintain brand loyalty among users. Brand promotion activities may not yield increased revenues, and even if they do, any increased revenues may not offset the expenses incurred in building our brand. If we fail to promote and maintain our brand, or if we incur substantial expense in an unsuccessful attempt to promote and maintain our brands, our business could be materially and adversely affected.

Our services, as well as those of our competitors, are regularly reviewed and commented upon by online and social media sources, as well as computer and other business publications. Negative reviews, or reviews in which our competitors’ products and services are rated more highly than our software solutions, could negatively affect our brand and reputation. From time to time, our customers have expressed dissatisfaction with our services, including dissatisfaction with our customer support, our billing policies and the way our subscriptions operate. If we do not handle customer complaints effectively, our brand and reputation may suffer, we may lose our customers’ confidence, and they may choose to terminate, reduce or not to renew their subscriptions. In addition, many of our customers participate in social media and online blogs about Internet-based software solutions, including our subscriptions, and our success depends in part on our ability to minimize negative and generate positive customer feedback through such online channels where existing and potential customers seek and share information. If actions we take or changes we make to our subscriptions upset these customers, their blogging could negatively affect our brand and reputation. Complaints or negative publicity about our subscriptions or customer service could materially and adversely impact our ability to attract and retain customers and our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we experience excessive fraudulent activity or cannot meet evolving credit card association merchant standards, we could incur substantial costs and lose the right to accept credit cards for payment, which could cause our customer base to decline significantly.

Most of our customers authorize us to bill their credit card accounts directly for service fees that we charge. If people pay for our subscriptions with stolen credit cards, we could incur substantial third-party vendor costs for which we may not be reimbursed. Further, our customers provide us with credit card billing information online or over the phone, and we do not review the physical credit cards used in these transactions, which increases our risk of exposure to fraudulent activity. We also incur charges, which we refer to as chargebacks, from the credit card companies from claims that the customer did not authorize the credit card transaction to purchase our subscription. If the number of chargebacks becomes excessive, we could be assessed substantial fines or be charged higher transaction fees, and we could lose the right to accept credit cards for payment. In addition, credit card issuers may change merchant standards, including data protection and documentation standards, required to utilize their services from time to time. We are compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI DSS, in the United States and Canada and intend to become PCI DSS-compliant in the U.K. If we fail to maintain compliance with current merchant standards, such as PCI, or fail to meet new

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standards, the credit card associations could fine us or terminate their agreements with us, and we would be unable to accept credit cards as payment for our subscriptions. If such a failure to comply with relevant standards occurs, we may also face legal liability if we are found to not comply with applicable laws that incorporate, by reference or by adoption of substantially similar provisions, merchant standards, including PCI DSS. Our subscriptions may also be subject to fraudulent usage, including but not limited to revenue share fraud, domestic traffic pumping, subscription fraud, premium text message scams, and other fraudulent schemes. Although our customers are required to set passwords and personal identification numbers, or PINs, to protect their accounts and may configure in which destinations international calling is enabled from their extensions, third parties have in the past and may in the future be able to access and use their accounts through fraudulent means. This usage can result in, among other things, substantial bills to our vendors, for which we would be responsible, for terminating fraudulent call traffic. In addition, third parties may have attempted in the past, and may attempt in the future, to fraudulently induce domestic and international employees or consultants into disclosing customer credentials and other account information. Communications fraud can result in unauthorized access to customer accounts and customer data, unauthorized use of customers’ services, charges to customers for fraudulent usage and expense that we must pay to carriers. We may be required to pay for these charges and expenses with no reimbursement from the customer, and our reputation may be harmed if our subscriptions are subject to fraudulent usage. Although we implement multiple fraud prevention and detection controls, we cannot assure you that these controls will be adequate to protect against fraud. Substantial losses due to fraud or our inability to accept credit card payments, which could cause our paid customer base to significantly decrease, could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition, and ability to grow our business.

Potential problems with our information systems could interfere with our business and operations.

We rely on our information systems and those of third parties for processing customer orders, distribution of our subscriptions, billing our customers, processing credit card transactions, customer relationship management, supporting financial planning and analysis, accounting functions and financial statement preparation and otherwise running our business. Information systems may experience interruptions, including interruptions of related services from third-party providers, which may be beyond our control. Such business interruptions could cause us to fail to meet customer requirements. All information systems, both internal and external, are potentially vulnerable to damage or interruption from a variety of sources, including without limitation, computer viruses, security breaches, energy blackouts, natural disasters, terrorism, war and telecommunication failures, employee or other theft, and third-party provider failures. In addition, since telecommunications billing is inherently complex and requires highly sophisticated information systems to administer, our billing system may experience errors or we may improperly operate the system, which could result in the system incorrectly calculating the fees owed by our customers for our subscriptions or related taxes and administrative fees. Any such errors in our customer billing could harm our reputation and cause us to violate truth in billing laws and regulations. Any errors or disruption in our information systems and those of the third parties upon which we rely could have a significant impact on our business.

In the future we intend to implement a billing system or internally develop an enhanced billing system, to replace our current internally developed billing system. We may also implement further and enhanced information systems in the future to meet the demands resulting from our growth and to provide additional capabilities and functionality. The implementation of new systems and enhancements is frequently disruptive to the underlying business of an enterprise, and can be time-consuming and expensive, increase management responsibilities, and divert management attention. Any disruptions relating to our systems enhancements or any problems with the implementation, particularly any disruptions impacting our operations or our ability to accurately report our financial performance on a timely basis during the implementation period, could materially and adversely affect our business. Even if we do not encounter these material and adverse effects, the implementation of these enhancements may be much more costly than we anticipated. If we are unable to successfully implement the information systems enhancements as planned, our financial position, results of operations and cash flows could be negatively impacted.

Our use of open source technology could impose limitations on our ability to commercialize our subscriptions.

We use open source software in our platform on which our subscriptions operate. There is a risk that the owners of the copyrights in such software may claim that such licenses impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to market or provide our subscriptions. If such owners prevail in such claim, we could be required to make the source code for our proprietary software (which contains our valuable trade secrets) generally available to third parties, including competitors, at no cost, to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our subscriptions, to re-engineer our technology, or to discontinue offering our subscriptions in the event re-engineering cannot be accomplished on a timely basis or at all, any of which could cause us to discontinue our subscriptions, harm our reputation, result in customer losses or claims, increase our costs or otherwise materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

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Exposure to U.K. political developments, including the outcome of the U.K. referendum on membership in the EU, could have a material adverse effect on us.

On June 23, 2016, a referendum was held on the U.K.’s membership in the EU the outcome of which was a vote in favor of leaving the EU (commonly referred to as “Brexit”). The Brexit vote creates an uncertain political and economic environment in the U.K. and potentially across other EU member states, which may last for a number of months or years.

Article 50 of the Treaty of the EU, or Article 50, allows a member state to decide to withdraw from the EU in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. The formal process for leaving the EU will be triggered only when the U.K. delivers an Article 50 notice to the European Council, although informal negotiations around the terms of any exit may be held before such notice is given. Delivery of the Article 50 notice will start a period of up to two years for the U.K. to exit from the EU, although this period can be extended with the unanimous agreement of the European Council, (requiring unanimity among all other EU Member States). Without any such extension (and assuming that the terms of withdrawal have not already been agreed), the U.K.'s membership in the EU would end automatically on the expiration of that two-year period.

The result of the Brexit vote means that the long-term nature of the U.K.'s relationship with the EU is unclear and that there is considerable uncertainty as to when any such relationship will be agreed and implemented. In the interim, there is a risk of instability for both the U.K. and the EU, which could adversely affect our results, financial condition and prospects.

It is currently expected that the U.K. government will shortly commence negotiations in connection with any exit from the EU.  The government has notified its intention to serve an Article 50 notice no later than March 30, 2017. There is also considerable uncertainty as to whether, following any Article 50 notice being given, the arrangements for the U.K. to leave the EU will be agreed upon within the two-year period and, if not, whether an extension of that time period would be agreed upon. It is also possible that the EU will pressure the U.K. to exit prior to the end of the two-year period. There is also a risk of the U.K.'s exit from the EU being affected without mutually acceptable terms being agreed and that any terms of such exit could adversely affect our operating results, financial condition and prospects.

The political and economic instability created by the Brexit vote has caused and may continue to cause significant volatility in global financial markets and the value of the Pound Sterling currency or other currencies, including the Euro. Depending on the terms reached regarding any exit from the EU, it is possible that there may be adverse practical and/or operational implications on our business.

Brexit has also created uncertainty with regard to the regulation of data protection in the U.K. In the immediate term, the U.K. will remain bound by the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) following its exit from the EU since the U.K. government has announced its intention to enact a ‘Great Repeal Bill’ which enshrines all EU law into domestic U.K. legislation.  While the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that there are no plans to dilute U.K. data protection laws, it is less certain how data protection laws or regulations will develop in the medium to longer term, and how data transfers to and from the U.K. will be regulated.

Consequently, no assurance can be given as to the overall impact of the Brexit and, in particular, no assurance can be given that our operating results, financial condition and prospects would not be adversely impacted by the result.

Our business could be negatively impacted by changes in the United States political environment.

The recent presidential and congressional elections in the United States have resulted in significant uncertainty with respect to, and could result in changes in, legislation, regulation and government policy at the federal level, as well as the state and local levels. Any such changes could significantly impact our business as well as the markets in which we compete. Specific legislative and regulatory proposals discussed during election campaigns and more recently that might materially impact us include, but are not limited to, changes to existing trade agreements, import and export regulations, tariffs and customs duties, income tax regulations and the federal tax code, public company reporting requirements, and antitrust enforcement. To the extent changes in the political environment have a negative impact on us or on our markets, our business, results of operation and financial condition could be materially and adversely impacted in the future.

Our subscriptions are subject to regulation, and future legislative or regulatory actions could adversely affect our business and expose us to liability in the U.S. and internationally.

Federal Regulation

Our business is regulated by the FCC. As a communications services provider, we are subject to existing or potential FCC regulations relating to privacy, disability access, porting of numbers, Federal Universal Service Fund, or USF, contributions, E-911, outage reporting, and other requirements. FCC classification of our Internet voice communications services as telecommunications

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services could result in additional federal and state regulatory obligations. If we do not comply with FCC rules and regulations, we could be subject to FCC enforcement actions, fines, loss of licenses, and possibly restrictions on our ability to operate or offer certain of our subscriptions. Any enforcement action by the FCC, which may be a public process, would hurt our reputation in the industry, possibly impair our ability to sell our subscriptions to customers and could have a materially adverse impact on our revenues.

Through RCLEC, we also provide competitive local exchange carrier services, or CLEC services, which are regulated by the FCC as traditional telecommunications services. Our CLEC services depend on certain provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that require incumbent local exchange carriers, or ILECs, to provide us facilities and services that are necessary to provide our services. Over the past several years, the FCC has reduced or eliminated a number of regulations governing ILECs’ wholesale offerings. If ILECs were no longer required by law to provide such services to us, or ceased to provide these services at reasonable rates, terms and conditions, our business could be adversely affected and our cost of providing CLEC services could increase. This could have a materially adverse impact on our results of operations and cash flows.

In addition, the TCPA and FCC rules implementing the TCPA, as amended by the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005, prohibit sending unsolicited facsimile advertisements, subject to certain exceptions. The FCC may take enforcement action against persons or entities that send “junk faxes,” and individuals also may have a private cause of action. Although the FCC’s rules prohibiting unsolicited fax advertisements apply to those who “send” the advertisements, fax transmitters or other service providers that have a high degree of involvement in, or actual notice of, unlawful sending of junk faxes and have failed to take steps to prevent such transmissions also face liability under the FCC’s rules. We take significant steps designed to prevent our systems from being used to send unsolicited faxes on a large scale, and we do not believe that we have a high degree of involvement in, or notice of, the use of our systems to broadcast junk faxes. However, because fax transmitters and related service providers do not enjoy an absolute exemption from liability under the TCPA and related FCC rules, we could face FCC inquiry and enforcement or civil litigation, or private causes of action, if someone uses our system for such purposes.  If any of these were to occur, we could be required to incur significant costs and management’s attention could be diverted.  Further, if we were to be held liable for the use of our service to send unsolicited faxes or to settle any action or proceeding, any judgment, settlement or penalties could cause a material adverse effect on our operations.  We have recently been named as defendants to a class action litigation involving alleged violations of the TCPA brought by SPS. For more information about this lawsuit, see Part I, Item 3 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K entitled “Legal Proceedings.”

Our subscriptions are also subject to a number of other FCC regulations. Among others, we must comply (in whole or in part) with:

If we do not comply with any current or future rules or regulations that apply to our business, we could be subject to substantial fines and penalties, we may have to restructure our service offerings, exit certain markets or raise the price of our subscriptions, any of which could ultimately harm our business and results of operations.

State Regulation

States currently do not regulate our Internet voice communications subscriptions. However, a small number of states have ruled that non-nomadic Internet voice communications services may or do fall within the definition of “telecommunications services” and therefore those states assert that they have jurisdiction to regulate the service. No states currently require certification for nomadic Internet voice communications service providers. Even if a state does not require Internet voice communications service providers to be certified, a number of states require us to register as a VoIP provider, contribute to state USF, contribute to E-911 and pay other surcharges and annual fees that fund various utility commission programs, while others are actively considering extending their public

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policy programs to include the subscriptions we provide. We pass USF, E-911 fees and other surcharges through to our customers, which may result in our subscriptions becoming more expensive or require that we absorb these costs. We expect that state public utility commissions will continue their attempts to apply state telecommunications regulations to Internet voice communications subscriptions like ours.

Our CLEC subsidiary’s services are subject to regulation by the public utility regulatory agency in those states where we provide local telecommunications services. This regulation includes the requirement to obtain a certificate of public convenience and necessity or other similar licenses prior to offering our CLEC services. We may also be required to file tariffs that describe our CLEC’s services and provide rates for those services. We are also required to comply with state regulations that vary from state to state concerning service quality, disconnection and billing requirements. State commissions also have authority to review and approve interconnection agreements between incumbent phone carriers and CLECs such as our subsidiary, and to conduct arbitration of disputes arising in the negotiation of such agreements.

Both we and our CLEC subsidiary are also subject to state consumer protection laws, as well as U.S. state or municipal sales, use, excise, gross receipts, utility user and ad valorem taxes, fees or surcharges.

International Regulation

As we expand internationally, we may be subject to telecommunications, consumer protection, data protection and other laws and regulations in the foreign countries where we offer our subscriptions. Internationally, we currently offer our subscriptions in Canada and the U.K. We have also launched our new Global Office solution, enabling our multinational customers in the U.S., U.K., and Canada to establish local phone solutions in various countries internationally. We may be subject to telecommunications, consumer protection, data protection, and other laws and regulations in additional countries as we continue to expand our Global Office solution internationally.

We are a provider of Internet voice telecommunications subscriptions in Canada. As a provider of Internet voice communications subscriptions, we, directly and through our Canadian subsidiary, are subject to regulation in Canada by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC. We are registered with the CRTC as a reseller of telecommunications services and have been issued a basic international telecommunications services, or BITS, license by the CRTC. As an Internet voice communications provider, we are subject to obligations imposed by the CRTC, including providing access to emergency calling services, providing access to operator assistance, directory information services, number portability, providing minimum customer information, charging customers certain regulatory charges and paying contribution charges. As a holder of a BITS license, we also must comply with various annual reporting requirements. We are also subject to Canadian federal privacy and anti-spam laws and provincial consumer protection legislation.

As a provider of electronic communications services in the U.K., we, through our subsidiary, are subject to regulation in the U.K. by the Office of Communications, or Ofcom. Some of these regulatory obligations include providing access to emergency call services (E999/112) without charge; providing access to operator assistance, directories and directory enquiry services, offering contracts with minimum terms, providing and publishing certain information transparently, providing itemized billing, protecting customer information (including personal data); porting phone numbers upon a valid customer request and implementing a code of practice. We are required to comply with laws and matters relating to, among other things, competition law, distance selling, telecommunications, e-commerce, and consumer protection. We must also comply with various reporting and recordkeeping requirements. The requirement to comply with such laws and any future legal or regulatory changes could adversely affect our business and expose us to liability.

In addition, our international operations are potentially subject to country-specific governmental regulation and related actions that may increase our costs or impact our product and service offerings or prevent us from offering or providing our products and subscriptions in certain countries. Certain of our subscriptions may be used by customers located in countries where VoIP and other forms of IP communications may be illegal or require special licensing or in countries on a U.S. embargo list. Even where our products are reportedly illegal or become illegal or where users are located in an embargoed country, users in those countries may be able to continue to use our products and subscriptions in those countries notwithstanding the illegality or embargo. We may be subject to penalties or governmental action if consumers continue to use our products and subscriptions in countries where it is illegal to do so, and any such penalties or governmental action may be costly and may harm our business and damage our brand and reputation. We may be required to incur additional expenses to meet applicable international regulatory requirements or be required to discontinue those subscriptions if required by law or if we cannot or will not meet those requirements.

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We process, store, and use personal information and other data, which subjects us and our customers to a variety of evolving governmental regulation, industry standards and self-regulatory schemes, contractual obligations, and other legal obligations related to privacy and data protection, which may increase our costs, decrease adoption and use of our products and subscriptions and expose us to liability.

There are a number of federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations, as well as contractual obligations and industry standards, that provide for certain obligations and restrictions with respect to data privacy and security, and the collection, storage, retention, protection, use, processing, transmission, sharing, disclosure, and protection of personal information and other customer data. We expect that with the implementation of our Global Office solution, we may become subject to additional data privacy regulations in other countries throughout the world. The scope of these obligations and restrictions is changing, subject to differing interpretations, and may be inconsistent among countries or conflict with other rules, and their status remains uncertain.

Within the EU, strict laws already apply in connection with the collection, storage, retention, use, processing, transmission, sharing, disclosure and protection of personal information, and other customer data. The EU model has been replicated substantially or in part in various jurisdictions outside the U.S., including in certain Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries. Data protection regulators within the EU and other jurisdictions have the power to fine non-compliant organizations significant amounts and seek injunctive relief, including the cessation of certain data processing activities. With regard to transfers of personal data from our European customers to the U.S., we have taken contractual and other measures designed to ensure adequate protection for the personal data transferred from the EU to the U.S., including, where appropriate, the implementation of Model Clause agreements. Historically, RingCentral had self-certified to the U.S.-EU and U.S.-Swiss Safe Harbor Frameworks as agreed to by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the EU and Switzerland, which established means for legitimizing the transfer of personal data by U.S. companies from the European Economic Area, or EU, to the U.S.  However, as a result of the October 6, 2015 EU Court of Justice, or ECJ, opinion in Case C-362/14 (Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner) (the “ECJ Ruling”), the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework was deemed an invalid method of compliance with restrictions set forth in EU Directive 95/46/EC (and member states’ implementations thereof) regarding the transfer of personal data outside of the EU. A new framework was agreed by the EU and U.S. authorities to replace the invalidated Safe Harbor Framework known as “Privacy Shield”.  On July 12, 2016, the Privacy Shield was formally adopted by the European Commission.  In light of the ECJ Ruling, it is possible that some of the other adequate protection measures we have adopted to legitimize the transfer of personal data may also be vulnerable to challenge in the same vein as those that were applicable to the Safe Harbor Framework. We anticipate engaging in additional measures to ensure compliance with EU law with respect to our transfers of personal data from the EU to the U.S., and may find it necessary or desirable to make other changes to our personal data handling in light of the ECJ Ruling. These changes may entail, for example, adopting additional measures to ensure that the other adequate protection measures remain compliant. We may be unsuccessful in establishing compliant means for us to transfer such personal data from the EU or otherwise responding to the ECJ Ruling, and we may experience reluctance or refusal by European or multinational customers to use our solutions as a result of the ECJ Ruling. We may face a risk of enforcement actions taken by EU data protection authorities until the time, if any, that personal data transfers to us and by us from the EU are legitimized under EU Directive 95/46/EC and applicable member states’ implementations thereof.

Additionally, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been implemented and is set to enter into full force during 2018.  The GDPR strengthens the existing data protection regulations in the EU and its provisions include increasing the maximum level of fines that EU regulators may impose for the most serious of breaches to the greater of €20 million or 4% of worldwide annual turnover. Such fines would be in addition to (i) the rights of individuals to sue for damages in respect of any data privacy breach which causes them to suffer loss and (ii) the right of individual member states to impose additional sanctions over and above the administrative fines specified in the GDPR. In light of the Brexit vote, there is uncertainty regarding the future of data protection legislation in the U.K.  There is likely to be some overlap between the GDPR coming into force and the United Kingdom leaving the EU.  The U.K. Government has announced its intention to pass legislation which incorporates all existing EU data protection legislation into U.K.’s domestic legislation, notwithstanding Brexit, meaning that even after the U.K. has exited the EU, our applicable entities and operations likely will be bound to comply with the provisions of the GDPR.  One anticipated consequence of the GDPR coming into force is that the Model Clause agreements that have been approved by the European Commission will need to be updated to reflect the GDPR’s requirements.  This means that we may need to revise our existing arrangements to ensure that personal data transfers from the EEA to the US remain compliant as well as incurring additional compliance costs.  

As Internet commerce and communication technologies continue to evolve, thereby increasing online service providers’ and network users’ capacity to collect, store, retain, protect, use, process, and transmit large volumes of personal information, increasingly restrictive regulation by federal, state or foreign agencies becomes more likely. For example, a variety of regulations that would increase restrictions on online service providers in the area of data privacy are currently being proposed, both in the U.S. and in other jurisdictions, and we believe that the adoption of increasingly restrictive regulation in the field of data privacy and security is likely, possibly as restrictive as the EU model. Canadian, anti-spam legislation, or CASL, prescribes certain rules regarding the use of electronic messages for commercial purposes and imposes certain restrictions on a service provider’s ability to electronically automatically update or change software used in a customer’s service without the customer’s consent. Penalties for non-compliance with CASL are considerable, including administrative monetary penalties of up to $10 million and a private right of action, and the

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CRTC has begun actively enforcing the law and penalization non-compliant organizations. Obligations and restrictions imposed by current and future applicable laws, regulations, contracts, and industry standards may affect our ability to provide all the current features of our products and subscriptions and our customers’ ability to use our products and subscriptions, and could require us to modify the features and functionality of our products and subscriptions. In 2015, Canada’s privacy legislation was amended to implement mandatory data breach notification requirements and fines of up to $100,000 per occurrence for organizations that fail to keep a log of breaches or notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner or affected individuals. The amendments will not become in force until such time as related regulations are created and approved, which currently is expected sometime in 2017 or early 2018. Such obligations and restrictions may limit our ability to collect, store, process, use, transmit, and share data with our customers, and to allow our customer to collect, store, retain, protect, use, process, transmit, share, and disclose data with others through our products and subscriptions. Compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, such obligations and restrictions could increase the cost of our operations. Failure to comply with obligations and restrictions related to data privacy and security could subject us to lawsuits, fines, criminal penalties, statutory damages, consent decrees, injunctions, adverse publicity, and other losses that could harm our business.

Our customers can use our subscriptions to store contact and other personal or identifying information, and to process, transmit, receive, store, and retrieve a variety of communications and messages, including information about their own customers and other contacts. Our terms of service prohibit the use of our subscriptions to store protected health information, or PHI (a category of information regulated under the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA), on a non-temporary basis and impose additional restrictions and conditions with respect to customers’ use of our subscriptions to transmit or receive PHI or to store PHI on a temporary basis. Customers are able, and may be authorized under certain circumstances, to use our subscriptions to transmit, receive, and/or store PHI, and in such cases they must agree to the activation of our HIPAA conduit settings. In addition, RingCentral may execute Business Associate Agreements, or BAAs, which are HIPAA-defined contracts related to the security of PHI, with HIPAA-regulated customers. Noncompliance with laws and regulations relating to privacy and HIPAA or with contractual obligations under any BAAs may lead to significant fines, penalties, or liabilities. Our actual compliance, our customers’ perception of our compliance, costs of compliance with such regulations and obligations and customer concerns regarding their own compliance obligations (whether factual or in error) may limit the use and adoption of our subscriptions and reduce overall demand. Furthermore, privacy concerns, including the inability or impracticality of providing advance notice to customers of privacy issues related to the use of our subscriptions, may cause our customers’ customers to resist providing the personal data necessary to allow our customers to use our subscriptions effectively. Even the perception of privacy concerns, whether or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our subscriptions in certain industries.

In addition to government activity, privacy advocacy groups and industry groups have adopted and are considering the adoption of various self-regulatory standards and codes of conduct that, if applied to our or our customers’ businesses may place additional burdens on us and our customers, which may further reduce demand for our subscriptions and harm our business.

While we try to comply with all applicable data protection laws, regulations, standards, and codes of conduct, as well as our own posted privacy policies and contractual commitments to the extent possible, any failure by us to protect our users’ privacy and data, including as a result of our systems being compromised by hacking or other malicious or surreptitious activity, could result in a loss of user confidence in our subscriptions and ultimately in a loss of users, which could materially and adversely affect our business.

Our customers may also accidentally disclose their passwords or store them on a mobile device that is lost or stolen, creating the perception that our systems are not secure against third-party access. Additionally, our third-party contractors in the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, India, and Poland may have access to customer data. If these or other third-party vendors violate applicable laws or our policies, such violations may also put our customers’ information at risk and could in turn have a material and adverse effect on our business.

Use or delivery of our subscriptions may become subject to new or increased regulatory requirements, taxes, or fees.

The increasing growth and popularity of Internet voice communications heighten the risk that governments will regulate or impose new or increased fees or taxes on Internet voice communications services. To the extent that the use of our subscriptions continues to grow, regulators may be more likely to seek to regulate or impose new or additional taxes, surcharges or fees on our subscriptions. Similarly, advances in technology, such as improvements in locating the geographic origin of Internet voice communications, could cause our subscriptions to become subject to additional regulations, fees or taxes, or could require us to invest in or develop new technologies, which may be costly. In addition, as we continue to expand our user base and offer more subscriptions, we may become subject to new regulations, taxes, surcharges, or fees. Increased regulatory requirements, taxes, surcharges or fees on Internet voice communications services, which could be assessed by governments retroactively or prospectively, would substantially increase our costs, and, as a result, our business would suffer. In addition, the tax status of our subscriptions could subject us to conflicting taxation requirements and complexity with regard to the collection and remittance of applicable taxes. Any such additional taxes could harm our results of operations.

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Our emergency and E-911 calling services may expose us to significant liability.

The FCC requires Internet voice communications providers, such as our company, to provide E-911 service in all geographic areas covered by the traditional wire-line E-911 network. Under the FCC’s rules, Internet voice communications providers must transmit the caller’s phone number and registered location information to the appropriate public safety answering point, or PSAP, for the caller’s registered location. Our CLEC services are also required by the FCC and state regulators to provide E-911 service to the extent that they provide services to end users.  We are also required to route text messages to 911 to the appropriate PSAP.

In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or the CRTC, has imposed similar requirements related to the provision of E-911 services in all areas of Canada where the wireline incumbent carrier offers such 911 services. The CRTC also mandates certain customer notification requirements pursuant to which new customers are required to be notified of 911 service limitations and to consent to the same before their service with us commences and we are required to provide annual update notifications to our customers of the 911 limitations of our service.

Additionally, as a provider of electronic communications services in the U.K., we are subject to regulation in the U.K. by Ofcom. Similar to the requirements in the U.S., Ofcom requires electronic communications providers, such as our company, to provide all users access to both 112 (EU-mandated) and 999 (U.K.-mandated) emergency service numbers at no charge. Ofcom also requires us to clearly and transparently inform our users of any emergency service limitations on their device including by way of labels and network announcements.

We provide E-911/999/112 service in compliance with the Ofcom, the CRTC and the FCC’s rules, as applicable, to substantially all of our customers’ interconnected VoIP lines. In some circumstances, 911/999/112 calls may be routed to a national emergency call center that routes the call to the appropriate PSAP. In addition, certain of our Internet voice communications services that work with mobile devices and are accessed through Wi-Fi networks may not be able to complete 911/999/112 calls. The FCC is considering requiring providers of Internet voice communications services on mobile devices and softphones to provide E-911 service, if such service may be used to make calls to the public telephone network. In Canada, the CRTC requires providers of Internet voice communications services on mobile devices and softphones to provide E-911 service, if such service may be used to make calls to the public telephone network. The adoption of such a requirement in the U.S. could increase our costs and make our service more expensive, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

In connection with the regulatory requirements that we provide E-911/999/112 to all of our interconnected VoIP customers, we must obtain from each customer, prior to the initiation of or changes to service, the physical locations at which the service will first be used for each VoIP line. For subscriptions that can be utilized from more than one physical location, we must provide customers one or more methods of updating their physical location. Because we do not validate the physical address at each location where the subscriptions may be used by our customers, and because customers may use the subscriptions in locations that differ from the registered location without providing us with the updated information, it is possible that E-911/999/112 calls may get routed to the wrong PSAP. We are also aware that certain customer registered addresses are incorrect, or may not have been updated. If E-911/999/112 calls or text messages are not routed to the correct PSAP, and if the delay results in serious injury or death, we could be sued and the damages substantial. We are evaluating measures to attempt to verify and update the addresses for locations where our subscriptions are used. The FCC is also considering requiring interconnected VoIP providers to automatically update subscriber location information, for purposes of routing 911 calls.

We could be subject to enforcement action by the FCC, the CRTC or Ofcom for our customer lines that cannot provide E-911/999/112 service in accordance with regulatory requirements. This enforcement action could result in significant monetary penalties and restrictions on our ability to offer non-compliant subscriptions.

Customers may in the future attempt to hold us responsible for any loss, damage, personal injury, or death suffered as a result of delayed, misrouted, or uncompleted emergency service calls or text messages. The New and Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act of 2008 provides that Internet voice communications providers and interconnected text messaging providers have the same protections from liability for the operation of 911 services as traditional wire-line and wireless providers. Limitations on liability for the provision of 911 service are normally governed by state law, but these limitations typically are not absolute. It is also unclear whether the limitations on liability would apply to those customer lines for which we do not provide E-911 service. In the U.K., by law we cannot limit our liability for any death or injury arising out of our negligence, including as a result of emergency service calls that are delayed, misrouted or uncompleted due to our negligence. In Canada, the CRTC does not permit any limitation of liability related to the provision of E-911 services that is due to our gross negligence or where negligence on the part of a service provider results in physical injury, death, or damage to the customer's property or premises. In addition, Canadian provincial consumer protection laws may constrain our ability to limit liability to our non-business customers for any liability caused due to the 911 shortfalls inherent in Internet voice communications services.

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We rely on third parties to provide the majority of our customer service and support representatives and to fulfill various aspects of our E-911 service. If these third parties do not provide our customers with reliable, high-quality service, our reputation will be harmed, and we may lose customers.

We offer customer support through both our online account management website and our toll-free customer support number. Our customer support is currently provided via a third-party provider located in the Philippines, as well as our employees in the U.S. We currently offer support almost exclusively in English. Our third-party providers generally provide customer service and support to our customers without identifying themselves as independent parties. The ability to support our customers may be disrupted by natural disasters, inclement weather conditions, civil unrest, strikes, and other adverse events in the Philippines. Furthermore, as we expand our operations internationally, we may need to make significant expenditures and investments in our customer service and support to adequately address the complex needs of international customers, such as support in multiple foreign languages.

We also contract with third parties to provide E-911 services and 999/112 services (in the U.K.), including assistance in routing emergency calls and terminating E-911/999/112 calls. Our providers operate a national call center that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to receive certain emergency calls and maintain PSAP (Emergency Call Handling in the U.K.) databases for the purpose of deploying and operating E-911/999/112 services. On mobile devices, we generally rely on the underlying cellular or wireless carrier to provide E-911/999/112 services. Interruptions in service from our vendors could cause failures in our customers’ access to E-911/999/112 services and expose us to liability and damage our reputation.

If any of these third parties do not provide reliable, high-quality service, our reputation and our business will be harmed. In addition, industry consolidation among providers of services to us may impact our ability to obtain these services or increase our costs for these services.

We are in the process of expanding our international operations, which exposes us to significant risks.

To date, we have not generated significant revenues from outside of the U.S., Canada and the U.K. However, we already have significant operations outside these countries, including software development operations in Russia and China, and software development and quality assurance operations in Ukraine, and sales and marketing operations in the Philippines, and we expect to grow our international presence in the future, including through the expansion of our Global Office solution. The future success of our business will depend, in part, on our ability to expand our operations and customer base worldwide. Operating in international markets requires significant resources and management attention and will subject us to regulatory, economic, and political risks that are different from those in the U.S. Due to our limited experience with international operations and developing and managing sales and distribution channels in international markets, our international expansion efforts may not be successful. In addition, we will face risks in doing business internationally that could materially and adversely affect our business, including:

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Our failure to manage any of these risks successfully could harm our future international operations and our overall business.

We depend largely on the continued services of our senior management and other key employees, the loss of any of whom could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Our future performance depends on the continued services and contributions of our senior management and other key employees to execute on our business plan, and to identify and pursue opportunities and services innovations. The loss of services of senior management or other key employees could significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our development and strategic objectives. In particular, we depend to a considerable degree on the vision, skills, experience, and effort of our co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Vladimir Shmunis. None of our executive officers or other senior management personnel is bound by a written employment agreement and any of them may therefore terminate employment with us at any time with no advance notice. The replacement of any of these senior management personnel would likely involve significant time and costs, and such loss could significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our business objectives. The loss of the services of our senior management or other key employees for any reason could adversely affect our business, financial condition, or results of operations.

If we are unable to hire, retain, and motivate qualified personnel, our business will suffer.

Our future success depends, in part, on our ability to continue to attract and retain highly skilled personnel. We believe that there is, and will continue to be, intense competition for highly skilled technical and other personnel with experience in our industry in the San Francisco Bay Area, where our headquarters is located, in Denver, Colorado, where our U.S. sales and customer support office and our network operations center is located, and in other locations, such as Charlotte, North Carolina; Boca Raton, Florida; London, England, and Xiamen, China, where we maintain offices. We must provide competitive compensation packages and a high-quality work environment to hire, retain, and motivate employees. If we are unable to retain and motivate our existing employees and attract qualified personnel to fill key positions, we may be unable to manage our business effectively, including the development, marketing, and sale of existing and new subscriptions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. To the extent we hire personnel from competitors, we may be subject to allegations that they have been improperly solicited or divulged proprietary or other confidential information.

Volatility in, or lack of performance of, our stock price may also affect our ability to attract and retain key personnel. Many of our key personnel are, or will soon be, vested in a substantial amount of shares of common stock, stock options, or restricted stock units. Employees may be more likely to terminate their employment with us if the shares they own or the shares underlying their

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vested options have significantly appreciated in value relative to the original purchase prices of the shares or the exercise prices of the options, or if the exercise prices of the options that they hold are significantly above the market price of our Class A common stock. If we are unable to retain our employees, our business, results of operations, and financial condition will be harmed.

We may expand through acquisitions of, or investments in, other companies, each of which may divert our management’s attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders, increase expenses, disrupt our operations, and harm our results of operations.

Our business strategy may, from time to time, include acquiring or investing in complementary services, technologies or businesses, such as our acquisition of Glip in 2015.  We cannot assure you that we will successfully identify suitable acquisition candidates, integrate or manage disparate technologies, lines of business, personnel and corporate cultures, realize our business strategy or the expected return on our investment, or manage a geographically dispersed company. Any such acquisition or investment could materially and adversely affect our results of operations. The acquisition and integration process is complex, expensive and time-consuming, and may cause an interruption of, or loss of momentum in, product development and sales activities and operations of both companies, and we may incur substantial cost and expense, as well as divert the attention of management. We may issue equity securities which could dilute current stockholders’ ownership, incur debt, assume contingent or other liabilities and expend cash in acquisitions, which could negatively impact our financial position, stockholder equity, and stock price.

Acquisitions and other strategic investments involve significant risks and uncertainties, including:

Any acquisition or investment could expose us to unknown liabilities. Moreover, we cannot assure you that we will realize the anticipated benefits of any acquisition or investment. In addition, our inability to successfully operate and integrate newly acquired businesses appropriately, effectively, and in a timely manner could impair our ability to take advantage of future growth opportunities and other advances in technology, as well as on our revenues, gross margins, and expenses.

We may be subject to liabilities on past sales for taxes, surcharges, and fees.

We believe we collect state and local sales tax and use, excise, utility user, and ad valorem taxes, fees, or surcharges in all relevant jurisdictions in which we generate sales, based on our understanding of the applicable laws in those jurisdictions.  Such tax, fees and surcharge laws and rates vary greatly by jurisdiction. There is uncertainty as to what constitutes sufficient “in state presence” for a state to levy taxes, fees, and surcharges for sales made over the Internet. Therefore, taxing authorities may challenge our position and may decide to audit our business and operations with respect to such taxes, which could result in increased tax liabilities for us or our customers that could materially and adversely affect our results of operations and our relationships with our customers.

The application of other indirect taxes (such as sales and use tax, value added tax, goods and services tax, business tax, and gross receipt tax) to e-commerce businesses, such as ours, is a complex and evolving area.  In February 2016, the U.S. federal government enacted legislation permanently extending the moratorium on states and other local authorities imposing access or discriminatory taxes on the Internet. The application of existing, new, or future laws relating to indirect taxes on e-commerce businesses, whether in the U.S. or internationally, could have adverse effects on our business, prospects, and results of operations.

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There have been, and will continue to be, substantial ongoing costs associated with complying with the various indirect tax requirements in the numerous markets in which we conduct or will conduct business.

Changes in effective tax rates, or adverse outcomes resulting from examination of our income or other tax returns, could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

Our future effective tax rates could be subject to volatility or adversely affected by a number of factors, including:

Any changes in our effective tax rate could adversely affect our results of operations.

We may be unable to use some or all of our net operating loss carryforwards, which could materially and adversely affect our reported financial condition and results of operations.

As of December 31, 2016, we had federal and state net operating loss carryforwards, or NOLs, of $197.6 million and $137.6 million, respectively, available to offset future taxable income, due to prior period losses, which, if not utilized, will begin to expire in 2023 for federal purposes and have started to expire in 2013 for state purposes. We also have federal research tax credit carryforwards that will begin to expire in 2028. Realization of these net operating loss and research tax credit carryforwards depends on future income, and there is a risk that our existing carryforwards could expire unused and be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations.

In addition, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, our ability to utilize net operating loss carryforwards or other tax attributes, such as research tax credits, in any taxable year may be limited if we experience an “ownership change.” A Section 382 “ownership change” generally occurs if one or more stockholders or groups of stockholders, who each own at least 5% of our stock, increase their collective ownership by more than 50 percentage points over their lowest ownership percentage within a rolling three-year period. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws.

Except for an insignificant amount of deferred tax assets recognized in connection with NOLs in the Netherlands and China, no deferred tax assets have been recognized on our consolidated balance sheets related to these NOLs, as they are fully offset by a valuation allowance. If we have previously had, or have in the future, one or more Section 382 “ownership changes,” including in connection with our initial public offering or another offering, or if we do not generate sufficient taxable income, we may not be able to utilize a material portion of our NOLs, even if we achieve profitability. If we are limited in our ability to use our NOLs in future years in which we have taxable income, we will pay more taxes than if we were able to fully utilize our NOLs. This could materially and adversely affect our results of operations.

If our internal control over financial reporting is not effective, it may adversely affect investor confidence in our company.

Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, our independent registered public accounting firm, KPMG LLP, is required to and has issued an attestation report as of December 31, 2016. While management concluded internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 31, 2016, there can be no assurance that material weaknesses will not be identified in the future. A “material weakness” is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. During the evaluation and testing process, if we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, we will be unable to assert that our internal controls are effective. As a result, we may need to undertake various actions, such as implementing new internal controls and procedures and hiring accounting or internal audit staff. Our remediation efforts may not enable us to avoid a material weakness in the future.

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If our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal controls, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could cause the price of our Class A common stock to decline, and we may be subject to investigation or sanctions by the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC.

We may not be successful in continuing to obtain local access services through our CLEC subsidiary.

Through our competitive local exchange carrier subsidiary, RCLEC, we have been able to purchase network services directly from ILECs and from other CLECs in certain geographic markets, at lower prices than we pay for such services through third-party network service providers, such as Level 3 Communications, Inc. and Bandwidth.com, Inc. Using the services of our CLEC subsidiary has also helped us improve our quality of service. However, the ILECs may favor themselves and their affiliates and may not provide network services to us at lower prices than we could obtain through Level 3 Communications, Inc., Bandwidth.com, Inc., other third-party CLECs, or at all. If we are unable to continue to reduce our pricing as a result of obtaining network services through our subsidiary, we may be forced to rely on other third-party network service providers and be unable to effectively lower our cost of service. In addition, if ILECs or other CLECs do not provide us with any access, we will not be able to use our RCLEC subsidiary as intended to improve the quality of our subscriptions or lower the cost of our subscriptions.

If we are unable to effectively process local number and toll-free number portability provisioning in a timely manner, our growth may be negatively affected.

We support local number and toll-free number portability, which allows our customers to transfer to us and thereby retain their existing phone numbers when subscribing to our services. Transferring numbers is a manual process that can take up to 15 business days or longer to complete. A new customer of our subscriptions must maintain both our subscription and the customer’s existing phone service during the number transferring process. Any delay that we experience in transferring these numbers typically results from the fact that we depend on third-party carriers to transfer these numbers, a process that we do not control, and these third-party carriers may refuse or substantially delay the transfer of these numbers to us. Local number portability is considered an important feature by many potential customers, and if we fail to reduce any related delays, we may experience increased difficulty in acquiring new customers. Moreover, the FCC requires Internet voice communications providers, which are companies like us that provide subscriptions similar to traditional phone companies, including the ability to make calls to and receive calls from the public phone network, to comply with specified number porting timeframes when customers leave our subscription for the services of another provider. In Canada, the CRTC has imposed a similar number portability requirement on subscription providers like us. Similarly in the U.K., Ofcom requires providers of electronic communications services, like us, to provide number portability as soon as practicable and on reasonable terms. If we, or our third-party carriers, are unable to process number portability requests within the requisite timeframes, we could be subject to fines and penalties, including, in the U.K., compensation payable to our customers. Additionally, in the U.S., both customers and carriers may seek relief from the relevant state public utility commission, the FCC, or in state or federal court for violation of local number portability requirements.

Our business could suffer if we cannot obtain or retain direct inward dialing numbers, or DIDs, are prohibited from obtaining local or toll-free numbers, or are limited to distributing local or toll-free numbers to only certain customers.

Our future success depends on our ability to procure large quantities of local and toll-free DIDs in the U.S. and foreign countries in desirable locations at a reasonable cost and without restrictions. Our ability to procure and distribute DIDs depends on factors outside of our control, such as applicable regulations, the practices of the communications carriers that provide DIDs, the cost of these DIDs, and the level of demand for new DIDs. Due to their limited availability, there are certain popular area code prefixes that we generally cannot obtain. Our inability to acquire DIDs for our operations would make our subscriptions less attractive to potential customers in the affected local geographic areas. In addition, future growth in our customer base, together with growth in the customer bases of other providers of cloud-based business communications, has increased, which increases our dependence on needing sufficiently large quantities of DIDs.

We rely on third-party hardware and software that may be difficult to replace or which could cause errors or failures of our subscriptions.

We rely on purchased or leased hardware and software licensed from third parties in order to offer our subscriptions. In some cases, we integrate third-party licensed software components into our platform. This hardware and software may not continue to be available at reasonable prices or on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Any loss of the right to use any of this hardware or software could significantly increase our expenses and otherwise result in delays in the provisioning of our subscriptions until equivalent technology is either developed by us, or, if available, is identified, obtained, and integrated. Any errors or defects in third-party hardware or software could result in errors or a failure of our subscriptions which could harm our business.

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We may not be able to manage our inventory levels effectively, which may lead to inventory obsolescence that would force us to incur inventory write-downs.

Our vendor-supplied phones have lead times of up to 10 to 20 weeks for delivery and are built to forecasts that are necessarily imprecise. It is likely that from time to time we will have either excess or insufficient product inventory. In addition, because we rely on third-party vendors for the supply of our vendor-supplied phones, our inventory levels are subject to the conditions regarding the timing of purchase orders and delivery dates that are not within our control. Excess inventory levels would subject us to the risk of inventory obsolescence, while insufficient levels of inventory may negatively affect relations with customers. For instance, our customers rely upon our ability to meet committed delivery dates, and any disruption in the supply of our subscriptions could result in loss of customers or harm to our ability to attract new customers. Any reduction or interruption in the ability of our vendors to supply our customers with vendor-supplied phones could cause us to lose revenue, damage our customer relationships and harm our reputation in the marketplace. Any of these factors could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We currently depend on three suppliers and one fulfillment agent to configure and deliver the phones that we sell and any delay or interruption in manufacturing, configuring and delivering by these third parties would result in delayed or reduced shipments to our customers and may harm our business.

We rely on Cisco Systems, Inc., Polycom, Inc., and Yealink Network Technology Co., Ltd. to provide phones that we offer for sale to our customers that use our subscriptions, and we rely on Westcon Group, Inc. (Westcon) to configure and deliver the phones that we sell to our customers. Accordingly, we could be adversely affected if our suppliers or Westcon fail to maintain competitive phones or configuration services, or fail to continue to make them available on attractive terms, or at all.  

If Westcon is unable to deliver phones of acceptable quality, or if there is a reduction or interruption in Westcon’s ability to supply the phones in a timely manner, our ability to bring services to market, the reliability of our subscriptions and our relationships with customers or our overall reputation in the marketplace could suffer, which could cause us to lose revenue. We expect that it could take several months to effectively transition to new third-party manufacturers or fulfillment agents.

If our vendor-supplied phones are not able to interoperate effectively with our own back-end servers and systems, our customers may not be able to use our subscriptions, which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Phones must interoperate with our back-end servers and systems, which contain complex specifications and utilize multiple protocol standards and software applications. Currently, the phones used by our customers are manufactured by only three third-party providers: Cisco Systems, Polycom, and Yealink Network Technology Co. If any of these providers changes the operation of their phones, we will be required to undertake development and testing efforts to ensure that the new phones interoperate with our system. These efforts may require significant capital and employee resources, and we may not accomplish these development efforts quickly or cost-effectively, if at all. If our vendor-supplied phones do not interoperate effectively with our system, our customers’ ability to use our subscriptions could be delayed or orders for our subscriptions could be cancelled, which would harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We may require additional capital to pursue our business objectives and to respond to business opportunities, challenges or unforeseen circumstances. If capital is not available to us, our business, results of operations, and financial condition may be adversely affected.

We intend to continue to make expenditures and investments to support the growth of our business and may require additional capital to pursue our business objectives and respond to business opportunities, challenges, or unforeseen circumstances, including the need to develop new solutions or enhance our existing solutions, enhance our operating infrastructure, and acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, we may need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds. However, additional funds may not be available when we need them on terms that are acceptable to us, or at all. Any debt financing that we secure in the future could involve restrictive covenants, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities. In addition, the restrictive covenants in credit facilities we may secure in the future may restrict us from being able to conduct our operations in a manner required for our business and may restrict our growth, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations.

We cannot assure you that we will be able to comply with any such restrictive covenants. In the event that we are unable to comply with these covenants in the future, we would seek an amendment or waiver of the covenants. We cannot assure you that any such waiver or amendment would be granted. In such event, we may be required to repay any or all of our existing borrowings, and we cannot assure you that we will be able to borrow under our existing credit agreements, or obtain alternative funding arrangements on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.

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In addition, volatility in the credit markets may have an adverse effect on our ability to obtain debt financing. If we raise additional funds through further issuances of equity or convertible debt securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences, and privileges superior to those of holders of our Class A common stock. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us, when we require it, our ability to continue to pursue our business objectives and to respond to business opportunities, challenges, or unforeseen circumstances could be significantly limited, and our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects could be materially and adversely affected.

The market price of our Class A common stock is likely to be volatile and could decline.

The stock market in general, and the market for SaaS and other technology-related stocks in particular, has been highly volatile. As a result, the market price and trading volume for our Class A common stock has been and may continue to be highly volatile, and investors in our Class A common stock may experience a decrease in the value of their shares, including decreases unrelated to our operating performance or prospects. Factors that could cause the market price of our Class A common stock to fluctuate significantly include:

Any of these factors may result in large and sudden changes in the trading volume and market price of our Class A common stock and may prevent investors from being able to sell their shares at or above the price they paid for their shares of our Class A common stock. Following periods of volatility in the market price of a company’s securities, stockholders often file securities class-action lawsuits against such company. Our involvement in a class-action lawsuit could divert our senior management’s attention and, if adversely determined, could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our corporate headquarters, one of our data centers and co-location facilities, our third-party customer service and support facilities, and a research and development facility are located near known earthquake fault zones, and the occurrence of an earthquake, tsunami, or other catastrophic disaster could damage our facilities or the facilities of our contractors, which could cause us to curtail our operations.

Our corporate headquarters, one of our data centers and one of our subsidiary’s co-location facilities are located in California, our third-party customer service call centers operated by our contractors are located in the Philippines, and one of our research and development facilities is located on the coast of China. All of these locations are on the Pacific Rim near known earthquake fault zones and, therefore, are vulnerable to damage from earthquakes and tsunamis. Additionally, our China facility, our third-party customer service and support facilities in the Philippines, and our CLEC subsidiary’s co-location facility in Florida are located in areas subject to hurricanes. We and our contractors are also vulnerable to other types of disasters, such as power loss, fire, floods, pandemics, cyber attack, war, political unrest, and terrorist attacks and similar events that are beyond our control. If any disasters were to occur, our ability to operate our business could be seriously impaired, and we may endure system interruptions, reputational harm, loss of intellectual property, delays in our subscriptions development, lengthy interruptions in our services, breaches of data security, and loss of critical data, all of which could harm our future results of operations. In addition, we do not carry earthquake insurance and we may not have adequate insurance to cover our losses resulting from other disasters or other similar significant business

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interruptions. Any significant losses that are not recoverable under our insurance policies could seriously impair our business and financial condition.

The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert management’s attention, and affect our ability to attract and retain executive management and qualified board members.

As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, or the Dodd-Frank Act, the listing requirements of the New York Stock Exchange and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations has increased our legal and financial compliance costs, made some activities more difficult, time-consuming, or costly, and increased demand on our systems and resources, and these costs and demands may become greater especially now that we are no longer an “emerging growth company.” The Exchange Act requires, among other things, that we file annual, quarterly, and current reports with respect to our business and results of operations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. In order to maintain and, if required, improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting to meet this standard, significant resources and management oversight may be required. As a result, management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could harm our business and results of operations. Although we have already hired additional employees to comply with these requirements, we may need to hire more employees in the future or engage outside consultants, which will increase our costs and expenses.

In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs, and making some activities more time-consuming. These laws, regulations, and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations, and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management’s time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. Our failure to comply with these laws, regulations, and standards could materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

As a result of filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition has become more visible, which we believe may result in more litigation, including by competitors and other third parties. If such claims are successful, our business and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected, and even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor. These claims, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could divert the resources of our management and materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.  

The dual class structure of our common stock as contained in our charter documents has the effect of concentrating voting control with a limited number of stockholders that held our stock prior to our initial public offering, including our founders and our executive officers, employees and directors and their affiliates, and venture capital investors, and limiting other stockholders’ ability to influence corporate matters.

Our Class B common stock has 10 votes per share, and our Class A common stock has one vote per share. Stockholders who hold shares of Class B common stock, including our founders, previous investors and our executive officers, employees and directors and their affiliates, together hold approximately 68% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock, and our founders, including our CEO and Chairman, together hold a majority of such voting power. As a result, for the foreseeable future, our stockholders who acquired their shares prior to the completion of our initial public offering will continue to have significant influence over the management and affairs of our company and over the outcome of all matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of directors and significant corporate transactions, such as a merger, consolidation or sale of substantially all of our assets.

In addition, the holders of Class B common stock collectively will continue to control all matters submitted to our stockholders for approval even if their stock holdings represent less than 50% of the outstanding shares of our common stock. Because of the ten-to-one voting ratio between our Class B and Class A common stock, the holders of our Class B common stock collectively will continue to control a majority of the combined voting power of our common stock so long as the shares of Class B common stock represent at least 10% of all outstanding shares of our Class A and Class B common stock. This concentrated control will limit your ability to influence corporate matters for the foreseeable future, and, as a result, the market price of our Class A common stock could be adversely affected.

Future transfers by holders of Class B common stock will generally result in those shares converting to Class A common stock, which will have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those holders of Class B common stock who retain their shares in the long term. If, for example, Mr. Shmunis retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B common stock for an

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extended period of time, he could, in the future, control a majority of the combined voting power of our Class A and Class B common stock. As a board member, Mr. Shmunis owes a fiduciary duty to our stockholders and must act in good faith in a manner he reasonably believes to be in the best interests of our stockholders. As a stockholder, even a controlling stockholder, Mr. Shmunis is entitled to vote his shares in his own interests, which may not always be in the interests of our stockholders generally.

We have never paid cash dividends and do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common stock.

We currently do not plan to declare dividends on shares of our common stock in the foreseeable future and plan to, instead, retain any earnings to finance our operations and growth. Because we have never paid cash dividends and do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future, the only opportunity to achieve a return on an investor’s investment in our company will be if the market price of our Class A common stock appreciates and the investor sells its shares at a profit. There is no guarantee that the price of our Class A common stock that will prevail in the market will ever exceed the price that an investor pays.

If research analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or if they issue unfavorable commentary or downgrade our Class A common stock, our stock price and trading volume may decline.

The trading market for our Class A common stock will depend in part on the research and reports that research analysts publish about us and our business. If we do not maintain adequate research coverage or if one or more analysts who covers us downgrades our stock or publishes inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, the price of our Class A common stock may decline. If one or more of the research analysts ceases coverage of our company or fails to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our Class A common stock may decrease, which could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.

Anti-takeover provisions in our restated certificate of incorporation and bylaws and under Delaware corporate law could make an acquisition of us more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management, and limit the market price of our Class A common stock.

Provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws include provisions that:

These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which generally prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any of a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder.

 

 

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None.

Our corporate headquarters is located in Belmont, California, and consists of approximately 84,000 square feet of office space, under a lease that expires in July 2021.

We also lease offices in Denver, Colorado; Charlotte, North Carolina; Boca Raton, Florida; London, England; Xiamen, China; and Kwun Tong, Hong Kong. In addition, we lease space from third-party datacenter hosting facilities under co-location agreements that support our cloud infrastructure, the most significant locations being Vienna, Virginia; San Jose, California; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Zurich, Switzerland; Sydney, Australia; and Singapore. We expect to further expand our facilities and datacenter capacity internationally during the year ending December 31, 2017. We believe that we will be able to obtain additional space at other locations at commercially reasonable terms to support our continuing expansion.

We are subject to certain legal proceedings described below, and from time to time may be involved in a variety of claims, lawsuits, investigations, and proceedings relating to contractual disputes, intellectual property rights, employment matters, regulatory compliance matters, and other litigation matters relating to various claims that arise in the normal course of business. Defending such proceedings is costly and can impose a significant burden on management and employees, we may receive unfavorable preliminary or interim rulings in the course of litigation, and there can be no assurances that favorable final outcomes will be obtained.

We determine whether an estimated loss from a contingency should be accrued by assessing whether a loss is deemed probable and can be reasonably estimated. We assess our potential liability by analyzing specific litigation and regulatory matters using reasonably available information. We develop our views on estimated losses in consultation with inside and outside counsel, which involves a subjective analysis of potential results and outcomes, assuming various combinations of appropriate litigation and settlement strategies. Legal fees are expensed in the period in which they are incurred. As of December 31, 2016, we did not have any accrued liabilities recorded for such loss contingencies.

On April 21, 2016, Supply Pro Sorbents, LLC (SPS) filed a putative class action against us in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Court), alleging common law conversion and violations of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) arising from fax cover sheets used by our customers when sending facsimile transmissions over our system (Lawsuit).  SPS seeks statutory damages, costs, attorneys’ fees and an injunction in connection with its TCPA claim, and unspecified damages and punitive damages in connection with its conversion claim.  On July 6, 2016, we filed a Petition for Expedited Declaratory Ruling before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), requesting that the FCC issue a ruling clarifying certain portions of its regulations promulgated under TCPA at issue in the Lawsuit (Petition).  The Petition remains pending.  On July 8, 2016, we filed a motion to dismiss the Lawsuit in its entirety, along with a collateral motion to dismiss or stay the Lawsuit pending a ruling by the FCC on our Petition.  On October 7, 2016, the Court granted our motion to dismiss and gave SPS 20 days to amend its complaint.  The Court concurrently dismissed our motion to dismiss or stay as moot.  SPS filed its amended complaint on October 27, 2016, alleging essentially the same theories and claims.  On November 21, 2016, we filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, along with a renewed motion to dismiss or stay the case pending resolution of the FCC Petition.  The motions to dismiss and to stay the Lawsuit are fully briefed and under submission to the Court.  Discovery has not yet commenced.  We intend to vigorously defend ourselves in the Lawsuit.  Litigation is inherently uncertain, however, and it is too early in this proceeding to predict the outcome of this Lawsuit.  Based on the information known by us as of the date of this filing and the rules and regulations applicable to the preparation of our consolidated financial statements, it is not possible to provide an estimated amount of any such loss or range of loss that may occur.

Not applicable.

 

 

 

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PART II

Market Information for Common Stock

Our Class A common stock has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “RNG” since September 27, 2013.

The following table sets forth for the indicated periods the high and low closing sales prices of our Class A common stock as reported by the New York Stock Exchange:

 

 

Our Class B common stock is not listed or traded on any stock exchange.

Dividend Policy

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock. We currently intend to retain any future earnings for use in the operation of our business and do not intend to declare or pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Any further determination to pay dividends on our capital stock will be at the discretion of our board of directors, subject to applicable laws, and will depend on our financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, general business conditions, and other factors that our board of directors considers relevant.

Stockholders

As of February 23, 2017, there were 30 stockholders of record of our Class A common stock and Class B common stock. Because most of our shares of Class A common stock are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of beneficial stockholders represented by these record holders.

Sales of Unregistered Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds

On July 6, 2016, we issued 45,893 shares of our Class A common stock to the former stockholders of Glip upon the satisfaction of certain milestones achieved in connection with our June 2015 acquisition of Glip.  No underwriters were involved in the foregoing sales of securities.  The issuance of such shares was deemed to be exempt from registration under the Securities Act, in reliance on Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act as transactions by an issuer not involving a public offering or Regulation S of the Securities Act.

Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans

Information regarding the securities authorized for issuance under our equity compensation plans can be found under Item 12 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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Stock Performance Graph

The following shall not be deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Exchange Act, or incorporated by reference into any of our other filings under the Exchange Act or the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, except to the extent we specifically incorporate it by reference into such filing. The graph below compares the cumulative total return on our Class A common stock with that of the Russell 2000 Index and the Nasdaq Computer Index. The period shown commences on September 27, 2013, the first day our Class A common stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and ends on December 31, 2016, the end of our last fiscal year. The graph assumes $100 was invested at the close of market on September 27, 2013 in the Class A common stock of RingCentral, Inc., or on September 30, 2013 in the Russell 2000 Index and the Nasdaq Computer Index, and assumes the reinvestment of any dividends. The stock price performance on the following graph is not intended to forecast or be indicative of future stock price performance of our Class A common stock.

 

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The consolidated statements of operations data and the consolidated balance sheets data are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements and should be read together with “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”, our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this filing. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of our results in any future period.

 

 

 

 

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You should read the following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included elsewhere in this report. As discussed in the section titled “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements,” the following discussion and analysis contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to these differences include those discussed below and elsewhere in this report, particularly in “Risk Factors.”

Overview

We are a leading provider of software-as-a-service, or SaaS, solutions for the way employees communicate and collaborate in business. We believe that our innovative, cloud-based approach disrupts the large market for business communications and collaboration by providing flexible and cost-effective solutions that support distributed workforces, mobile employees, and the proliferation of smart phones and tablets. We enable convenient and effective communications for our customers, across all their locations, all their employees, all the time, thus enabling a more productive and dynamic workforce.

We primarily generate revenues by selling software subscriptions of our RingCentral Office, RingCentral Professional, RingCentral Fax, RingCentral Contact Center, and RingCentral Glip offerings. RingCentral Office, which offers an integrated communications and collaboration solution, is offered at monthly subscription rates, varying by the specific functionalities and services and the number of users. We recently introduced RingCentral Global Office (Global Office) as an expansion of RingCentral Office. Global Office, offered on a monthly subscription, connects workforces across multiple countries, while reducing complexity and high costs of maintaining multiple, legacy on-premise PBX systems with a single cloud solution. RingCentral Professional is inbound call management for mobile professionals offered at monthly subscription rates that vary based on the desired amount of minutes usage and extensions allotted to the plan. RingCentral Fax is offered at monthly subscription rates that vary based on the desired number of pages and phone numbers allotted to the plan. RingCentral Contact Center is a multi-channel hosted contact center solution that integrates with RingCentral Office, offered at a monthly subscription based on three editions with varying features and capabilities.  RingCentral Glip is a team messaging and collaboration tool that is made available as a feature to all RingCentral Office customers, and as a freemium offering to non-RingCentral users.  Seamlessly integrated with RingCentral Office, RingCentral Glip enables greater work productivity and team engagement, and is among the first team messaging tools to integrate a complete Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) suite.  RingCentral CloudConnect is a service that allows enterprises to leverage their dedicated and private connections to exchange data directly with the RingCentral cloud. Customers use their preferred network service provider to connect to the RingCentral cloud through a private data exchange enabling lower latency, greater network reliability and availability, and added security.  Recently, RingCentral introduced Rooms and Rooms Connector to bring a cloud web conferencing solution to meeting rooms for a monthly per license add-on fee. We also offer RingCentral Connect Platform, which is an open platform supported by Application Program Interfaces (APIs) and Software Development Kits (SDKs) that allows developers to integrate our solution with leading business applications or to customize within their own business workflows.  

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Our subscription plans have historically had monthly or annual contractual terms, although we also have subscription plans with multi-year contractual terms, generally with larger customers. We believe that this flexibility in contract duration is important to meet the different needs of our customers. Generally, most of our fees for subscription plans have been billed in advance via credit card. However, as the size of RingCentral Office customer accounts grow, we expect to bill more customers through commercial invoices with customary payment terms and, accordingly, our level of accounts receivable may increase. We also expect our level of prepayments by larger customers with annual or multi-year contracts to increase and, accordingly, our level of deferred revenue may increase. For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014, software subscriptions revenues accounted for more than 90% of our total revenues. The remainder of our revenues has historically been primarily comprised of product revenues from the sale of pre-configured office phones. We do not develop, manufacture, or otherwise touch the delivery of physical phones and offer it as a convenience for a total solution to our customers in connection with subscriptions to our services. We rely on third-party providers to develop and manufacture these devices and fulfillment partners to successfully serve our customers.  

In January 2016, we entered into a sales agency agreement with Westcon, a global distributor of communications devices, to provide the phones purchased by customers. Under this agreement, we were an agent and received a commission for our services, which primarily included referring sales to Westcon. Westcon provided phones directly to our customers instead of us purchasing phones from third-party vendors and reselling the phones to our customers. We recorded commission revenues for this arrangement because we were the agent for these sales.  During the three months ended June 30, 2016, we completed our transition of direct phone sales to Westcon, which excluded our carriers’ phone sales.  We did not transition the carrier partners to the agency model as the billing relationships to these customers were through the carriers.  In addition, we had sales in which we provided free or significantly discounted phones to our customers for promotional reasons. As our agency arrangement did not allow for these significant discounts, we were the seller to these customers and recognized the related revenues and costs from the sale.  This resulted in a mixed hardware engagement model and administrative burden to manage the two models.  In December 2016, we terminated the Westcon sales agency agreement and entered into a reseller (direct sale) agreement with Westcon. Effective January 1, 2017, we switched from the agency model to the direct sale model whereby we will no longer serve as an agent for referring phone sales to Westcon and will no longer receive commissions for our services.  Under the direct sale model, we will purchase phones directly from Westcon for resale to our customers. Under this model, we will recognize revenues and costs for phone sales as we are the primary obligor for order fulfillment, have latitude in determining pricing, and assume general inventory risk. We expect the shift to the direct sale model to result in increases in our other revenues and the corresponding costs of other revenues, resulting in decreased margin.

We make significant upfront investments to acquire customers. Until 2010, we acquired most of our customer subscriptions through direct transactions on our website driven by online marketing channels. Beginning in 2010, in connection with our introduction of RingCentral Office, we established a direct inside sales force. Since then, we have continued investing in our direct inside sales force while also developing indirect sales channels to market our brand and our subscription offerings. Our indirect sales channel consists of a network of over 4,000 sales agents and resellers who are active in selling our solutions and with whom we have direct relationships, including distributors such as Ingram Micro Inc., Tech Data Corporation, and Jenne Inc., as well as carrier partners including AT&T Inc., TELUS Communications Company, and BT Group plc, which we refer to collectively as resellers. Our network of resellers includes master agents who manage other sales agents and resellers, resulting in an even larger reseller network.  We intend to continue to foster this network and expand our network with other resellers. We also participate in more traditional forms of media advertising, such as radio, and billboard advertising.

Since its launch, our revenue growth has primarily been driven by our flagship RingCentral Office product offering, which has resulted in an increased number of customers, increased average software subscription revenue per customer, and increased retention of our existing customer and user base. We define a “customer” as one individual billing relationship for the subscription to our services, which generally correlates to one company account per customer. In the case of our carrier partners, who resell our product to multiple companies, we consider each reseller to be a single customer. We define a user as one person within a customer who has been granted a subscription license to use our services, such that the number of end-users per customer generally correlates to the number of employees within a customer account. As of December 31, 2016, we had customers from a range of industries, including advertising, financial services, healthcare, legal services, non-profit organizations, real estate, retail, technology, insurance, education, waste management, construction, security services, restaurant, software, solar, automotive dealership, managed care, and publishing. In October of 2013, we launched our United Kingdom (U.K.) operations; however, for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014, the vast majority of our total revenues were generated in the U.S. and Canada, although we expect the percentage of our total revenues derived outside of the U.S. and Canada to grow as we expand internationally.

The growth of our business and our future success depend on many factors, including our ability to expand our customer base to medium-sized and larger customers, continue to innovate, grow revenues from our existing customer base, expand our distribution channels, and scale internationally.

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While these areas represent significant opportunities for us, they also pose risks and challenges that we must address in order to sustain the growth of our business and improve our operating results. We have experienced significant growth in recent periods, with total revenues of $379.7 million, $296.2 million, and $219.9 million in the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively, generating year-over-year increases of 28% and 35%, respectively.  We have continued to make significant expenditures and investments, including those in sales and marketing, research and development, infrastructure and operations and incurred net losses of $29.3 million, $32.1 million, and $48.3 million in the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.  

Key Business Metrics

In addition to generally accepted accounting principles, or U.S. GAAP, financial measures such as total revenues, gross margin, and cash flows from operations, we regularly review a number of key business metrics to evaluate growth trends, measure our performance, and make strategic decisions. We discuss revenues and gross margin under “Results of Operations” and cash flow from operations under “Liquidity and Capital Resources.” Other key business metrics are discussed below.

Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions

We believe that our Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions (ARR) is a leading indicator of our anticipated subscriptions revenues. We believe that trends in revenue are important to understanding the overall health of our business, and we use these trends in order to formulate financial projections and make strategic business decisions. Our Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions equals our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions multiplied by 12. Our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions equals the monthly value of all customer subscriptions in effect at the end of a given month. For example, our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at December 31, 2016 were $34.5 million. As such, our Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at December 31, 2016 were $414.4 million compared to $317.4 million at December 31, 2015.

RingCentral Office Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions

We calculate our RingCentral Office Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions (Office ARR) in the same manner as we calculate our Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions, except that only customer subscriptions from RingCentral Office customers are included when determining Monthly Recurring Subscriptions for the purposes of calculating this key business metric. RingCentral Office is our flagship product offering. We believe that trends in revenue with respect to RingCentral Office are also important to understanding the overall health of our business, and we use these trends in order to formulate financial projections and make strategic business decisions. Our RingCentral Office Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at December 31, 2016 were $341.5 million compared to $247.4 million at December 31, 2015.

Net Monthly Subscription Dollar Retention Rate

We believe that our Net Monthly Subscription Dollar Retention Rate provides insight into our ability to retain and grow software subscriptions revenue, as well as our customers’ potential long-term value to us. We believe that our ability to retain our customers and expand their use of our solutions over time is a leading indicator of the stability of our revenue base and we use these trends in order to formulate financial projections and make strategic business decisions. We define our Net Monthly Subscription Dollar Retention Rate as (i) one plus (ii) the quotient of Dollar Net Change divided by Average Dollar Monthly Recurring Subscriptions.

We define Dollar Net Change as the quotient of (i) the difference of our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at the end of a period minus our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at the beginning of a period minus our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at the end of the period from new customers we added during the period, (ii) all divided by the number of months in the period. We define our Average Monthly Recurring Subscriptions as the average of the Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at the beginning and end of the measurement period.

For example, if our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions were $118 at the end of a quarterly period and $100 at the beginning of period, and $20 at the end of the period from new customers we added during the period, then the Dollar Net Change would be equal to ($0.67), or the amount equal to the difference of $118 minus $100 minus $20, all divided by three months. Our Average Monthly Recurring Subscriptions would equal $109, or the sum of $100 plus $118, divided by two. Our Net Monthly Subscription Dollar Retention Rate would then equal 99.4%, or approximately 99%, or one plus the quotient of the Dollar Net Change divided by the Average Monthly Recurring Subscriptions.

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Our key business metrics for the five quarterly periods ended December 31, 2016 were as follows (dollars in millions):

 

 

Components of Results of Operations

Revenues

Our revenues for the years presented, consisted of software subscriptions and other revenues. Our software subscriptions revenue includes all fees billed in connection with subscriptions to our RingCentral Office, RingCentral Professional, RingCentral Fax, RingCentral Contact Center, and RingCentral Glip. These fees include recurring fixed plan subscription fees, variable usage-based fees for usage in excess of plan limits, recurring administrative cost recovery fees, one-time fees, and other recurring fees related to our subscriptions. We provide our subscriptions to our customers pursuant to contractual arrangements that range in duration from one month to three years. We provide our subscriptions to our customers pursuant to either “click through” online agreements for service terms up to one year or written agreements when the arrangement is expected to be one year or longer. We offer our subscriptions based on the functionalities and services selected by a customer, and generally our subscription arrangements automatically renew for additional periods at the end of the initial subscription term. We believe that this flexibility in contract duration is important to meet the different needs of our customers.

We generally bill our software subscription fees in advance. We recognize software subscription revenue over the term of the agreement.  Amounts billed in excess of revenue recognized for the period are reported as deferred revenue on our consolidated balance sheet.

During the years presented, we sold our hardware products as a convenience for a total solution to our customers when they subscribe to our services. In January 2016, we entered into a sales agency agreement with Westcon to provide the phones purchased by customers. Under this agreement, we were an agent of Westcon and received a commission for our services, which primarily include referring phone sales to Westcon. Westcon provided phones directly to our customers instead of us purchasing phones from third-party vendors and reselling the phones to customers.  Sales of phones that were provided free or significantly discounted to customers were not part of the agency agreement with Westcon. We recognized revenues and costs from these sales as we were the primary obligor and had latitude in determining pricing.  Additionally, phone sales from our carrier partners were excluded from the agency model.  As a result of the new sales agency model, we replaced the product revenues line in our consolidated statements of operations with a line called “Other revenues”, which includes the commission revenues earned as an agent of Westcon, product revenues from sales of phones not sold under the sales agency agreement with Westcon, phone sales to carrier partners, phone rentals, and professional implementation services. Product revenue is billed at the time the order is received and recognized when the product has been delivered to the customer.

 

In December 2016, we terminated the Westcon sales agency agreement and entered into a reseller (direct sale) agreement with Westcon, which was effective January 2017.  Under the direct sale model, we will purchase phones directly from Westcon for resale to our customers. Under this model, we will recognize revenues and costs for phone sales as we are the primary obligor for order fulfillment, have latitude in determining pricing, and assume general inventory risk. We expect the shift to the direct sale model to result in increases in our other revenues and the corresponding costs of other revenues, resulting in a decline in margin.

 

We also generate software subscriptions and product revenues through sales of our subscriptions and products by resellers. When we assume a majority of the business risks associated with the performance of the contractual obligations, we record the revenues on a gross basis and amounts retained by our resellers are recorded as sales and marketing expenses. Our assumption of such business risks is evidenced when, among other things, we take responsibility for delivery of the service or products, establish pricing of the arrangement, assume credit and inventory risk, and are the primary obligor in the arrangement. When a reseller assumes the majority of the business risks associated with the performance of the contractual obligations, we record the associated revenue at the net amount remitted to us by the reseller. Revenue from resellers has predominately been recorded on a gross basis for all periods presented.

 

Cost of Revenues and Gross Margin

Our cost of software subscriptions revenue primarily consists of fees paid to third-party telecommunications providers, network operations, costs to build out and maintain data centers, including co-location fees for the right to place our servers in data centers

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owned by third parties, depreciation of servers and equipment, along with related utilities and maintenance costs, personnel costs associated with customer care and support of the functionality of our platform and data center operations, including share-based compensation expenses, and allocated costs of facilities and information technology.

 

We define software subscriptions gross margins as software subscriptions revenue minus the cost of software subscriptions revenue expressed as a percentage of software subscriptions revenue. We expect our software subscriptions gross margin to increase modestly over time, although it may fluctuate from period to period depending on the above factors including seasonality.

Cost of other revenue is comprised primarily of the cost associated with the purchase of phones that fell outside of the agency model, cost of professional services, and allocated costs of facilities and information technology related to the procurement, management, and shipment of phones.

Operating Expenses

We classify our operating expenses as research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative expenses.

Our research and development efforts are focused on developing new and expanded features for our products, integrations with distributors and other software platforms, and improvements to our backend architecture. Research and development expenses consist primarily of personnel costs for employees and contractors, including share-based compensation expenses, and allocated costs of facilities and information technology, software tools, and product certification. We expense research and development costs as incurred, except for certain internal-use software development costs that we capitalize. We believe that continued investment in our products is important for our future growth, and we expect our research and development expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future, although these expenses may fluctuate as a percentage of our total revenues from period to period depending on the timing of these expenses.

Sales and marketing expenses are the largest component of our operating expenses and consist primarily of personnel costs for employees and contractors directly associated with our sales and marketing activities, including share-based compensation expenses, internet advertising fees, radio and billboard advertising, public relations, commissions paid to employees, resellers and other third parties, trade shows, travel expenses, credit card fees, marketing and promotional activities, amortization of acquired customer relationship intangibles, and allocated costs of facilities and information technology. We expect our sales and marketing expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future as we expand our sales and marketing efforts domestically and internationally and continue to build our brand, although these expenses may fluctuate as a percentage of our total revenues from period to period depending on the timing of these expenses.

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel costs, including share-based compensation expenses, for employees and contractors engaged in infrastructure and administrative activities to support the day-to-day operations of our business. Other significant components of general and administrative expenses include professional service fees, allocated costs of facilities and information technology, cost of compliance with certain government imposed taxes, and the costs of legal matters, business acquisition costs, and loss contingencies. We incur additional expenses as a result of operating as a public company, including costs to comply with the rules and regulations applicable to companies listed on a national securities exchange, costs related to compliance and reporting obligations pursuant to the rules and regulations of the SEC, and increased expenses for insurance, investor relations, and professional services. We expect our general and administrative expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future, although these expenses may fluctuate as a percentage of our total revenues from period to period, depending on the timing of these expenses.

Quarterly Revenue Trends

Our software subscriptions revenue is primarily driven by recurring subscription services. Historically, we have acquired more new customers in the first and third quarters of a fiscal year. However, we have seen this trend become less pronounced as our business has grown, sales of RingCentral Office have accounted for a higher percentage of our total revenues, and as we move up-market to target and acquire larger customers.  

Quarterly Operating Expenses Trends

Operating expenses are primarily driven by employee-related expenses and by sales and marketing programs, and have been relatively consistent as a percentage of revenues. We experience some seasonality in spending on sales and marketing as a percentage of revenue as we spend relatively less on marketing programs in the third and fourth quarters due to the summer and year-end vacation periods and November and December holidays. However, this trend may not continue as we acquire larger customers.

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Results of Operations

The following tables set forth selected consolidated statements of operations data and such data as a percentage of total revenues. The historical results presented below are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for any future period (in thousands):

 

 

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Percentage of Total Revenues

 

 

Comparison of Fiscal Years Ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014:

Revenues

 

 

Software subscriptions revenue.  Software subscriptions revenue increased by $84.6 million and $71.1 million, or 31% and 36%, from fiscal years 2015 to 2016 and from fiscal years 2014 to 2015, respectively. The increases from fiscal years 2015 to 2016 and from 2014 to 2015 were primarily due to the acquisition of new customers and upsells of additional offerings to our existing customer base. In addition, our software subscriptions revenues mix contained a higher proportion of RingCentral Office customers for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to the prior year, which generally carry a higher monthly subscription rate versus our other product offerings. While the acquisition of new customers and upsells of additional offerings to our existing customer base were the primary reasons for the increase, the short-term trends for user and customer acquisition have varied from period to period as some customers made a small initial user subscription followed by a larger additional user subscription, while other customers purchased a large initial user subscription followed by a smaller additional user subscription. In addition, the period of time between a customer’s initial subscription and the purchase of additional subscriptions varies significantly, ranging from one month to a few years. The overall growth in our customer base was primarily driven by increased brand awareness of our products, driven by increases in our sales and marketing expenditures of 38% and 33% from fiscal years 2015 to 2016 and from fiscal years 2014 to 2015, respectively, which include advertising and sales personnel expenditures that we believe helped to facilitate increased customer acceptance of our products.

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Other revenues.  In the year ended December 31, 2016, we transitioned to a new distribution partner for delivering phones to our customers and entered into a sales agency agreement.  Under the agreement, we were an agent and received a commission for our services, which primarily consisted of referring sales to the distribution partner. Under the agency arrangement, we had sales in which we provided free or significantly discounted phones to our customers for promotional reasons. As our agency arrangement did not allow for these significant discounts, we were the seller to these customers and recognized the related revenues and costs from the sale.  

The remainder of our revenues has historically been primarily comprised of product revenues from the sale of pre-configured office phones.  In 2016, we replaced the “product revenues” line item in our consolidated statements of operations with a line item for “other” revenues, which includes commissions earned on sales of phones from our distribution partner, phone rentals, professional services, and sales of phones not sold under the sales agency agreement.

Other revenues decreased by $1.1 million or 4% from fiscal years 2015 to 2016 primarily due to the shift to the new agency model during 2016 and the elimination of the majority of our revenues from the sale of phones.  Other revenues increased by $5.2 million or 26% from fiscal years 2014 to 2015 primarily due to increased phone sales driven by the growth of new customers of RingCentral Office that use physical phones.

In December 2016, we terminated the sales agency agreement and entered into a reseller (direct sale) agreement with the distribution partner. Effective January 1, 2017, we switched from the agency agreement to the reseller agreement whereby we will no longer serve as an agent for referring phone sales to the distribution partner and will no longer receive commissions for our services.  Under the reseller agreement, we will recognize revenues and costs for phone sales as we are the primary obligor for order fulfillment, have latitude in determining pricing, and assume general inventory risk. We expect the shift to the reseller model to result in increases in our other revenues and the corresponding costs of other revenues, resulting in decreased margin.

Cost of Revenues and Gross Margin

 

 

Cost of software subscriptions revenues.  Cost of software subscriptions revenues increased by $7.1 million, or 11%, from fiscal years 2015 to 2016 primarily due to increases in personnel costs of $3.3 million, service and professional fees of $1.6 million, and third-party costs to support our new products launched in late 2015 of $1.9 million. The increase in personnel costs was driven by an increase of 25% in average headcount and higher share-based compensation expense of $1.0 million.

 

Cost of software subscriptions revenue increased by $7.7 million, or 13%, from fiscal years 2014 to 2015 primarily due to increases in personnel costs of $6.0 million and depreciation expense of $0.7 million. The increase in personnel costs was driven by an increase of 16% in average headcount and higher share-based compensation expense of $0.8 million.  The higher depreciation charges reflect increased deployment of hardware to enhance our ability to carry our own telecommunications traffic in certain regional markets.

 

The increases in headcount and other expense categories described herein were driven primarily by investments in our infrastructure and capacity to improve the availability of our subscription offerings, while also supporting the growth in new customers and increased usage of our subscriptions by our existing customer base.  

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Cost of other revenues.  Cost of other revenues decreased by $2.2 million, or 10%, from fiscal years 2015 to 2016.  This was primarily due to a decrease in the cost of product sales of $4.2 million, which was driven primarily by the shift to the new agency model and was partially offset by an increase in the cost of professional services of $1.9 million.  The increase in the cost of professional services was due to an increase in implementation services.

Cost of other revenue increased by $2.8 million, or 16%, from fiscal years 2014 to 2015 primarily due to increased phone sales driven by the growth in of new customers of RingCentral Office that use physical phones.

Gross margin.  Our gross margin was 76%, 71% and 65% for fiscal years 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively and improved sequentially year over year due to improvements in gross margins for both software subscriptions revenues and other revenues. The sequential improvements in software subscription revenues gross margin were primarily due to economies of scale obtained in our infrastructure, which includes transport costs and customer support expenses, while the sequential improvements in other revenues gross margin were primarily due to the shift in the majority of our phone sales to an agent relationship.  

We expect the sequential improvement to continue in software subscription revenues gross margin as we continue to improve and benefit from economies of scale obtained in our infrastructure.  Additionally, we expect a decrease in other revenues gross margin due to transitioning from the agency model to the direct sale model effective January 2017.  

Research and Development

 

 

Research and development expenses increased by $12.6 million, or 24%, from fiscal years 2015 to 2016 primarily due to increases in personnel costs of $12.4 million and professional fees of $1.3 million, which were partially offset by a cost recovery of $0.9 million. The increase in personnel costs was primarily due to an increase in average headcount of 18% and higher share-based compensation expense of $1.9 million.

 

Research and development expenses increased by $8.3 million, or 19%, from fiscal years 2014 to 2015 primarily due to increases in personnel costs of $4.1 million, an impairment charge of $1.3 million related to certain internal use software, professional fees of $0.6 million, and amortization expense of $0.4 million related to intangibles acquired as part of the Glip acquisition, and. The increase in personnel costs was primarily due to an increase in average headcount of 17% and higher share-based compensation expense of $2.0 million.

The increases in research and development headcount and other expense categories were driven by continued investment in current and future software development projects for our cloud-based and mobile applications.  We expect research and development expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to invest in such development.

Sales and Marketing

 

 

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $52.6 million, or 38%, from fiscal years 2015 to 2016 primarily due to increases in personnel costs of $28.3 million, indirect channel commissions of $8.8 million, advertising and marketing costs of $8.6 million, travel costs of $3.3 million, professional fees of $1.1 million, and overhead costs to support our marketing efforts of $2.5 million.  The increase in personnel costs was primarily due to an increase in average headcount of 27% and higher share-based compensation expense of $3.7 million.

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Sales and marketing expenses increased by $35.0 million, or 33%, from fiscal years 2014 to 2015 primarily due to increases in personnel costs of $16.0 million, indirect channel commissions of $6.2 million, advertising and marketing costs of $9.0 million, travel costs of $1.7 million, and overhead costs to support our marketing efforts of $2.4 million. The increase in personnel costs was primarily due to an increase in average headcount of 19% and higher share-based compensation expense of $1.9 million.

The increases in sales and marketing headcount and other expense categories were necessary to support our growth strategy to acquire new customers and establish brand recognition to achieve greater penetration into the North American and U.K. markets.  Additionally, we expect sales and marketing expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to expand our presence in North America, the U.K., and other markets.

General and Administrative

 

 

General and administrative expenses increased by $8.3 million, or 18%, from fiscal years 2015 to 2016 primarily due to increases in personnel costs of $5.7 million and professional fees of $2.2 million. The increase in personnel costs was primarily due to an increase in average headcount of 9% and higher share-based compensation expense of $2.0 million.

 

General and administrative expenses increased by $8.2 million, or 21%, from fiscal years 2014 to 2015 primarily due to increases in personnel costs of $4.5 million, professional fees of $1.8 million, and acquisition related costs of $0.8 million from the acquisition of Glip. The increase in personnel costs was primarily due to an increase in average headcount of 12% and higher share-based compensation expense of $1.8 million.

We expect general and administrative expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to make additional investments in processes, systems, and personnel to support our anticipated revenue growth and to comply with our public company reporting obligations.

Other Income (expense), net

 

 

Other expense increased by $0.7 million, or 28%, from fiscal years 2015 to 2016 primarily due to foreign exchange losses driven by the significant decline in the British pound relative to the US dollar.

 

Other expense decreased by $0.6 million, or 20%, from fiscal years 2014 to 2015 primarily due to lower interest expense as a result of correspondingly lower balances of debt outstanding. Specifically, at December 31, 2015 and 2014, there was $18.6 million and $24.6 million of total debt outstanding, respectively.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, we had $160.4 million and $137.6 million, respectively, of cash and cash equivalents. Since our initial public offering in 2013 and our follow-on offering in early 2014, we have financed our operations primarily through sales to our customers, proceeds from issuance of stock under our stock plans, and proceeds from issuance of debt. We believe that our operations along with existing liquidity sources and available borrowings under our SVB Agreement will satisfy our cash requirements for at least the next 12 months.

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Generally, 77% of our billings, including carrier partner billings, are collected through credit card payments received at the beginning of each subscription period, which is monthly for the majority of our customers.  As we continue to move up market, the number and size of customers with annual or multi-year contracts is increasing and those who opt for annual invoicing is also increasing.  We generally invoice only one annual period in advance and all invoicing occurs at the start of the respective subscription period.  Therefore, a source of our cash provided by operating activities is our deferred revenue, which is included within our consolidated balance sheet as a liability.  Deferred revenue consists of the unearned portion of invoiced fees for our software subscriptions, which we recognize as revenue ratably over the term of agreement.  As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, we had deferred revenue of $45.2 million and $36.7 million, respectively.

As of December 31, 2016, the carrying value of our debt totaled $14.8 million, which was subsequently repaid in full in February 2017 as discussed in Note 17 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements and Supplementary Data included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.  The balance consisted of $4.0 million in the 2013 Term Loan and $10.8 million under the revolving line of credit, which collectively were payable under the SVB Agreement. As of December 31, 2016, the available borrowing capacity of the revolving line of credit was $4.2 million. We had pledged substantially all of our assets, excluding intellectual property, as collateral to secure our obligations under the SVB Agreement. The SVB Agreement contained customary negative covenants that limit our ability to, among other things, incur additional indebtedness, grant liens, make investments, repurchase stock, pay dividends, transfer assets and merge or consolidate. The SVB Agreement, as amended, also contained customary affirmative covenants, as well as financial covenants that required us to (i) maintain minimum cash balances of $10.0 million with SVB, as defined in the agreement, and (ii) maintain minimum EBITDA levels, as determined in accordance with the SVB Agreement. We were in compliance with all covenants under the SVB Agreement as of December 31, 2016.  

Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including revenue growth and costs incurred to support customer growth, international expansion, research and development, litigation, increased general and administrative expenses to support the anticipated growth in our operations, and capital equipment required to support our growing headcount and in support of our co-location data center facilities. Our capital expenditures in future periods are expected to grow in line with our business. To the extent that existing cash and cash equivalents are not sufficient to fund our future operations, we may need to raise additional funds through public or private equity offerings or through additional debt financing. Although we currently are not a party to any agreement and do not have any understanding with any third parties with respect to potential investments in, or acquisitions of, businesses or technologies, we may enter into these types of arrangements in the future, which could also require us to seek additional equity or debt financing. Additional financing sources may not be available on terms favorable to us or at all.

The table below, for the periods indicated, provides selected cash flow information (in thousands):

 

 

Net Cash Provided by (Used in) Operating Activities

Cash provided by operating activities is influenced by the amount of cash we invest in personnel, marketing, and infrastructure costs to support the anticipated growth of our business, the increase in the number of customers using our cloud-based software, the amount and timing of customer collections, as well as the amount and timing of disbursements to our vendors.  As we continue to invest in personnel and infrastructure to support the anticipated growth of our business, we expect to continue to use cash in our operating activities.

Net cash provided by operating activities was $29.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 primarily resulting from non-cash adjustments of $49.3 million and an increase of $9.7 million in operating assets and liabilities offset by funding a net loss of $29.3 million.  The $49.3 million of non-cash adjustments primarily consisted of $30.8 million in share-based compensation, $14.7 million in depreciation and amortization, $2.6 million in foreign currency remeasurement loss recognized on certain receivables denominated in currencies other than the functional currency, and $0.6 million in bad debt expense.  The $9.7 million increase in cash resulting from changes in operating assets and liabilities was primarily driven by the timing of cash payments to vendors and cash receipts and prepayments from customers and carriers.  

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Net cash provided by operating activities was $5.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2015 primarily resulting from non-cash adjustments of $37.9 million offset by funding a net loss of $32.1 million and a decrease of $0.7 million in operating assets and liabilities.  The $37.9 million of non-cash adjustments primarily consisted of $22.1 million in share-based compensation, $13.5 million in depreciation and amortization, $0.8 million in foreign currency remeasurement loss recognized on certain receivables denominated in currencies other than the functional currency, and a $1.3 million impairment charge for certain internal use software offset by a $1.4 million non-cash benefit item related to the Glip acquisition.  Due to the Glip acquisition, a deferred tax liability was established for the book-tax basis difference related to acquired intangibles. The net deferred tax liability from acquisitions provided an additional source of income to support the realizability of our pre-existing deferred tax asset and as a result, we released a portion of the valuation allowance that was established in the previous year and recorded a one-time tax benefit of $1.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2015.

Net cash provided by operating activities for the year ended December 31, 2016 increased by $24.6 million as compared to the respective period of the prior year primarily due to a reduction in our net loss of $2.8 million, an increase in non-cash adjustments of $11.4 million, and an increase in changes in operating assets and liabilities of $10.4 million.  The $10.4 million increase in cash resulting from changes in operating assets and liabilities was primarily driven by the timing of cash payments to vendors and cash receipts and prepayments from customers and carriers.  

Net Cash Provided by (Used in) Investing Activities

Our primary investing activities have consisted of capital expenditures, including costs incurred related to internal-use software, that are necessary to support our increasing customer base and headcount levels in all functions of our business.  As our business grows, we expect our capital expenditures to continue to increase.

Net cash used in investing activities was approximately $16.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 primarily due to $14.2 million in purchases of property and equipment and $2.2 million of personnel-related costs associated with the development of internal-use software.  

Net cash provided by investing activities was $6.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2015 primarily due to $28.1 million in proceeds from the maturity of available-for-sale short-term investments partially offset by $17.1 million in purchases of property and equipment and capitalized internal-use software and the $4.7 million cash consideration portion paid for the acquisition of Glip.

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2016 increased by $22.8 million as compared to the respective period of the prior year primarily due to a reduction of $28.2 million in proceeds from the maturity of available-for-sale securities and restricted investments that were received in 2015, partially offset by reductions of $4.7 million in payments made in 2015 for the Glip acquisition and $0.7 million in purchases of property and equipment and personnel-related costs associated with the development of internal-use software.

Net Cash Provided by Financing Activities

Our primary financing activities have consisted of raising proceeds through the issuance of stock under our stock plans and borrowings under the SVB Agreement.  

Net cash provided by financing activities was approximately $9.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 primarily due to $15.1 million in proceeds from the issuance of shares in connection with our stock plans, including the issuance of shares under our ESPP, partially offset by the repayment of $4.0 million for debt, including capital lease payments of $0.3 million, and the holdback payment of $1.5 million related to the Glip acquisition as discussed in Note 6 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements and Supplementary Data included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.  

Net cash provided by financing activities was $12.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2015 primarily due to $19.5 million in proceeds from issuance of stock in connection with our stock plans, including the issuance of shares under our ESPP, partially offset by $6.7 million in repayment of debt and capital lease obligations.

Net cash provided by financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2016 decreased by $3.3 million as compared to the respective period of the prior year primarily due to the holdback payment of $1.5 million related to the Glip acquisition and a reduction of $4.4 million in proceeds from the issuance of shares in connection with our stock plans, which were partially offset by reduced debt repayments of $2.4 million driven by an early repayment of debt in March 2015.

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Backlog

We have generally signed monthly and annual contracts for our subscriptions. The timing of invoicing to our customers is a negotiated term and thus varies among our subscription contracts. For multiple-year contracts, it is common to invoice an initial amount at contract signing followed by subsequent annual invoices. At any point in the contract term, there can be amounts that we have not yet been contractually able to invoice, which constitute backlog. Until such time as these amounts are invoiced, we do not recognize them as revenues, unearned revenues or elsewhere in our consolidated financial statements. Accordingly, we believe that fluctuations in backlog are not a reliable indicator of future revenues and we do not utilize backlog as a key management metric internally.

Deferred Revenue

Deferred revenue primarily consists of the unearned portion of invoiced fees for our software subscriptions, which we recognize as revenue in accordance with our revenue recognition policy. As we continue to move up market, the number of customers who opt for multi-year contracts are increasing along with their related contract values.  For customers with multi-year contracts, however, we generally invoice only one annual subscription period in advance.  Therefore, our deferred revenue balance does not capture the full contract value of such multi-year contracts.  Accordingly, we believe that deferred revenue is not a reliable indicator of future revenues and we do not utilize deferred revenue as a key management metric internally.

Contractual Obligations

The following summarizes our contractual obligations as of December 31, 2016 (in thousands):

 

 

As of December 31, 2016, the carrying value of our debt totaled $14.8 million, which was subsequently repaid in full in February 2017 as discussed in Note 17 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements and Supplementary Data included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

Purchase obligations represent an estimate of all open purchase orders and contractual obligations in the normal course of business for which we have not received the goods or services as of December 31, 2016. Although open purchase orders are considered enforceable and legally binding, except for our purchase orders with our inventory suppliers, the terms generally allow us the option to cancel, reschedule, and adjust our requirements based on our business needs prior to the delivery of goods or performance of services. Our purchase orders with our inventory suppliers are non-cancellable. In addition, we have other obligations for goods and services that we enter into in the normal course of business. These obligations, however, are either not enforceable or legally binding, or are subject to change based on our business decisions. The aggregate of these items represents our estimate of purchase obligations.

Silicon Valley Bank Credit Facility

As of December 31, 2016, our debt was comprised of borrowings under the Third Amended and Restated Loan and Security Agreement dated March 30, 2015 (SVB Agreement), as amended, with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).  Under the SVB Agreement, we had one outstanding growth capital term loan (2013 Term Loan) and a revolving line of credit. In February 2017, we repaid the 2013 Term Loan and revolving line of credit in full and terminated the SVB Agreement.

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The 2013 Term Loan was borrowed on December 31, 2013 with a principal amount of $15.0 million, which was repayable in 48 equal monthly installments of principal, plus accrued and unpaid interest. Interest was due monthly and accrued at a floating rate based on our option of an annual rate of either the (i) prime rate plus a margin of 0.75% or 1.00% or (ii) adjusted LIBOR rate (based on one, two, three or six-month interest periods) plus a margin of 3.75% or 4.00%, in each case such margin being determined based on cash balances maintained with SVB. We elected the prime rate option.  In May 2016, the terms of the SVB Agreement were amended to reduce the margin on the annual rate of the 2013 Term Loan to either (i) prime rate plus a margin of 0.25% or 0.50% or (ii) adjusted LIBOR rate (based on one, two, three, or six-month interest periods) plus a margin of 3.25% or 3.50%, resulting in an interest rate of 4.00% based on the prime rate option and cash balance maintained with SVB. As of December 31, 2016, the outstanding principal balance of the 2013 Term Loan was $4.0 million, of which $0.3 million was payable subsequent to December 31, 2017 and was classified as a non-current liability in the accompanying consolidated balance sheet.

The revolving line of credit provided for a maximum borrowing of up to $15.0 million in principal amount, subject to limits based on recurring software subscription revenue amounts as defined in the SVB Agreement. The recurring software subscription revenue requirement was not expected to limit the amount of borrowings available under the line of credit. Under the line of credit, interest was paid monthly and accrued at a floating rate based on our option of an annual rate of either the (i) prime rate plus a margin of 0.25% or 0.50% or (ii) adjusted LIBOR rate (based on one, two, three or six-month interest periods) plus a margin of 3.25% or 3.50%, in each case such margin being determined based on cash balances maintained with SVB. We elected the prime rate option.  In August 2015, the terms of the SVB Agreement were amended to extend the maturity of the revolving line of credit from August 13, 2015 to August 14, 2017.  In May 2016, the terms of the SVB Agreement were amended to reduce the margin on the annual rate of the revolving line of credit to either the (i) prime rate plus a margin of 0% or 0.25% or (ii) adjusted LIBOR rate (based on one, two, three, or six-month interest periods) plus a margin of 3.0% to 3.25%, resulting in an interest rate of 3.75% based on the prime rate option and cash balance maintained with SVB. As of December 31, 2016, the outstanding principal balance and the available borrowing capacity of the line of credit were $10.8 million and $4.2 million, respectively. The outstanding principal balance was classified as a current liability in the consolidated balance sheet as the principal balance was due in August 2017.

We pledged all of our assets, excluding intellectual property, as collateral to secure our obligations under the SVB agreement. The SVB agreement contained customary negative covenants that limit our ability to, among other things, incur additional indebtedness, grant liens, make investments, repurchase stock, pay dividends, transfer assets and merge or consolidate. The SVB agreement also contained customary affirmative covenants, including requirements to, among other things, (i) maintain minimum cash balances representing the greater of $10.0 million or three times our quarterly cash burn rate, as defined in the agreement, and (ii) maintain minimum EBITDA levels, as determined in accordance with the agreement. On March 30, 2016, we adjusted certain financial covenant thresholds to expand our ability to invest in certain foreign subsidiaries and property and equipment. We were in compliance with all covenants under our credit agreement with SVB as of December 31, 2016.

Indemnification Obligations

Certain of our agreements with sales agents, resellers and customers include provisions for indemnification against liabilities if our products infringe a third-party’s intellectual property rights. To date, we have not incurred any material costs as a result of such indemnification provisions and have not accrued any liabilities related to such obligations in the consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2016.

Contingencies

Legal Proceedings

We are subject to certain legal proceedings described below, and from time to time may be involved in a variety of claims, lawsuits, investigations, and proceedings relating to contractual disputes, intellectual property rights, employment matters, regulatory compliance matters, and other litigation matters relating to various claims that arise in the normal course of business. Defending such proceedings is costly and can impose a significant burden on management and employees, we may receive unfavorable preliminary or interim rulings in the course of litigation, and there can be no assurances that favorable final outcomes will be obtained.

We determine whether an estimated loss from a contingency should be accrued by assessing whether a loss is deemed probable and can be reasonably estimated. We assess our potential liability by analyzing specific litigation and regulatory matters using reasonably available information. We develop our views on estimated losses in consultation with inside and outside counsel, which involves a subjective analysis of potential results and outcomes, assuming various combinations of appropriate litigation and settlement strategies. Legal fees are expensed in the period in which they are incurred. As of December 31, 2016, we did not have any accrued liabilities recorded for such loss contingencies.

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On April 21, 2016, Supply Pro Sorbents, LLC (SPS) filed a putative class action against us in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Court), alleging common law conversion and violations of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) arising from fax cover sheets used by our customers when sending facsimile transmissions over our system (Lawsuit).  SPS seeks statutory damages, costs, attorneys’ fees and an injunction in connection with its TCPA claim, and unspecified damages and punitive damages in connection with its conversion claim.  On July 6, 2016, we filed a Petition for Expedited Declaratory Ruling before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), requesting that the FCC issue a ruling clarifying certain portions of its regulations promulgated under TCPA at issue in the Lawsuit (Petition).  The Petition remains pending.  On July 8, 2016, we filed a motion to dismiss the Lawsuit in its entirety, along with a collateral motion to dismiss or stay the Lawsuit pending a ruling by the FCC on our Petition.  On October 7, 2016, the Court granted our motion to dismiss and gave SPS 20 days to amend its complaint.  The Court concurrently dismissed our motion to dismiss or stay as moot.  SPS filed its amended complaint on October 27, 2016, alleging essentially the same theories and claims.  On November 21, 2016, we filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, along with a renewed motion to dismiss or stay the case pending resolution of the FCC Petition.  The motions to dismiss and to stay the Lawsuit are fully briefed and under submission to the Court.  Discovery has not yet commenced.  We intend to vigorously defend ourselves in the Lawsuit.  Litigation is inherently uncertain, however, and it is too early in this proceeding to predict the outcome of this Lawsuit.  Based on the information known by us as of the date of this filing and the rules and regulations applicable to the preparation of our consolidated financial statements, it is not possible to provide an estimated amount of any such loss or range of loss that may occur.

Sales Tax Liability

We regularly increase our sales and marketing activities in various states within the U.S., which may create nexus in those states to collect sales taxes on sales to customers.  Although we are diligent in collecting and remitting such taxes, there is uncertainty as to what constitutes sufficient in state presence for a state to levy taxes, fees, and surcharges for sales made over the Internet.  As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, we recorded a long-term sales tax liability of $3.1 million, and $3.7 million, respectively, based on our best estimate of the probable liability for the loss contingency incurred as of those dates. Our estimate of a probable outcome under the loss contingency is based on analysis of our sales and marketing activities, revenues subject to sales tax, and applicable regulations in each state in each period. No significant adjustments to the long-term sales tax liability have been recognized in the accompanying consolidated financial statements for changes to the assumptions underlying the estimate. However, changes in management’s assumptions may occur in the future as we obtain new information, which can result in adjustments to the recorded liability. Increases and decreases to the long-term sales tax liability are recorded as general and administrative expense.

Employee Agreements

We have signed various employment agreements with executives and key employees pursuant to which if we terminate their employment without cause or if the employee does so for good reason following a change of control of our company, the employees are entitled to receive certain benefits, including severance payments, accelerated vesting of stock options and restricted stock units (RSUs) and continued COBRA coverage. As of December 31, 2016, no triggering events which would cause these provisions to become effective have occurred. Therefore, no liabilities have been recorded for these agreements in the consolidated financial statements.

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

Through December 31, 2016, we did not have any relationships with unconsolidated organizations or financial partnerships, such as structured finance or special purpose entities that would have been established for the purpose of facilitating off-balance sheet arrangements or other contractually narrow or limited purposes.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

We prepare our consolidated financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the U.S. or U.S. GAAP. In many cases, the accounting treatment of a particular transaction is specifically dictated by U.S. GAAP and does not require management’s judgment in its application. In other cases, management’s judgment is required in selecting among available alternative accounting standards that provide for different accounting treatment for similar transactions. The preparation of consolidated financial statements also requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts we report as assets, liabilities, revenues, costs, and expenses, and affect the related disclosures. We base our estimates on historical experience and other assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances. In many instances, we could reasonably use different accounting estimates, and in some instances changes in the accounting estimates are reasonably likely to occur from period to period. Accordingly, our actual results could differ significantly from the estimates made by our management. To the extent that there are differences between our estimates and actual results, our future financial statement presentation, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows will be affected. We believe that the accounting policies discussed below are critical to understanding our historical and future performance, as these policies relate to the more significant areas involving management’s judgments and estimates.

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Revenue Recognition

We derive our revenues from two sources:

We recognize revenues when the following criteria are met:

Revenue under subscription plans are recognized as follows:

Commission revenue is recognized when services have been rendered. Product revenue is billed at the time the order is received and recognized when the phone has been delivered to the customer. Professional service revenue is recognized upon completion of performance.  

We frequently enter into arrangements with multiple deliverables that generally include services to be provided under the subscription plan and the sale of products used in connection with our software subscriptions. We allocate the consideration to each deliverable in a multiple-element arrangement based upon its relative selling prices. We determine the selling price for each deliverable using vendor-specific objective evidence, or VSOE, of selling price or third-party evidence, or TPE, of selling price, if it exists. If neither VSOE nor TPE of selling price exists for a deliverable, we use our best estimated selling price, or BESP, for that deliverable. Consideration allocated to each deliverable, limited to the amount not contingent on future performance, are then recognized as revenue when the basic revenue recognition criteria are met for the respective deliverable.

We determine VSOE of fair value based on historical standalone sales to customers. In determining VSOE, we require that a substantial majority of the selling prices for a product or software fall within a reasonably narrow pricing range of the median selling price. VSOE exists for all of our software subscription plans. We use BESP as the selling price for our product offerings as we are not able to determine VSOE of fair value or TPE from observable pricing data of standalone sales. We estimate BESP for a product by considering company-specific factors such as pricing strategies, direct product and other costs, bundling and discounting practices and contractually stated prices.

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We also generate software subscriptions and product revenues through sales of our software subscriptions and products by resellers. When we assume a majority of the business risks associated with performance of the contractual obligations, we record the revenues on a gross basis and amounts retained by our resellers are recorded as sales and marketing expenses. Our assumption of such business risks is evidenced when, among other things, we take responsibility for delivery of the product or software subscription, establish pricing of the arrangement, assume credit and inventory risk, and are the primary obligor in the arrangement. When a reseller assumes the majority of the business risks associated with the performance of the contractual obligations, we record the associated revenues at the net amount received from the reseller. We recognize revenues from our resellers when the following criteria are met:

Our deliverables sold through our reseller agreements consist of our software subscriptions and products. We recognize software subscriptions sold through our resellers on a straight-line basis over the period the underlying subscriptions are provided to the end customer. Products sold through resellers are shipped directly to the end customer and are recognized when title transfers to the end customer. Revenue from resellers has predominantly been recorded on a gross basis for all periods presented.

We record reductions to revenue for estimated sales returns and customer credits at the time the related revenue is recognized. Sales returns and customer credits are estimated based on our historical experience, current trends and our expectations regarding future experience. We monitor the accuracy of our sales reserve estimates by reviewing actual returns and credits and adjust them for our future expectations to determine the adequacy of our current and future reserve needs. If actual future returns and credits differ from past experience, additional reserves may be required.

 

We recognize revenue, net of any applicable sales taxes.

Capitalized Internal-Use Software Development Costs

We use significant judgment in determining whether certain internal-use software development costs are capitalized or expensed and over what period the amounts capitalized should be amortized to expense. We capitalize internal-use software development costs related to our SaaS applications that are incurred during the application development stage provided that it is probable the project will be successfully completed and such costs will be recovered from future revenues. Costs related to preliminary project activities and post implementation activities are expensed as incurred. Internal-use software is amortized on a straight-line basis over its estimated useful life starting when the underlying project is ready for its intended use, generally three to four years. We evaluate the useful lives of these assets on an annual basis and test for impairment when events or changes in circumstances occur that could impact the recoverability of these assets.  We capitalized $2.5 million and $2.1 million, net of impairment, of internal-use software development costs during the fiscal years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.  The carrying value of internal-use software development costs, net of amortization, was $4.4 million and $2.6 million at December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Share-Based Compensation

We measure and recognize compensation expense for all stock options, restricted stock unit awards (RSUs) and purchase rights under our employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) granted to our employees and directors, based on the estimated fair value of the award on the grant date. We use the Black-Scholes-Merton option-pricing model to estimate the fair value of stock option awards and purchase rights under our employee stock purchase plan. For RSUs, fair value is based on the adjusted closing price of our Class A common stock on the New York Stock Exchange at the grant date. The fair value is recognized as expense, net of estimated forfeitures, over the requisite service period, which is generally the vesting period of the respective award on a straight-line basis. We believe that the fair value of stock options and RSUs granted to non-employees is more reliably measured than the fair value of the services received. As such, the fair value of the unvested portion of the options and RSUs granted to non-employees is re-measured each period. The resulting increase in value, if any, is recognized as expense during the period the related services are rendered.

Our option-pricing model which is used to value stock options and purchase rights under our ESPP, requires the input of highly subjective assumptions, including the fair value of the underlying common stock, the expected term of the option, the expected volatility of the price of our common stock, risk-free interest rates, and the expected dividend yield of our common stock. The assumptions used in our option-pricing model represent management’s best estimates. These estimates involve inherent uncertainties and the application of management’s judgment. If factors change and different assumptions are used, our share-based compensation expense could be materially different in the future.

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These assumptions are estimated as follows:

The following table presents the weighted-average assumptions used to estimate the fair value of options granted during the periods presented:

 

 

In addition to assumptions used in the Black-Scholes-Merton option-pricing model, we also estimate a forfeiture rate used in the calculation of the share-based compensation for our equity awards and ESPP. Our forfeiture rate is generally based on an analysis of our actual forfeitures. We will continue to evaluate the appropriateness of the forfeiture rate based on actual forfeiture experience, analysis of employee turnover, and other factors. Quarterly changes in the estimated forfeiture rate can have a significant impact on our share-based compensation expense as the cumulative effect of adjusting the rate is recognized in the period the forfeiture estimate is changed. If a revised forfeiture rate is higher than the previously estimated forfeiture rate, an adjustment is made that will result in a decrease to the share-based compensation expense recognized in the consolidated financial statements. If a revised forfeiture rate is lower than the previously estimated forfeiture rate, an adjustment is made that will result in an increase to the share-based compensation expense recognized in the consolidated statements of operations.

 

We will continue to use judgment in evaluating the assumptions related to our share-based compensation on a prospective basis. As we continue to accumulate additional data related to the acquisition and trading of our Class A common stock, we may have refinements to our estimates, which could materially impact our future share-based compensation expense.

 

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

For a summary of recent accounting pronouncements and the anticipated effects on our consolidated financial statements, see Note 1 to the consolidated financial statements, which is incorporated by reference herein.

 

 

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We are exposed to market risk in the ordinary course of our business. Market risk represents the risk of loss that may impact our financial position due to adverse changes in financial market prices and rates. Our market risk exposure is primarily a result of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates. We do not hold or issue financial instruments for trading purposes.

Foreign Currency Risk

Our functional currency of our foreign subsidiaries is generally the local currency. Most of our sales are denominated in U.S. dollars, and therefore our net revenue is not currently subject to significant foreign currency risk. Our operating expenses are denominated in the currencies of the countries in which our operations are located, which are primarily in the U.S., Canada, the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, the U.K., Switzerland, the Netherlands, China, Ireland, and Singapore. In 2016, we formed wholly owned subsidiaries in Australia, Italy, Japan, Spain, and Brazil. Our consolidated results of operations and cash flows are, therefore, subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates and may be adversely affected in the future due to changes in foreign exchange rates. To date, we have not entered into any hedging arrangements with respect to foreign currency risk or other derivative financial instruments.  In 2016, we entered into long-term intercompany loan agreements with our U.K. subsidiary, resulting in the foreign currency transaction gains and losses generated on remeasurement of our intercompany balances with the U.K. subsidiary being reported in other comprehensive income rather than through net loss.  During fiscal 2016, the effect of a hypothetical 10% change in foreign currency exchange rates applicable to our business would have had an impact of approximately $4.5 million on our consolidated financial statements. During fiscal 2015, the effect of a hypothetical 10% change in foreign currency exchange rates applicable to our business would have had an impact of approximately $4.6 million on our consolidated financial statements.

Interest Rate Sensitivity

We had cash and cash equivalents of $160.4 million and $137.6 million as of December 31, 2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively. We hold our cash and cash equivalents for working capital purposes. Our cash and cash equivalents are held in cash and short-term money market funds. Due to the short-term nature of these instruments, we believe that we do not have any material exposure to changes in the fair value of our investment portfolio as a result of changes in interest rates.

As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, we had approximately $14.8 million and $18.6 million in current and long-term debt, respectively, with variable interest rate components. A hypothetical 10% change in interest rates during any of the periods presented would not have had a material impact on our financial statements.

 

 

 

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INDEX TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

 

 

 

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REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM

The Board of Directors and Stockholders

RingCentral, Inc.:

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of RingCentral, Inc. and subsidiaries as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, and the related consolidated statements of operations, comprehensive loss, stockholders’ equity, and cash flows for each of the years in the three-year period ended December 31, 2016. We also have audited RingCentral, Inc.’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2016, based on criteria established in Internal Control – Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). RingCentral, Inc.’s management is responsible for these consolidated financial statements, 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 Controls over Financial Reporting. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these consolidated financial statements and an opinion on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on our audits.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States). Those standards require that we plan and perform the audits to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement and whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects. Our audits of the consolidated financial statements included examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements, assessing the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, and evaluating the overall financial statement presentation. Our audit of internal control over financial reporting included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, and testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed risk. Our audits also included performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinions.

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.

In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of RingCentral, Inc. and subsidiaries as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the years in the three-year period ended December 31, 2016, in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. Also in our opinion, RingCentral Inc. maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2016, based on criteria established in Internal Control – Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO).

/s/ KPMG LLP

Santa Clara, California

February 27, 2017

 

 

 

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CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(in thousands, except par value per share)

 

 

See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements

 

 

 

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RINGCENTRAL, INC.

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

(in thousands, except per share data)

 

 

See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements

 

 

 

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RINGCENTRAL, INC.

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE LOSS

(in thousands)

 

 

See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements

 

 

 

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RINGCENTRAL, INC.

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY

(in thousands)

 

 

See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements

 

 

 

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CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

(in thousands)

 

 

See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements

 

 

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Note 1. Description of Business and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies

Description of Business

RingCentral, Inc. (the Company) is a provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for business communications and collaboration. The Company was incorporated in California in 1999 and was reincorporated in Delaware on September 26, 2014.

Public Offerings

On October 2, 2013, the Company completed an initial public offering (IPO) and sold 8,625,000 shares of Class A common stock to the public, including the underwriters’ overallotment option of 1,125,000 shares of Class A common stock and 80,000 shares of Class A common stock sold by selling stockholders, at a price of $13.00 per share. The offer and sale of all of the shares in the IPO were registered under the Securities Act pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-190815) (the Initial Registration Statement). The Company received aggregate proceeds of $103.3 million from the IPO, net of underwriters’ discounts and commissions, but before deduction of offering expenses of approximately $3.9 million.

On March 11, 2014, the Company completed a secondary public offering and sold 7,991,551 shares of Class A common stock to the public, including 791,551 of the underwriters’ overallotment option and 5,200,000 shares of Class A common stock sold by selling stockholders, at a price of $21.50 per share. The offer and sale of all of the shares in the secondary public offering were registered under the Securities Act pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-194132) (Secondary Registration Statement). The Company received aggregate proceeds of $57.2 million from the secondary public offering, net of underwriters’ discounts and commissions, but before deduction of offering expenses of approximately $1.1 million.

The Company did not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders.

Principles of Consolidation

The accompanying consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and include the consolidated accounts of the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiaries. All intercompany accounts and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation.

Use of Estimates

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements, and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. The significant estimates made by management affect revenues, the allowance for doubtful accounts, inventory reserves, goodwill, share-based compensation, capitalization of internally developed software, return reserves, provision for income taxes, uncertain tax positions, loss contingencies, sales tax liabilities and accrued liabilities. Management periodically evaluates these estimates and will make adjustments prospectively based upon the results of such periodic evaluations. Actual results could differ from these estimates.

Foreign Currency

The functional currency of the Company’s foreign subsidiaries is generally the local currency. Adjustments resulting from translating foreign functional currency financial statements into U.S. dollars are recorded as part of a separate component of stockholders’ equity and reported in the statements of comprehensive loss. Foreign currency transaction gains and losses are included in net loss for the period.  All assets and liabilities denominated in a foreign currency are translated into U.S. dollars at the exchange rate on the balance sheet date. Revenues and expenses are translated at the average exchange rate during the period. Equity transactions are translated using historical exchange rates.  

 

 

Cash and Cash Equivalents

The Company considers all highly liquid investments purchased with an original maturity of three months or less to be cash equivalents. Cash and cash equivalents are stated at fair value.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Allowance for Doubtful Accounts

For the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, a significant portion of revenues were realized from credit card transactions while the remaining revenues generated accounts receivable. The Company determines provisions based on historical loss patterns, the number of days that billings are past due, and an evaluation of the potential risk of loss associated with delinquent accounts.

Below is a summary of the changes in allowance for doubtful accounts for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 (in thousands):

 

 

Inventory

The Company’s inventory consists primarily of phones held at third parties. Inventory is stated at the lower of cost computed on a first-in, first-out basis, or market value. Inventory write-downs are recorded when the cost of inventory exceeds its net realizable value and establishes a new cost basis for the inventory. On a quarterly and annual basis, the Company analyzes inventory on a part by part basis in comparison to forecasted demand to identify potential excess and obsolescence issues, and adjusts carrying amounts to estimated net realizable value accordingly.

Internal-Use Software Development Costs

The Company capitalizes qualifying internal-use software development costs that are incurred during the application development stage, provided that management with the relevant authority authorizes and commits to the funding of the project, it is probable the project will be completed, and the software will be used to perform the function intended. Costs related to preliminary project activities and post implementation activities are expensed as incurred. Capitalized internal-use software development costs are included in property and equipment and are amortized on a straight-line basis over their estimated useful lives.  

For the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, the Company capitalized $2.5 million and $2.1 million, net of impairment, of internal-use software development costs, respectively. The carrying value of internal-use software development costs was $4.4 million and $2.6 million at December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Property and Equipment, net

Property and equipment, net is stated at cost, less accumulated depreciation and amortization.  Depreciation and amortization is calculated on a straight-line basis over the estimated useful lives of those assets as follows:

 

The Company evaluates the recoverability of property and equipment for possible impairment whenever events or circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of such assets or asset groups may not be recoverable. Recoverability of these assets or asset groups is measured by comparing the carrying amounts of such assets or asset groups to the future undiscounted cash flows that such assets or asset groups are expected to generate. If this evaluation indicates that the carrying amount of the assets or asset groups is not recoverable, the carrying amount of such assets or asset groups is reduced to its estimated fair value.

Maintenance and repairs are charged to expense as incurred.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Concentrations of Credit Risk and Significant Customers

Financial instruments that subject the Company to concentrations of credit risk consist primarily of cash and cash equivalents and accounts receivable. Although the Company deposits its cash with multiple financial institutions, its deposits, at times, may exceed federally insured limits. The Company’s accounts receivable are primarily derived from sales by resellers and to larger direct customers. The Company performs ongoing credit evaluations of its resellers and does not require collateral on accounts receivable. The Company maintains an allowance for doubtful accounts for estimated potential credit losses. At December 31, 2016 and 2015, AT&T, one of our resellers, accounted for 30% and 39% of the Company’s total accounts receivable, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014, AT&T accounted for 14%, 13%, and 12% of the Company’s total revenues and 13%, 12%, and 11% of the Company’s software subscription revenues, respectively.

During the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, the Company contracted a significant portion of its software development efforts from third-party vendors located in Russia and Ukraine. A cessation of services provided by these vendors could result in a disruption to the Company’s research and development efforts.

Revenue Recognition

The Company’s revenues consist primarily of software subscriptions and other revenues. The Company’s software subscriptions revenue includes all fees billed in connection with subscriptions to the Company’s RingCentral Office, RingCentral Professional, RingCentral Fax, RingCentral Contact Center, and RingCentral Glip products. These software subscription fees include recurring fixed plan subscription fees, variable usage-based fees for usage in excess of plan limits, recurring administrative cost recovery fees, one-time fees, and other recurring fees related to our subscriptions. The Company provides its subscriptions pursuant to contractual arrangements that range in duration from one month to three years. The Company’s subscription fees are generally billed in advance directly to customer credit cards or via invoices issued to larger customers. The Company’s other revenues consist of commission revenues earned as an agent of Westcon, product revenues from sales of phones not sold under the sales agency agreement with Westcon, phone sales to carrier partners, phone rentals, and professional implementation services.

The Company recognizes revenue when the following criteria are met:

Revenue under subscription plans are recognized as follows:

Commission revenue is recognized when services have been rendered. Product revenue is billed at the time the order is received and recognized when the phone has been delivered to the customer. Professional service revenue is recognized upon completion of performance.

The Company enters into arrangements with multiple-elements that generally include services to be provided under the subscription plan and the sale of products used in connection with the Company’s subscriptions. The Company allocates the consideration to each deliverable in a multiple-deliverable arrangement based upon its relative selling prices. The Company determines the selling price using vendor-specific objective evidence (VSOE) for its subscription plans and best estimated selling price (BESP) for its product offerings. Consideration allocated to each deliverable, limited to the amount not contingent on future performance, is then recognized to revenue when the basic revenue recognition criteria are met for the respective deliverable.

The Company determines VSOE based on historical standalone sales to customers. In determining VSOE, the Company requires that a substantial majority of the selling prices fall within a reasonably narrow pricing range. VSOE exists for all of the

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Company’s subscription plans. The Company uses BESP as the selling price for its product offerings as the Company is not able to determine VSOE of fair value from standalone sales or third-party evidence of selling price (TPE). The Company estimates BESP for a product by considering company-specific factors such as pricing objectives, direct product and other costs, bundling and discounting practices, and contractually stated prices.

A portion of the Company’s software subscriptions and product revenues are generated through sales by resellers. When the Company assumes a majority of the business risks associated with performance of the contractual obligations, it records these revenues at the gross amount paid by the customer with amounts retained by the resellers recognized as sales and marketing expense. The Company’s assumption of such business risks is evidenced when, among other things, it takes responsibility for delivery of the product or subscription, is involved in establishing pricing of the arrangement, assumes credit and inventory risk, and is the primary obligor in the arrangement. When a reseller assumes the majority of the business risks associated with the performance of the contractual obligations, the Company records the associated revenue at the net amount received from the reseller. The Company recognizes revenue from resellers when the following criteria are met:

The Company’s deliverables sold through its reseller agreements consist of the Company’s software subscriptions and products. Subscriptions sold through resellers are recognized on a straight-line basis over the period the subscriptions are provided to the end customer. Phones sold through resellers are shipped directly to the end customer and are recognized when title transfers to the end customer. Revenue from resellers has predominantly been recorded on a gross basis for all periods presented.

The Company records reductions to revenue for estimated sales returns and customer credits at the time the related revenue is recognized. Sales returns and customer credits are estimated based on historical experience, current trends, and expectations regarding future experience.

Customer billings related to taxes imposed by and remitted to governmental authorities on revenue-producing transactions are reported on a net basis. When such remitted taxes exceed the amount billed to customers, the cost is included in general and administrative expenses.

Amounts billed in excess of revenue recognized for the period are reported as deferred revenue on the consolidated balance sheet. The Company’s deferred revenue consists primarily of unearned revenue on annual and monthly subscription plans.

During the year ended December 31, 2014, the Company received one-time up-front payments for implementation services to be performed in connection with its carrier agreements with BT and TELUS. These amounts are being amortized on a straight-line basis over their respective initial contractual terms beginning in 2015. The BT and TELUS arrangements have initial contractual terms of three to five years, which approximates the estimated average customer life of each respective agreement. Accordingly, the portion of these one-time up-front payments that is expected to be earned after December 31, 2017, or $0.4 million, is included as a component of other long-term liabilities in the consolidated balance sheets.  

Cost of Revenues

Cost of software subscriptions revenue primarily consists of costs of network capacity purchased from third-party telecommunications providers, network operations, costs to build out and maintain data centers, including co-location fees for the right to place the Company’s servers in data centers owned by third-parties, depreciation of the servers and equipment, along with related utilities and maintenance costs, personnel costs associated with customer care and support of the functionality of the Company’s platform and data center operations, including share-based compensation expenses, and allocated costs of facilities and information technology. Cost of software subscriptions revenue is expensed as incurred.

Cost of other revenue is comprised primarily of the cost associated with purchased phones that fell outside of the agency model, shipping costs, costs of professional services, and allocated costs of facilities and information technology related to the procurement, management and shipment of phones. Cost of other revenue is expensed in the period product is delivered to the customer.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Share-Based Compensation

Share-based compensation expense resulting from options, restricted stock units (RSUs), and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) rights granted is measured as the grant date fair value of the award and is recognized using the straight-line attribution method over the requisite service period of the award, which is generally the vesting period. The Company estimates the fair value of stock options and ESPP rights using the Black-Scholes-Merton option-pricing model. The Company estimates the fair value of RSUs as the closing market value of its Class A Common Stock on the grant date.  Compensation expense for stock options and RSUs granted to non-employees is revalued, or marked to market, as of each reporting date until the stock options and RSUs are vested.  Compensation expense is recognized net of estimated forfeiture activity, which is based on historical forfeiture rates.  

Research and Development

Research and development expenses consist primarily of third-party contractor costs, personnel costs, technology license expenses, and depreciation associated with research and development equipment. Research and development costs are expensed as incurred.

Advertising Costs

Advertising costs, which include various forms of e-commerce such as search engine marketing, search engine optimization and online display advertising, as well as more traditional forms of media advertising such as radio and billboards, are expensed as incurred and were $41.6 million, $34.3 million, and $27.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.

Commissions

Commissions consist of variable compensation earned by sales personnel and third-party resellers. Sales commissions associated with the acquisition of a new customer contract are recognized as sales and marketing expense at the time the customer has entered into a binding agreement.

Income Taxes

The Company accounts for income taxes using the asset and liability method. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized for the estimated future tax consequences attributable to differences between the financial statement carrying amounts of existing assets and liabilities and their respective tax basis. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are measured using enacted tax rates in effect for the year in which those temporary differences are expected to be recovered or settled. The effect on deferred tax assets and liabilities of a change in tax rates is recognized in operations in the period that includes the enactment date. The Company records a valuation allowance to reduce its deferred tax assets to the amount of future tax benefit that is more likely than not to be realized. As of December 31, 2016, except for deferred tax assets associated with its subsidiaries in the Netherlands and China, the Company recorded a full valuation allowance against all other net deferred tax assets due to its history of operating losses. The Company classifies interest and penalties on unrecognized tax benefits as income tax expense.

 

Segment Information

The Company has determined the chief executive officer is the chief operating decision maker. The Company’s chief executive officer reviews financial information presented on a consolidated basis for purposes of assessing performance and making decisions on how to allocate resources. Accordingly, the Company has determined that it operates in a single reportable segment.

Indemnification

Certain of the Company’s agreements with resellers and customers include provisions for indemnification against liabilities if its subscriptions infringe upon a third-party’s intellectual property rights. At least quarterly, the Company assesses the status of any significant matters and its potential financial statement exposure. If the potential loss from any claim or legal proceeding is considered probable and the amount or the range of loss can be estimated, the Company accrues a liability for the estimated loss. The Company has not incurred any material costs as a result of such indemnification provisions and the Company has not accrued any liabilities related to such obligations in the consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2016 or 2015.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

In May 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606), which will replace numerous requirements in U.S. GAAP and provide companies with a single revenue recognition model for recognizing revenue from contracts with customers. The core principle of the new standard is that a company should recognize revenue to depict the transfer of promised goods or services to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration to which the company expects to be entitled in exchange for those goods or services. In addition, the standard requires disclosure of the nature, amount, timing, and uncertainty of revenue and cash flows arising from contracts with customers. The two permitted transition methods under the new standard are the full retrospective method, in which case the standard would be applied to each prior reporting period presented and the cumulative effect of applying the standard would be recognized at the earliest period shown, or the modified retrospective method, in which case the cumulative effect of applying the standard would be recognized at the date of initial application. In July 2015, the FASB approved the deferral of the new standard's effective date by one year. The new standard is effective for annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2017. The FASB will permit companies to adopt the new standard early, but not before the original effective date of annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2016.

The Company is currently evaluating the potential changes from adopting the new standard on its financial statements and disclosures. The Company is in the process of implementing appropriate changes to its business processes, systems and controls to support revenue recognition and disclosures under the new standard. Based on this evaluation, the Company will adopt the requirements of the new standard in the first quarter of 2018 and anticipates using the modified retrospective transition method.  Additionally, as the Company continues to assess the new standard along with industry trends and internal progress, the Company may adjust its implementation plan accordingly.

Under the new standard, the Company expects to capitalize certain sales commission costs and in some cases recognize revenue earlier for subscription plans with free periods and products sold at discounts. The impact of adopting the new standard on the Company’s total revenues is not expected to be material. However, the Company anticipates the most significant impacts of adopting the new standard primarily relates to the deferral of sales commissions, which previously were expensed as incurred and to the incremental disclosure requirements. Under the new standard, certain commissions will be capitalized and amortized over the expected period of benefit.

In February 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842), which requires that lessees recognize a right-of-use asset and a lease liability on the balance sheet for all leases with the exception of short-term leases. Both capital and operating leases will need to be recognized on the balance sheet.  The standard is effective for interim and annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2018, with early adoption permitted.  The standard must be adopted using a modified retrospective approach for all leases that existed or are entered into after the beginning of the earliest comparative period in the financial statements.  The Company is currently evaluating the timing of adoption and the impact that the standard will have on its consolidated financial statements and related disclosures.

In March 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-09, Compensation-Stock Compensation: Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting (Topic 718), which simplifies the accounting for stock-based compensation related to the accounting for forfeitures, employer tax withholding, excess tax benefits related to awards and cash flow presentations.  The standard is effective for interim and annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2016, with early adoption permitted.  The adoption of this amendment is not expected to have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated financial statements or related disclosures.  

In August 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-15, Classification of Certain Cash Receipts and Cash Payments, which clarifies the presentation and classification in the statement of cash flows.  The guidance addresses eight specific cash flow issues with the objective of reducing the existing diversity in practice for certain cash receipts and cash payments.  The standard is effective for interim and annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2017, with early adoption permitted.  The adoption of this amendment is not expected to have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated financial statements or disclosures.

In October 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-16, Intra-Entity Transfers of Assets Other Than Inventory, which requires entities to recognize at the transaction date the income tax effects for intra-entity transfers of assets other than inventory.  The standard is effective for interim and annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2017, with early adoption permitted.  The Company is currently in the process of evaluating the impact of the adoption on its consolidated financial statements and related disclosures.  

In November 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-18, Restricted Cash, which clarifies the presentation of restricted cash and restricted cash equivalents in the statements of cash flows. The standard requires restricted cash and restricted cash equivalents be included with cash and cash equivalents when reconciling the beginning-of-period and end-of-period total amounts presented on the statements of cash flows. The standard is effective for interim and annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2017 using a

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

retrospective adoption method, with early adoption permitted.  The adoption of this amendment is not expected to have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated financial statements or disclosures.

Reclassification

Certain immaterial items previously reported have been reclassified to conform to the current year’s reporting presentation.

 

Note 2. Agency Agreement with Westcon Group

In January 2016, the Company entered into a sales agency agreement with Westcon Group, Inc. (Westcon), a global distributor of communications devices, to provide the phones purchased by customers. Under this agreement, the Company is an agent of Westcon and receives a commission for its services, which primarily include referring phone sales to Westcon. Westcon will provide phones directly to the Company’s customers instead of the Company purchasing phones from third-party vendors and reselling the phones to the Company’s customers. Commission revenues from the arrangement are recorded as the Company is the agent for these sales based on the following criteria:

During the three months ended June 30, 2016, the Company completed its transition of direct phone sales to Westcon, which excluded carriers’ phone sales.  The Company did not transition the carrier partners to the agency model as the billing relationships to these customers are through the carriers.

The Company’s sales of phones that are provided free or significantly discounted to customers are not part of the sales agency agreement with Westcon. The Company recognizes revenues and costs from these sales as the Company is the primary obligor and has latitude in determining pricing.

In December 2016, the Company terminated the sales agency agreement and entered into a reseller (direct sale) agreement with Westcon. Effective January 1, 2017, the Company will switch from the agency agreement to the reseller agreement whereby the Company will no longer serve as an agent for referring phone sales to Westcon and will no longer receive commissions for its services.  Under the reseller agreement, the Company will purchase phones directly from Westcon for resale to customers. Revenues and costs for sales under the reseller agreement will be recognized as the Company is the primary obligor for order fulfillment, has latitude in determining pricing, and will assume general inventory risk.

 

Note 3. Change in Presentation

As a result of the new sales agency model, the Company replaced the product revenues line in its consolidated statements of operations with a line called other revenues, which includes the commission revenues earned as an agent of Westcon, product revenues from sales of phones not sold under the sales agency agreement with Westcon, phone sales to carrier partners, phone rentals, and professional implementation services. Correspondingly, the Company replaced the costs of product revenues line in its consolidated statements of operations with a line called costs of other revenues, which includes the costs for the above items.

For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, the majority of other revenues consisted of product revenues from sales of phones that fell outside the sales agency agreement with Westcon.  Accordingly, to provide a comparison of product revenues and product cost of revenues prior to and subsequent to the change in presentation, product revenues were $13.3 million, $23.3 million, and $19.2 million for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.  Product cost of revenues were $15.8 million, $20.3 million, and $17.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014, respectively.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

 

Note 4. Financial Statement Components

Cash and cash equivalents consisted of the following (in thousands):

 

 

Accounts receivable, net consisted of the following (in thousands):

 

 

Property and equipment, net consisted of the following (in thousands):

 

 

Total depreciation and amortization expense related to property and equipment was $13.6 million, $12.9 million, and $10.4 million for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.

 

Accrued liabilities consisted of the following (in thousands):

 

 

 

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Note 5. Fair Value of Financial Instruments

Fair value is based on the price that would be received from selling an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date.  The Company measures and reports certain cash equivalents, including money market funds and certificates of deposit, at fair value in accordance with the provisions of the authoritative accounting guidance that addresses fair value measurements.  This guidance establishes a hierarchy for inputs used in measuring fair value that maximizes the use of observable inputs and minimizes the use of unobservable inputs by requiring that the most observable inputs be used when available.  The hierarchy is broken down into three levels based on the reliability of the inputs as follows:

 

The financial assets carried at fair value were determined using the following inputs (in thousands):

 

 

 

The Company’s other financial instruments, including accounts receivable, accounts payable and other current liabilities, are carried at cost, which approximates fair value due to the relatively short maturity of those instruments.

At December 31, 2016 and 2015, the Company estimated the fair value of its debt using an expected present value technique, which is based on observable market inputs using interest rates currently available to companies of similar credit standing for similar terms and remaining maturities, and considering its own credit risk. The estimated fair value of the Company’s current and non-current debt obligations was $14.9 million at December 31, 2016, compared to its carrying amount of $14.8 million at that date. The estimated fair value of the Company’s current and non-current debt obligations was $19.0 million at December 31, 2015, compared to its carrying amount of $18.6 million at that date. If the debt was measured at fair value in the consolidated balance sheets, the Company’s current and non-current debt would be classified in Level 2 of the fair value hierarchy.

 

 

Note 6. Business Combinations

In June 2015, the Company acquired Glip, Inc. (Glip), a cloud messaging and collaboration company based in Boca Raton, Florida. Glip is a provider of team messaging services, integrated with project management, group calendars, notes, annotations, and file sharing. The objective of the acquisition was to extend the Company’s platform by adding team messaging and collaboration services such as calendar, project management, and document sharing. The consideration for the acquisition, net of cash acquired, which also included the fair value of contingent consideration payable upon achievement of certain earn out milestones and the fair value of common stock issuable to the sellers, was $11.9 million. Of the consideration, $1.5 million of cash was held back by the Company upon closing as security for certain indemnification obligations of such stockholders.  In June 2016, the Company paid the $1.5 million in full.  

 

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

The consideration exchanged consisted of the following (in thousands):

 

 

The $3.4 million fair value of the 223,190 unregistered common shares issued as part of the consideration paid for Glip ($3.8 million before a $0.4 million discount due to a 6-month restriction of resale as a result of SEC Rule 144 for issuance of unregistered shares) was determined on the basis of the five day weighted average closing market price of the Company’s common shares preceding the acquisition date. 

 

The initial fair value of the milestone based earn out liability was determined to be $2.3 million using various estimates, including probabilities of success and discount rates.  During the year ended December 31, 2016, the Company issued 45,893 shares of the Company’s Class A common stock to settle certain milestones achieved.  Based on the completion of milestones for the year ended December 31, 2016 and the estimated probability of completing the remaining milestones, the estimated fair value of the milestone based earn out liability is $1.9 million at December 31, 2016 and is classified as a current liability in the consolidated balance sheets as settlement will occur in 2017.  At December 31, 2015, the estimated fair value of the milestone based earn out liability is $2.4 million and is classified as a current and non-current liability in the consolidated balance sheets.

Additionally, under the terms of the acquisition, the Company may also pay up to $2.0 million in payments at the end of a two-year period to certain Glip employees, who continue to be employees of the Company, which are accounted for as a post-combination expense. At December 31, 2016, the contingent payment liability is $1.4 million and is classified as a current liability in the consolidated balance sheets as settlement will occur in 2017.  At December 31, 2015, the contingent payment liability is $0.6 million and is classified as a non-current liability in the consolidated balance sheets.

The following table summarizes the fair value of assets acquired as of the date of acquisition (in thousands):

 

 

The Company has included the financial results of Glip, which were not material, in the consolidated statements of operations from the date of acquisition. The goodwill balance is primarily attributed to the assembled workforce and expanded market opportunities when integrating Glip’s cloud messaging and collaboration technology with the Company’s other offerings. The goodwill balance is not deductible for U.S. income tax purposes.

The following table sets forth the fair value components of identifiable acquired intangible assets (in thousands) and their estimated useful lives (in years) as of the date of acquisition:

 

 

The amount recorded for developed technology represents the estimated fair value of Glip’s cloud messaging and collaboration technology. The amount recorded for customer relationships represents the fair value of the underlying relationships with Glip customers.

 

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

The carrying values of intangible assets at December 31, 2016 and 2015 are as follows (in thousands):

 

 

Amortization expense from acquired intangible assets for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 was $1.1 million and $0.6 million, respectively. Amortization of developed technology is included in research and development expenses and amortization of customer relationships is included in sales and marketing expenses in the consolidated statements of operations.  As of December 31, 2016, the weighted-average amortization periods for customer relationships and developed technology are approximately 0.4 years and 3.4 years, respectively.

Estimated amortization expense for acquired intangible assets for the following five fiscal years and thereafter is as follows (in thousands):

 

 

 

 

Note 7. Debt

As of December 31, 2016, the Company’s debt was comprised of borrowings under the Third Amended and Restated Loan and Security Agreement dated March 30, 2015 (SVB Agreement), as amended, with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).  Under the SVB Agreement, the Company has one outstanding growth capital term loan (2013 Term Loan) and a revolving line of credit.

The 2013 Term Loan was borrowed on December 31, 2013 with a principal amount of $15.0 million, which is being repaid in 48 equal monthly installments of principal, plus accrued and unpaid interest. Interest is due monthly and accrues at a floating rate based on the Company’s option of an annual rate of either the (i) prime rate plus a margin of 0.75% or 1.00% or (ii) adjusted LIBOR rate (based on one, two, three or six-month interest periods) plus a margin of 3.75% or 4.00%, in each case such margin being determined based on cash balances maintained with SVB. The Company elected the prime rate option.  In May 2016, the terms of the SVB Agreement were amended to reduce the margin on the annual rate of the 2013 Term Loan to either (i) prime rate plus a margin of 0.25% or 0.50% or (ii) adjusted LIBOR rate (based on one, two, three, or six-month interest periods) plus a margin of 3.25% or 3.50%, resulting in a current interest rate of 4.00% based on the prime rate option and cash balance maintained with SVB. As of December 31, 2016, the outstanding principal balance of the 2013 Term Loan was $4.0 million, of which $0.3 million is payable subsequent to December 31, 2017 and is classified as a non-current liability in the accompanying consolidated balance sheet.

The revolving line of credit provides for a maximum borrowing of up to $15.0 million in principal amount, subject to limits based on recurring software subscription revenue amounts as defined in the SVB Agreement. The recurring software subscription revenue requirement is not expected to limit the amount of borrowings available under the line of credit. Under the line of credit, interest is paid monthly and accrues at a floating rate based on the Company’s option of an annual rate of either the (i) prime rate plus a margin of 0.25% or 0.50% or (ii) adjusted LIBOR rate (based on one, two, three or six-month interest periods) plus a margin of 3.25% or 3.50%, in each case such margin being determined based on cash balances maintained with SVB. The Company elected the prime rate option.  In August 2015, the terms of the SVB Agreement were amended to extend the maturity of the revolving line of credit from August 13, 2015 to August 14, 2017.  In May 2016, the terms of the SVB Agreement were amended to reduce the margin on the annual rate of the revolving line of credit to either the (i) prime rate plus a margin of 0% or 0.25% or (ii) adjusted LIBOR rate (based on one, two, three, or six-month interest periods) plus a margin of 3.0% to 3.25%, resulting in a current interest rate of 3.75% based on the prime rate option and cash balance maintained with SVB. As of December 31, 2016, the outstanding principal balance and the available borrowing capacity of the line of credit were $10.8 million and $4.2 million, respectively. The outstanding principal balance is classified as a current liability in the consolidated balance sheet as the principal balance is due in August 2017.

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The Company has pledged all of its assets, excluding intellectual property, as collateral to secure its obligations under the SVB agreement. The SVB agreement contains customary negative covenants that limit the Company’s ability to, among other things, incur additional indebtedness, grant liens, make investments, repurchase stock, pay dividends, transfer assets and merge or consolidate. The SVB agreement also contains customary affirmative covenants, including requirements to, among other things, (i) maintain minimum cash balances representing the greater of $10.0 million or three times the Company’s quarterly cash burn rate, as defined in the agreement, and (ii) maintain minimum EBITDA levels, as determined in accordance with the agreement. On March 30, 2016, the Company adjusted certain financial covenant thresholds to expand its ability to invest in certain foreign subsidiaries and property and equipment. The Company was in compliance with all covenants under its credit agreement with SVB as of December 31, 2016.

 

As of December 31, 2016, future debt principal payments are scheduled as follows (in thousands):

 

 

 

Note 8. Commitments and Contingencies

Leases

The Company leases facilities for office space under non-cancelable operating leases for its U.S. and international locations and has entered into capital lease arrangements to obtain property and equipment for its operations. In addition, the Company leases space from third-party datacenter hosting facilities under co-location agreements to support its cloud infrastructure. As of December 31, 2016, non-cancelable leases expire on various dates between 2017 and 2021 and require the following future minimum lease payments by year (in thousands):

 

 

Property and equipment recorded under capital leases consisted of the following (in thousands):

 

 

Operating leases for certain office facilities include scheduled periods of abatement and escalation of rental payments. The Company recognizes rent expense on a straight-line basis for all operating lease arrangements with the difference between required lease payments and rent expense recorded as deferred rent. Total rent expense was $4.5 million, $4.0 million, and $2.2 million for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Sales Tax Liability

The Company regularly increases its sales and marketing activities in various states within the U.S., which may create nexus in those states to collect sales taxes on sales to customers.  Although the Company is diligent in collecting and remitting such taxes, there is uncertainty as to what constitutes sufficient in state presence for a state to levy taxes, fees, and surcharges for sales made over the Internet.  As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, the Company recorded a long-term sales tax liability of $3.1 million and $3.7 million, respectively, based on its best estimate of the probable liability for the loss contingency incurred as of those dates. The Company’s estimate of a probable outcome under the loss contingency is based on analysis of its sales and marketing activities, revenues subject to sales tax, and applicable regulations in each state in each period. No significant adjustments to the long-term sales tax liability have been recognized in the accompanying consolidated financial statements for changes to the assumptions underlying the estimate. However, changes in management’s assumptions may occur in the future as the Company obtains new information which can result in adjustments to the recorded liability. Increases and decreases to the long-term sales tax liability are recorded as general and administrative expense.

The Company recorded a current sales tax liability for non-contingent amounts expected to be remitted in the next twelve months of $6.0 million and $4.4 million as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, which is included in accrued liabilities in the consolidated balance sheet.

Legal Matters

The Company determines whether an estimated loss from a contingency should be accrued by assessing whether a loss is deemed probable and can be reasonably estimated. The Company assesses its potential liability by analyzing specific litigation and regulatory matters using reasonably available information. The Company develops its views on estimated losses in consultation with inside and outside counsel, which involves a subjective analysis of potential results and outcomes, assuming various combinations of appropriate litigation and settlement strategies.  Legal fees are expensed in the period in which they are incurred.

TCPA Matter

On April 21, 2016, Supply Pro Sorbents, LLC (SPS) filed a putative class action against the Company in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Court), alleging common law conversion and violations of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) arising from fax cover sheets used by the Company’s customers when sending facsimile transmissions over the Company’s system (Lawsuit).  SPS seeks statutory damages, costs, attorneys’ fees and an injunction in connection with its TCPA claim, and unspecified damages and punitive damages in connection with its conversion claim.  On July 6, 2016, the Company filed a Petition for Expedited Declaratory Ruling before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), requesting that the FCC issue a ruling clarifying certain portions of its regulations promulgated under TCPA at issue in the Lawsuit (Petition).  The Petition remains pending.  On July 8, 2016, the Company filed a motion to dismiss the Lawsuit in its entirety, along with a collateral motion to dismiss or stay the Lawsuit pending a ruling by the FCC on the Company’s Petition.  On October 7, 2016, the Court granted the Company’s motion to dismiss and gave SPS 20 days to amend its complaint.  The Court concurrently dismissed the Company’s motion to dismiss or stay as moot.  SPS filed its amended complaint on October 27, 2016, alleging the same theories and claims.  On November 21, 2016, the Company filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, along with a renewed motion to dismiss or stay the case pending resolution of the FCC Petition.  The motions to dismiss and to stay the Lawsuit are fully briefed and under submission to the Court.  Discovery has not yet commenced.  The Company intends to vigorously defend itself in the Lawsuit.  Litigation is inherently uncertain, however, and it is too early in this proceeding to predict the outcome of this Lawsuit.  Based on the information known by the Company as of the date of this filing and the rules and regulations applicable to the preparation of the Company’s consolidated financial statements, it is not possible to provide an estimated amount of any such loss or range of loss that may occur.

As of December 31, 2015, there were no significant ongoing legal matters and the Company did not have any accrued liabilities recorded for such loss contingencies.

Employee Agreements

The Company has signed various employment agreements with executives and key employees pursuant to which if the Company terminates their employment without cause or if the employee terminates his or her employment for good reason following a change of control of the Company, the employees are entitled to receive certain benefits, including severance payments, accelerated vesting of stock options and RSUs and continued COBRA coverage. As of December 31, 2016, no triggering events which would cause these provisions to become effective have occurred. Therefore, no liabilities have been recorded for these agreements in the consolidated financial statements.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

 

 

Note 9. Stockholders’ Equity

In connection with the Company’s initial public offering (IPO), the Company reincorporated in Delaware on September 26, 2013. The Delaware certificate of incorporation provides for two classes of common stock: Class A and Class B common stock, both with a par value of $0.0001 per share. In addition, the certificate of incorporation authorizes shares of undesignated preferred stock with a par value of $0.0001 per share. The terms of preferred stock are described below.

Preferred Stock

The board of directors may, without further action by the stockholders, fix the rights, preferences, privileges and restrictions of up to an aggregate of 100,000,000 shares of preferred stock in one or more series and authorizes their issuance. These rights, preferences, and privileges could include dividend rights, conversion rights, voting rights, terms of redemption, liquidation preferences, sinking fund terms and the number of shares constituting any series or the designation of such series, any or all of which may be greater than the rights of the Class A and Class B common stock. As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, there were 100,000,000 shares of preferred stock authorized and no shares issued or outstanding.

Class A and Class B Common Stock

The Company has authorized 1,000,000,000 and 250,000,000 shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock for issuance. Holders of Class A common stock and Class B common stock have identical rights for matters submitted to a vote of the Company’s stockholders. Holders of Class A common stock are entitled to one vote per share of Class A common stock and holders of Class B common stock are entitled to 10 votes per share of Class B common stock. Holders of shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock vote together as a single class on all matters (including the election of directors) except for specific circumstances that would adversely affect the powers, preferences, or rights of a particular class of common stock. Subject to preferences that may apply to any shares of preferred stock outstanding at the time, holders of Class A and Class B common stock share equally, identically and ratably, on a per share basis, with respect to any dividend or distribution of cash, property or shares of the Company’s capital stock. Holders of Class A and Class B common stock also share equally, identically, and ratably in all assets remaining after the payment of any liabilities and liquidation preferences and any accrued or declared but unpaid dividends, if any, with respect to any outstanding preferred stock at the time. Each share of Class B common stock is convertible at any time at the option of the holder into one share of Class A common stock. In addition, each share of Class B common stock will convert automatically to Class A common stock upon: (i) the date specified by an affirmative vote or written consent of holders of at least 67% of the outstanding shares of Class B common stock, or (ii) the seven year anniversary of the closing date of the IPO (October 2, 2020).

Shares of Class A common stock reserved for future issuance were as follows (in thousands):

 

 

As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, there were 0 and 2,330 shares of common stock outstanding related to the early exercise of non-vested options subject to repurchase at the original exercise price by the Company upon termination of service by an employee.

 

 

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Note 10. Share-Based Compensation

A summary of share-based compensation expense recognized in the Company’s consolidated statements of operations is as follows (in thousands):

 

 

A summary of share-based compensation expense by award type is as follows (in thousands):

 

 

Equity Incentive Plans

In September 2013, the Board adopted and the Company’s stockholders approved the 2013 Equity Incentive Plan (2013 Plan), which became effective on September 26, 2013.  In connection with the adoption of the 2013 Plan, the Company terminated the 2010 Equity Incentive Plan (2010 Plan), under which stock options had been granted prior to September 26, 2013. The 2010 Plan was established in September 2010, when the 2003 Equity Incentive Plan (2003 Plan) was terminated. After the termination of the 2003 and 2010 Plans, no additional options were granted under these plans; however, options previously granted under these plans will continue to be governed by these plans, and will be exercisable into shares of Class B common stock. In addition, options authorized to be granted under the 2003 and 2010 Plans, including forfeitures of previously granted awards are authorized for grant under the 2013 Plan.  

A total of 6,200,000 shares of Class A common stock have been reserved for issuance under the 2013 Plan. The 2013 Plan includes an annual increase on the first day of each fiscal year beginning in 2014, equal to the least of: (i) 6,200,000 shares of Class A common stock; (ii) 5% of the outstanding shares of all classes of common stock as of the last day of the Company’s immediately preceding fiscal year; or (iii) such other amount as the board of directors may determine. During the year ended December 31, 2016, a total of 3,598,122 shares of Class A common stock were added to the 2013 Plan in connection with the annual automatic increase provision. As of December 31, 2016, a total of 8,702,558 shares remain available for grant under the 2013 Plan.

The plans permit the grant of stock options and other share-based awards, such as restricted stock units, to employees, officers, directors, and consultants by the board of directors. Option awards are generally granted with an exercise price equal to the fair market value of the Company’s Class A common stock at the date of grant. Option awards generally vest according to a graded vesting schedule based on four years of continuous service. On January 29, 2014, the board of directors approved an amendment to decrease the contractual term of all equity awards issued from the 2013 Plan from 10 years to 7 years for all awards granted after January 29, 2014. Certain option awards provide for accelerated vesting if there is a change in control (as defined in the option agreement) and early exercise of options prior to vesting (subject to the Company’s repurchase right).  

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

A summary of option activity under all of the plans at December 31, 2016 and changes during the periods then ended is presented in the following table:

 

 

The total intrinsic values of options exercised during the years ended December31, 2016, 2015, and 2014 were as follows (in thousands):

 

 

Valuation Assumptions

The Company estimated the fair values of each option awarded on the date of grant using the Black-Scholes-Merton option-pricing model, which requires inputs including the fair value of common stock, expected term, expected volatility, risk-free interest rate, and dividend yield.

Fair Value of Common Stock

The Company uses the daily adjusted closing stock price of its Class A common stock as reported by the New York Stock Exchange.  

Expected Term

The expected term represents the period that option awards are expected to be outstanding. Prior to the fourth quarter of 2014, the Company did not have sufficient historical information to develop reasonable expectations about future exercise behavior.  Therefore, the expected term for options issued to employees was calculated as the mean of the option vesting period and the contractual term (the Simplified Method) as these options were determined to be “plain-vanilla” as defined under current guidance. Beginning with the fourth quarter of 2014, the Company began incorporating its own historical data, assigning a 25% weighting to the Company’s historical data and a 75% weighting to the Simplified Method estimate.  As time progressed and the Company generated additional historical data, the weighting of the Company’s historical data has increased while the weighting of the Simplified Method data has decreased.  Accordingly, in the fourth quarters of 2015 and 2016, the Company’s historical data was weighted as 50% and 75%, respectively, while the Simplified Method data was weighted as 50% and  25%, respectively. The expected term for options issued to non-employees is the remaining contractual term.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Expected Volatility

The expected stock price volatility of common stock was derived from the historical volatilities of a peer group of similar publicly traded companies over a period that approximates the expected term of the option. Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2014, the Company incorporated its own historical volatility assigning a 25% weighting to the Company’s historical data and a 75% weighting to the historical volatilities of the peer group of similarly publicly traded companies.  As time progressed and the Company generated additional historical data, the weighting of the Company’s historical data has increased while the weighting of the peer group data has decreased.  Accordingly, in the fourth quarters of 2015 and 2016, the Company’s historical volatility was weighted as 50% and 75%, respectively, while the peer group data was weighted as 50% and 25%, respectively.

Risk-Free Interest Rate

The risk-free interest rate was based on the yield available on U.S. Treasury zero-coupon issues with a term that approximates the expected term of the option.

Expected Dividend Yield

The expected dividend yield was 0% as the Company has not declared, nor paid, and does not expect to pay cash dividends.

The weighted-average assumptions used in the option-pricing model and the resulting grant date fair value of stock options granted in the periods presented were as follows:

 

 

As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, there was approximately $11.0 million and $19.6 million of unrecognized share-based compensation expense, net of estimated forfeitures, related to stock option grants, which will be recognized on a straight-line basis over the remaining weighted-average vesting periods of approximately 2.0 years and 2.5 years, respectively.

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

The Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) allows eligible employees to purchase shares of the Company’s Class A common stock at a discounted price, through payroll deductions of up to the lesser of 15% of their eligible compensation or the IRS allowable limit per calendar year. A participant may purchase a maximum of 3,000 shares during an offering period. The offering periods are for a period of six months and generally start on the first trading day on or after May 11th and November 11th of each year. At the end of the offering period, the purchase price is set at the lower of: (i) 90% of the fair value of the Company’s common stock at the beginning of the six month offering period and (ii) 90% of the fair value of the Company’s Class A common stock at the end of the six month offering period.

The ESPP provides for annual increases in the number of shares available for issuance under the ESPP on the first day of each fiscal year beginning in fiscal 2014, equal to the least of: (i) 1% of the outstanding shares of all classes of common stock on the last day of the immediately preceding year; (ii) 1,250,000 shares; or (iii) such other amount as may be determined by the board of directors. During the year ended December 31, 2016, a total of 719,624 shares of Class A common stock were added to the ESPP Plan in connection with the annual increase provision. At December 31, 2016, a total of 2,291,580 shares were available for issuance under the ESPP.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

The weighted-average assumptions used to value ESPP rights under the Black-Scholes-Merton option-pricing model and the resulting offering grant date fair value of ESPP rights granted in the periods presented were as follows:

 

As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, there was approximately $0.7 million and $1.1 million of unrecognized share-based compensation expense related to outstanding ESPP rights, which will be recognized on a straight-line basis over the remaining weighted average vesting periods of approximately 0.4 years and 0.4 years, respectively.

Restricted Stock Units

The 2013 Plan provides for the issuance of RSUs to employees and consultants. RSUs issued under the 2013 Plan generally vest over four years. A summary of activity of RSUs under the 2013 Plan at December 31, 2016 and changes during the periods then ended is presented in the following table:

 

 

As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, there was a total of $46.9 million and $35.2 million of unrecognized share-based compensation expense, net of estimated forfeitures, related to RSUs, which will be recognized on a straight-line basis over the remaining weighted-average vesting periods of approximately 2.8 years and 3.0 years, respectively.

 

 

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Note 11. Income Taxes

The provision (benefit) for income taxes consisted of the following (in thousands):

 

 

Net loss before provision (benefit) for income taxes consisted of the following (in thousands):

 

 

The provision (benefit) for income tax differed from the amounts computed by applying the U.S. federal income tax rate of 34% to pretax loss as a result of the following (in thousands):

 

 

The benefit for income taxes for 2015 relates primarily to the release of a valuation allowance of $1.4 million associated with nondeductible intangible assets recorded as part of the Glip acquisition, partially offset by state minimum income tax and income tax on our earnings in foreign jurisdictions. In connection with the acquisition of Glip, a deferred tax liability was established for the book-to-tax basis differences related to the non-goodwill intangible assets. The net deferred tax liability from this acquisition created an additional source of income to realize deferred tax assets. As the Company continues to maintain a full valuation allowance against its deferred tax assets, this additional source of income resulted in the release of the Company’s previously recorded valuation allowance against deferred assets. Consistent with the applicable guidance, the release of the valuation allowance resulting from the acquisition was recorded in the consolidated financial statements outside of acquisition accounting (i.e., recorded as a tax benefit to the consolidated statements of operations).

 

In general, it is our practice and intention to reinvest the earnings of our non-U.S. subsidiaries in those operations. Undistributed earnings of foreign subsidiaries are immaterial for all periods presented.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

The types of temporary differences that give rise to significant portions of the Company’s deferred tax assets and liabilities are as follows (in thousands):

 

 

As a result of certain realization requirements of ASC 718, the table of deferred tax assets and liabilities does not include certain deferred tax assets as of December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014, that arose directly from (or the use of which was postponed by) tax deductions related to equity compensation that are greater than the compensation recognized for financial reporting. Equity will be increased by $18.0 million if and when such deferred tax assets are ultimately realized.

 

At December 31, 2016, the Company had net operating loss carry-forwards for federal and state income tax purposes of approximately $197.6 million and $137.6 million, respectively, available to reduce future income subject to income taxes. The federal net operating loss carry-forward will begin to expire in 2023 while the state net operating loss carry-forwards began to expire in 2013. The Company also has research credit carry-forwards for federal and California tax purposes of approximately $4.7 million and $5.2 million, respectively, available to reduce future income subject to income taxes. The federal research credit carry-forwards will begin to expire in 2028 and the California research credits carry forward indefinitely. As of December 31, 2015, we had federal and state net operating loss carry-forwards of $170.2 million and $117.0 million, respectively, and federal and state research and development tax credit carry-forwards in the amount of $3.6 million and $4.0 million, respectively. The Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, imposes restrictions on the utilization of net operating losses in the event of an “ownership change” of a corporation. Accordingly, a company’s ability to use net operating losses may be limited as prescribed under Internal Revenue Code Section 382 (IRC Section 382). Events which may cause limitations in the amount of the net operating losses that the Company may use in any one year include, but are not limited to, a cumulative ownership change of more than 50% over a three-year period. In the event the Company had subsequent changes in ownership, net operating losses and research and development credit carry-overs, which are reserved by the full deferred tax asset valuation allowance, could be limited and may expire unutilized.

The Company believes that, based on a number of factors, it is more likely than not, that all or some portion of the deferred tax assets will not be realized; and accordingly, for the year ended December 31, 2016, the Company has provided a valuation allowance against the Company’s U.S. and U.K. net deferred tax assets. The net change in the valuation allowance for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 was an increase of $7.8 million, $11.1 million and $16.4 million, respectively.

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

The Company has adopted the accounting policy that interest and penalties recognized are classified as part of its income taxes. The following shows the changes in the gross amount of unrecognized tax benefits as of December 31, 2016 (in thousands):

 

 

The Company does not anticipate that its total unrecognized tax benefits will significantly change due to settlement of examination or the expiration of statute of limitations during the next 12 months.

The Company files U.S. and foreign income tax returns with varying statutes of limitations. Due to the Company’s net carry-over of unused operating losses, all years from 2003 forward remain subject to future examination by tax authorities.

 

 

Note 12. Basic and Diluted Net Loss Per Share

Basic net loss per share is computed by dividing the net loss by the weighted-average number of shares of common stock outstanding during the period, less the weighted-average unvested common stock subject to repurchase or forfeiture as they are not deemed to be issued for accounting purposes. Diluted net loss per share is computed by giving effect to all potential shares of common stock, stock options, restricted stock units, ESPP, and stock related to the non-vested early exercised stock options, to the extent dilutive. For the periods presented, all such common stock equivalents have been excluded from diluted net loss per share as the effect to net loss per share would be anti-dilutive.

The following table sets forth the computation of the Company’s basic and diluted net loss per share during the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 (in thousands, except per share data):

 

The following table summarizes the potentially dilutive common shares that were excluded from diluted weighted-average common shares outstanding (in thousands):

 

 

 

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Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Note 13. Geographic Concentrations

Revenues by geographic location are based on the billing address of the customer. More than 90% of the Company’s revenues are from the U.S. for fiscal years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014. No other individual country exceeded 10% of total revenues for fiscal years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014. Long-lived assets by geographic location is based on the location of the legal entity that owns the asset. At December 31, 2016 and 2015, more than 87% and 86% of the Company’s long-lived assets were located in the U.S., respectively, with no single country outside of the U.S. representing more than 10% of the Company’s consolidated long-lived assets.  

 

 

Note 14. 401(k) Plan

The Company has a qualified defined contribution plan under Section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code covering eligible employees. The Company did not make any matching contributions to this plan for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014.

 

 

Note 15. Selected Quarterly Financial Data (unaudited)

The following tables set forth selected unaudited quarterly consolidated statements of operations data for each of the eight quarters in the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 (in thousands except per share data):

 

 

Note 16. Related-Party Transactions

In the ordinary course of business, the Company made purchases from Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google Inc., at which one of the Company’s directors serves as a Vice President of Google, Inc. Total payables to Alphabet at December 31, 2016 and 2015 were $1.0 million and $2.0 million, respectively. Total expenses incurred from Alphabet in 2016, 2015, and 2014 were $14.2 million, $11.9 million, and $10.1 million, respectively.

 

Note 17. Subsequent Event

 

On February 10, 2017, the Company paid off its 2013 Term Loan and revolving line of credit balances of $3.4 million and $10.8 million, respectively to SVB.  Upon repayment, the SVB Agreement was terminated.

 

 

 

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None.

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our chief executive officer and chief financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures, as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (Exchange Act), as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

In designing and evaluating our disclosure controls and procedures, management recognizes that any disclosure controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives. In addition, the design of disclosure controls and procedures must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints and that management is required to apply its judgment in evaluating the benefits of possible controls and procedures relative to their costs.

Based on management’s evaluation, our chief executive officer and chief financial officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures are designed to, and are effective to, provide assurance at a reasonable level that the information we are required to disclose in reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in Securities and Exchange Commission rules and forms, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our chief executive officer and chief financial officer, as appropriate, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosures.

Management’s Annual Report on Internal Controls Over Financial Reporting

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f). Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our chief executive officer and chief financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2016 based on the guidelines established in the Internal Control—Integrated Framework (2013 framework) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). Our internal control over financial reporting includes policies and procedures that provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external reporting purposes in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.

Based on the results of our evaluation, our management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 31, 2016. We reviewed the results of management’s assessment with our Audit Committee.

The effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2016 has been audited by KPMG LLP LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, as stated in its report which is included in Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

There was no change in our internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the quarter ended December 31, 2016 that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

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Inherent Limitations on Effectiveness of Controls

Our management, including our chief executive officer and chief financial officer, do not expect that our disclosure controls or our internal control over financial reporting will prevent all errors and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within the Company have been detected. These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty, and that breakdowns can occur because of a simple error or mistake. Additionally, controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people or by management override of the controls. The design of any system of controls is also based in part upon certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and there can be no assurance that any design will succeed in achieving its stated goals under all potential future conditions; over time, controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or the degree of compliance with policies or procedures may deteriorate.  Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.  

None.

 

 

 

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PART III

 

The information concerning our directors, compliance with Section 16(a) of the Exchange Act, our Audit Committee and any changes to the process by which stockholders may recommend nominees to the Board required by this Item are incorporated herein by reference to information contained in the Proxy Statement to be filed with the SEC pursuant to Regulation 14A not later than 120 days after the fiscal year to which this report relates.

The information concerning our executive officers required by this Item is incorporated herein by reference to information contained in the Proxy Statement to be filed pursuant to Regulation 14A.

We have adopted a code of ethics, our Code of Conduct, which applies to all employees, including our principal executive officers, our principal financial officer, and all other executive officers. The Code of Conduct is available on our Web site at www.ringcentral.com within the investor relations section. A copy may also be obtained without charge by contacting Investor Relations, RingCentral, Inc., 20 Davis Drive, Belmont, California 94002 or by calling (650) 472-4100.

We plan to post on our Web site at the address described above any future amendments or waivers of our Code of Conduct.

 

The information required by this Item is incorporated herein by reference to information contained in the Proxy Statement to be filed pursuant to Regulation 14A.

 

The information required by this Item with respect to security ownership of certain beneficial owners and management is incorporated herein by reference to information contained in the Proxy Statement to be filed pursuant to Regulation 14A.

The following chart sets forth certain information as of December 31, 2016, with respect to our equity compensation plans, specifically our 2003 Equity Incentive Plan, or the 2003 Plan, 2010 Equity Incentive Plan, or the 2010 Plan, 2013 Equity Incentive Plan, or the 2013 Plan, and our 2013 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, or the ESPP. Each of the 2003 Plan, the 2010 Plan, the 2013 Plan and the ESPP has been approved by our stockholders.

 

 

Equity Compensation Plan Information

 

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The information required by this Item is incorporated herein by reference to information contained in the Proxy Statement to be filed pursuant to Regulation 14A.

 

The information required by this Item is incorporated herein by reference to information contained in the Proxy Statement to be filed pursuant to Regulation 14A.

 

 

 

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PART IV.

 

 

95

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+ Indicates a management or compensatory plan

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SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Registrant has duly caused this Annual Report on Form 10-K to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized, in the City of Belmont, State of California, on this 27th day of February, 2017.

 

 

 

POWER OF ATTORNEY

KNOW ALL PERSONS BY THESE PRESENTS, that each person whose signature appears below constitutes and appoints Vladimir Shmunis and Clyde Hosein, and each of them, his true and lawful attorneys-in-fact and agents, each with full power of substitution and resubstitution, for him and in his name, place and stead, in any and all capacities, to sign any and all amendments to this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and to file the same, with exhibits thereto and other documents in connection therewith, with the Securities and Exchange Commission granting unto said attorneys-in-fact and agents, and each of them, full power and authority to do and perform each and every act and thing requisite and necessary to be done, as fully to all intents and purposes as he might or could do in person, hereby ratifying and confirming all that each of said attorneys-in-fact and agents, or his substitute or substitutes may lawfully do or cause to be done by virtue hereof.

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the Registrant and in the capacities and on the dates indicated.

 

 

 

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EXHIBIT

 INDEX

 

98

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99