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As filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 12, 2017.

Registration No. 333-                

 

 

 

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

 

FORM S-1

REGISTRATION STATEMENT

Under

The Securities Act of 1933

 

 

BlackLine, Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

 

Delaware		7372		46-3354276
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)		(Primary Standard Industrial Classification Code Number)		(I.R.S. Employer Identification Number)

21300 Victory Boulevard, 12^th Floor

Woodland Hills, CA 91367

(818) 223-9008

(Address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of Registrant’s principal executive offices)

 

 

Therese Tucker, Chief Executive Officer

Mark Partin, Chief Financial Officer

BlackLine, Inc.

21300 Victory Boulevard, 12^th Floor

Woodland Hills, CA 91367

(818) 223-9008

(Name, address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of agent for service)

 

 

Copies to:

 

Jeffrey D. Saper, Esq. Katharine A. Martin, Esq. Allison B. Spinner, Esq. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. 650 Page Mill Road Palo Alto, CA 94304 (650) 493-9300		Karole Morgan-Prager, Esq. Chief Legal and Administrative Officer BlackLine, Inc. 21300 Victory Boulevard, 12th Floor Woodland Hills, CA 91367 (818) 223-9008		Steven B. Stokdyk, Esq. Latham & Watkins LLP 355 South Grand Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90071 (213) 485-1234

 

 

Approximate date of commencement of proposed sale to the public: As soon as practicable after this registration statement becomes effective.

If any of the securities being registered on this Form are to be offered on a delayed or continuous basis pursuant to Rule 415 under the Securities Act, check the following box:  ☐

If this Form is filed to register additional securities for an offering pursuant to Rule 462(b) under the Securities Act, please check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.  ☐

If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(c) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.  ☐

If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(d) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.  ☐

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

 

Large accelerated filer		☐		Accelerated filer		☐
Non-accelerated filer		☒  (Do not check if a smaller reporting company)		Smaller reporting company		☐
				Emerging growth company		☒

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.  ☒

 

 

CALCULATION OF REGISTRATION FEE

 

Title of Each Class of Securities to be Registered		Proposed Maximum Aggregate Offering Price(1)(2)		Amount of Registration Fee
Common Stock, $0.01 par value per share		$100,000,000		$11,590.00

(1)	Includes the additional shares that the underwriters have the option to purchase.

(2)	Estimated solely for the purpose of calculating the registration fee in accordance with Rule 457(o) under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, on the basis of the maximum aggregate offering price.

 

 

The Registrant hereby amends this registration statement on such date or dates as may be necessary to delay its effective date until the Registrant shall file a further amendment which specifically states that this registration statement shall thereafter become effective in accordance with Section 8(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 or until the registration statement shall become effective on such date as the Securities and Exchange Commission, acting pursuant to said Section 8(a), may determine.

 

 

 

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The information in this preliminary prospectus is not complete and may be changed. These securities may not be sold until the registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission is effective. This preliminary prospectus is not an offer to sell nor does it seek an offer to buy these securities in any jurisdiction where the offer or sale is not permitted.

 

Subject to Completion. Dated May 12, 2017.

 

 

Shares

BlackLine, Inc.

Common Stock

$                 per share

 

 

The selling stockholders named in this prospectus are selling up to shares of common stock. We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of any shares of common stock by the selling stockholders.

Our common stock is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “BL”. The last reported sale price of our common stock on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on May 11, 2017 was $31.87 per share.

Following this offering, our Principal Stockholders (as defined herein) will control more than a majority of the voting power of our common stock and we will continue to be a “controlled company” within the meaning of the corporate governance rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market. We have elected not to take advantage of the “controlled company” exemption.

We are an “emerging growth company” as that term is used in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 and, as such, have elected to comply with certain reduced public company reporting requirements.

 

 

See “Risk Factors” on page 14 to read about factors you should consider before buying shares of the common stock.

 

 

Neither the Securities and Exchange Commission nor any other regulatory body has approved or disapproved of these securities or passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of this prospectus. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.

 

 

 

Per Share

Total

Public offering price

$

$

Underwriting discounts and commissions(1)

$

$

Proceeds to selling stockholders

$

$

 

(1)	See the section titled “Underwriting” for a description of the compensation payable to the underwriters.

To the extent that the underwriters sell more than                  shares of common stock, the underwriters have the option to purchase up to an additional                  shares from the selling stockholders identified in this prospectus, at the public offering price less the underwriting discounts and commissions.

 

 

The underwriters expect to deliver the shares against payment in New York, New York on                 , 2017.

 

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC				J.P. Morgan

Pacific Crest Securities		Raymond James		William Blair		JMP Securities
a division of KeyBanc Capital Markets

 

 

Prospectus dated                 , 2017

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prospectus

 

		Page
Prospectus Summary			1
Summary Consolidated Financial Data			10
Risk Factors			14
Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements			43
Industry and Market Data			44
Use of Proceeds			45
Market Price of Common Stock			45
Dividend Policy			46
Selected Consolidated Financial Data			47
Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations			54
Business			82
Management			97
Executive Compensation			110
Certain Relationships and Related Party Transactions			122
Principal and Selling Stockholders			126
Description of Capital Stock			128
Shares Eligible for Future Sale			135
Material United States Federal Income Tax Consequences to Non-U.S. Holders of our Common Stock			137
Underwriting			141
Legal Matters			146
Experts			146
Where You Can Find More Information			147
Index to Consolidated Financial Statements			F-1

 

 

None of us, the selling stockholders or underwriters have authorized anyone to provide any information or to make any representations other than those contained in this prospectus or in any free writing prospectuses we have prepared. None of us, the selling stockholders or underwriters take responsibility for, and can provide no assurance as to the reliability of, any information that others may give you. This prospectus is an offer to sell only the shares offered hereby, but only under circumstances and in jurisdictions where it is lawful to do so. The information contained in this prospectus is current only as of its date.

For investors outside the United States: None of us, the selling stockholders or underwriters have done anything that would permit our public offering or possession or distribution of this prospectus in any jurisdiction where action for that purpose is required, other than in the United States. Persons outside the United States who come into possession of this prospectus must inform themselves about, and observe any restrictions relating to, the offering of the shares of our common stock and the distribution of this prospectus outside of the United States.

 

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RISK FACTORS

Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the following risks, together with all of the other information contained in this prospectus, including our financial statements and related notes, before making a decision to invest in our common stock. Any of the following risks could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition and could cause the trading price of our common stock to decline, which would cause you to lose all or part of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

If we are unable to attract new customers and expand sales to existing customers, our business growth could be slower than we expect and our business may be harmed.

Our future growth depends in part upon increasing our customer base. Our ability to achieve significant growth in revenues in the future will depend, in large part, upon the effectiveness of our sales and marketing efforts, both domestically and internationally. We may have difficulty attracting a potential client that has already invested substantial personnel and financial resources to integrate on-premise software into its business, as such organizations may be reluctant or unwilling to invest in a new product. If we fail to attract new customers or maintain and expand those customer relationships, our revenues will grow more slowly than expected and our business will be harmed.

Our future growth also depends upon our ability to add users and sell additional products to our existing customers. It is important for the future growth of our business that our existing customers make additional significant purchases of our products and add additional users to our platform. Our business also depends on retaining existing customers. If we do not retain customers, our customers do not purchase additional products or we do not add additional users to our platform, our revenues may grow more slowly than expected, may not grow at all or may decline. Additionally, increasing incremental sales to our current customer base may require additional sales efforts that are targeted at senior management. There can be no assurance that our efforts would result in increased sales to existing customers or additional revenues.

Our business and growth depend substantially on customers renewing their subscription agreements with us and any decline in our customer renewals could adversely affect our future operating results.

Our initial subscription period for the majority of our customers is one to three years. In order for us to continue to increase our revenue, it is important that our existing customers renew their subscription agreements when the initial contract term expires. Although our agreements typically include automatic renewal language, our customers may cancel their agreements at the expiration of the initial term. In addition, our customers may renew for fewer users, renew for shorter contract lengths or renew for fewer products or solutions. Our customers’ renewal rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a variety of factors, including their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our software or professional services, our pricing or pricing structure, the pricing or capabilities of products or services offered by our competitors, the effects of economic conditions, or reductions in our customers’ spending levels. As the markets for our existing solutions mature, or as current and future competitors introduce new products or services that compete with ours, we may experience pricing pressure and be unable to renew our agreements with existing customers or attract new customers at prices that are profitable to us. If this were to occur, it is possible that we would have to change our pricing model, offer price incentives or reduce our prices. If our customers do not renew their agreements with us or renew on terms less favorable to us, our revenues may decline.

 

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We have a history of losses in recent periods and we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to achieve or sustain profitability.

We have incurred net losses in recent periods, including $39.2 million and $24.7 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, and $9.0 million for the three months ended March 31, 2017. We had an accumulated deficit of $96.4 million at March 31, 2017. We may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to achieve and sustain profitability. We also expect our costs to increase in future periods as we continue to expend substantial financial and other resources on:

 

•

development of our cloud-based platform, including investments in research and development, product innovation to expand the features and functionality of our software solutions and improvements to the scalability and security of our platform;

 

•

sales and marketing, including expansion of our direct sales force and our relationships with technology vendors, professional services firms, business process outsourcers, and resellers;

 

•

additional international expansion in an effort to increase our customer base and sales; and

 

•

general administration, including legal, accounting and other expenses related to being a public company.

These investments may not result in increased revenue or growth of our business. If we fail to continue to grow our revenue, we may not achieve or sustain profitability.

We have experienced rapid growth and organizational change in recent periods and if we fail to manage our growth effectively, we may be unable to execute our business plan.

We increased our number of full-time employees from 183 as of December 31, 2013 to 640 as of March 31, 2017 as we have experienced growth in number of customers and expanded our operations. Our growth has placed, and may continue to place, a significant strain on our managerial, administrative, operational, financial, and other resources. We intend to further expand our headcount and operations both domestically and internationally, with no assurance that our business or revenue will continue to grow. Continuing to create a global organization and managing a geographically dispersed workforce will require substantial management effort, the allocation of valuable management resources and significant additional investment in our infrastructure. We will be required to continually improve our operational, financial and management controls and our reporting procedures, and we may not be able to do so effectively, which could negatively affect our results of operations and overall business. In addition, we may be unable to manage our expenses effectively in the future, which may negatively impact our gross margins or operating expenses in any particular quarter. Moreover, if we fail to manage our anticipated growth and change in a manner that preserves the key aspects of our corporate culture, the quality of our software solutions may suffer, which could negatively affect our brand and reputation and harm our ability to retain and attract customers.

Our quarterly results may fluctuate, and if we fail to meet the expectations of analysts or investors, our stock price and the value of your investment could decline substantially.

Our quarterly financial results may fluctuate as a result of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. If our quarterly financial results fall below the expectations of investors or any securities analysts who may follow our stock, the price of our common stock could decline substantially. Some of the important factors that may cause our revenue, operating results and cash flows to fluctuate from quarter to quarter include:

 

•

our ability to attract new customers and retain and increase sales to existing customers;

 

•

the number of new employees added;

 

•

the rate of expansion and productivity of our sales force;

 

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changes in our or our competitors’ pricing policies;

 

•

the amount and timing of operating costs and capital expenditures related to the operations and expansion of our business;

 

•

new products, features or functionalities introduced by us and our competitors;

 

•

significant security breaches, technical difficulties or interruptions to our platform;

 

•

the timing of customer payments and payment defaults by customers;

 

•

general economic conditions that may adversely affect either our customers’ ability or willingness to purchase additional products or services, delay a prospective customer’s purchasing decision or affect customer retention;

 

•

changes in foreign currency exchange rates;

 

•

the impact of new accounting pronouncements; and

 

•

the timing and the amount of grants or vesting of equity awards to employees.

Many of these factors are outside of our control, and the occurrence of one or more of them might cause our revenue, operating results and cash flows to vary widely. As such, we believe that quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our revenue, operating results and cash flows may not be meaningful and should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance.

If we are not able to provide successful enhancements, new features or modifications to our software solutions, our business could be adversely affected.

If we are unable to provide enhancements and new features for our existing solutions or new solutions that achieve market acceptance or that keep pace with rapid technological developments, our business could be adversely affected. The success of enhancements, new products and solutions depends on several factors, including timely completion, introduction and market acceptance. We must continue to meet changing expectations and requirements of our customers and, because our platform is designed to operate on a variety of systems, we will need to continuously modify and enhance our solutions to keep pace with changes in internet-related hardware and other software, communication, browser and database technologies. Our platform is also designed to integrate with ERP systems such as NetSuite, Oracle, SAP, and Workday, and will require modifications and enhancements as these systems change over time. Any failure of our solutions to operate effectively with future platforms and technologies could reduce the demand for our solutions or result in customer dissatisfaction. Furthermore, uncertainties about the timing and nature of new solutions or technologies, or modifications to existing solutions or technologies, could increase our research and development expenses. If we are not successful in developing modifications and enhancements to our solutions or if we fail to bring them to market in a timely fashion, our solutions may become less marketable, less competitive or obsolete, our revenue growth may be significantly impaired, and our business could be adversely affected.

We derive substantially all of our revenues from a limited number of software solutions, and our future growth is dependent on their success.

We currently derive and expect to continue to derive substantially all of our revenues from our Financial Close Management and Reconciliation Management solutions. As such, the continued growth in market demand for these solutions is critical to our continued success. We have recently introduced two new software solutions, Intercompany Hub and Insights, but cannot be certain that they will generate significant revenues. In addition, those solutions are designed to be used with our Financial Close Management and Reconciliation Management solutions and will not be sold independently. Accordingly, our business and financial results will be substantially dependent on a limited number of solutions.

 

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If our relationships with technology vendors and business process outsourcers are not successful, our business and growth will be harmed.

We depend on, and anticipate that we will continue to depend on, various strategic relationships in order to sustain and grow our business. We have established strong relationships with technology vendors such as SAP and NetSuite to market our solutions to users of their ERP solutions, and professional services firms such as Deloitte and KPMG, and business process outsourcers such as Cognizant, Genpact and IBM to supplement delivery and implementation of our applications. We believe these relationships enable us to effectively market our solutions by offering a complementary suite of services. In particular, we have a strategic relationship with SAP to market our solution to users of SAP’s ERP solutions. Our solution is an SAP-endorsed business solution that integrates with SAP’s ERP solutions. Under our agreement with SAP, which we entered into in 2013, we pay SAP a fee based on a percentage of revenues from our new customers that use an SAP ERP system. We continue to pay SAP a fee for these customers over the term of their subscription agreements. For the three months ended March 31, 2017, revenues from our customers that use an SAP ERP solution accounted for $6.8 million, or approximately 18%, of our total revenues. For the year ended December 31, 2016, revenues from our customers that use an SAP ERP solution accounted for $20.7 million, or approximately 17%, of our total revenues. If we are unsuccessful in maintaining our relationship with SAP, or if we are unsuccessful in supporting or expanding our relationships with other companies, our business would be adversely affected.

Identifying, negotiating and documenting relationships with other companies require significant time and resources. Our agreements with technology vendors are typically limited in duration, non-exclusive, cancellable upon notice, and do not prohibit the counterparties from working with our competitors or from offering competing services. For example, our agreement with SAP can be terminated by either party upon six months’ notice, and there is no assurance that our relationship with SAP will continue. If we are no longer an SAP-endorsed business solution, our business could be adversely affected. Our competitors may be effective in providing incentives to third parties to favor their products or services or to prevent or reduce subscriptions to our platform. If we are unsuccessful in establishing or maintaining our relationships, our ability to compete in the marketplace or to grow our revenue could be impaired and our operating results would suffer. Even if we are successful, we cannot assure you that these relationships will result in improved operating results.

If our security controls are breached or unauthorized, or inadvertent access to customer, employee or other confidential data is otherwise obtained, our software solutions may be perceived as insecure, we may lose existing customers or fail to attract new customers, our business may be harmed, and we may incur significant liabilities.

Use of our platform involves the storage, transmission and processing of our customers’ proprietary data, including highly confidential financial information regarding their business and personal or identifying information regarding their customers or employees. Our platform is at risk for breaches as a result of third-party action, employee, vendor or contractor error, malfeasance, or other factors. If any unauthorized or inadvertent access to, or a security breach of, our platform occurs, or is believed to occur, such an event could result in the loss of data, loss of business, severe reputational damage adversely affecting customer or investor confidence, regulatory investigations and orders, litigation, indemnity obligations, damages for contract breach, or penalties for violation of applicable laws or regulations. Security breaches could also result in significant costs for remediation that may include liability for stolen assets or information and repair of system damage that may have been caused, incentives offered to customers or other business partners in an effort to maintain business relationships after a breach, and other liabilities.

We incur significant expenses to prevent security breaches, including deploying additional personnel and protection technologies, training employees and engaging third-party experts and

 

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contractors. If a high profile security breach occurs with respect to another software as a service, or SaaS, provider, our clients and potential clients may lose trust in the security of our platform or in the SaaS business model generally, which could adversely impact our ability to retain existing clients or attract new ones. Even in the absence of any security breach, customer concerns about security, privacy or data protection may deter them from using our platform for activities that involve personal or other sensitive information. Our errors and omissions insurance policies covering certain security and privacy damages and claim expenses may not be sufficient to compensate for all potential liability. Although we maintain cyber liability insurance, we cannot be certain that our coverage will be adequate for liabilities actually incurred or that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all.

Because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not identified until they are launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. We may also experience security breaches that may remain undetected for an extended period. From time to time, we experience cyber security events, including directed “phishing” attacks against our employees, web attacks and other information technology incidents that are typical for a SaaS company of our size. These threats continue to evolve and are difficult to predict due to advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries in the field of cryptography and new and sophisticated methods used by criminals, including phishing, social engineering or other illicit acts. There can be no assurances that our defensive measures will prevent cyber attacks, and any incidents could damage our brand and reputation and negatively impact our business.

Because data security is a critical competitive factor in our industry, we make numerous statements in our privacy policy and customer agreements, through our certifications to privacy standards and in our marketing materials, providing assurances about the security of our platform including detailed descriptions of security measures we employ. Should any of these statements be untrue or become untrue, even through circumstances beyond our reasonable control, we may face claims of misrepresentation or deceptiveness by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, state and foreign regulators and private litigants. Our errors and omissions insurance coverage covering security and privacy damages and claim expenses may not be sufficient to compensate for all liabilities.

Interruptions or performance problems associated with our software solutions, platform and technology may adversely affect our business and operating results.

Our continued growth depends in part on the ability of our existing and potential customers to access our platform at any time. Our platform is proprietary, and we rely on the expertise of members of our engineering, operations and software development teams for its continued performance. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, disruptions, outages and other performance problems due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, introductions of new functionality, human or software errors, capacity constraints due to an overwhelming number of users accessing our platform simultaneously, denial of service attacks, or other security related incidents. In some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance problems within an acceptable period of time. Because of the seasonal nature of financial close activities, increasing complexity of our platform and expanding user population, it may become difficult to accurately predict and timely address performance and capacity needs during peak load times. If our platform is unavailable or if our users are unable to access it within a reasonable amount of time or at all, our business would be harmed. In addition, our infrastructure does not currently include the real-time mirroring of data. Therefore, in the event of any of the factors described above, or other failures of our infrastructure, customer data may be permanently lost. Our customer agreements typically include performance guarantees and service level standards that obligate us to provide credits in the event of a significant disruption in our platform. To the extent that we do not effectively address capacity

 

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constraints, upgrade our systems and continually develop our technology and network architecture to accommodate actual and anticipated changes in technology, our business and operating results may be adversely affected.

If our software contains serious errors or defects, we may lose revenue and market acceptance and may incur costs to defend or settle product liability claims.

Complex software such as ours often contains errors or defects, particularly when first introduced or when new versions or enhancements are released. Despite internal and third-party testing and testing by our customers, our current and future software may contain serious defects, which could result in lost revenue or a delay in market acceptance.

Since our customers use our platform for critical business functions, such as assisting in the financial close or account reconciliation process, errors, defects or other performance problems could result in damage to our customers. They could seek significant compensation from us for the losses they suffer. Although our customer agreements typically contain provisions designed to limit our exposure to product liability claims, existing or future laws or unfavorable judicial decisions could negate these limitations. Even if not successful, a product liability claim brought against us would likely be time-consuming and costly and could seriously damage our reputation in the marketplace, making it harder for us to sell our products.

We depend on our executive officers and other key employees, and the loss of one or more of these employees or an inability to attract and retain highly-skilled employees could adversely affect our business.

Our success depends largely upon the continued services of our executive officers and other key employees. We rely on our leadership team in the areas of research and development, operations, security, marketing, sales, and general and administrative functions. In particular, our founder and Chief Executive Officer provides our strategic direction and has built and maintained what we believe is an attractive workplace culture. Any failure to preserve our culture could negatively affect our ability to recruit and retain personnel. From time to time, there may be changes in our executive management team resulting from the hiring or departure of executives, which could disrupt our business. Key members of our current management and finance teams have only been working together for a relatively short period of time. If we are not successful in integrating these key employees into our organization, such failure could disrupt our business operations. We do not have employment agreements with our executive officers or other key personnel that require them to continue to work for us for any specified period and, therefore, they could terminate their employment with us at any time. The loss of one or more of our executive officers or key employees, especially our founder and Chief Executive Officer, could have an adverse effect on our business.

In addition, to execute our growth plan, we must attract and retain highly-qualified personnel. Competition for personnel is intense, especially for engineers experienced in designing and developing software applications and experienced sales professionals. We have, from time to time, experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining employees with appropriate qualifications. Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel have greater resources than we have. If we hire employees from competitors or other companies, their former employers may attempt to assert that these employees or we have breached their legal obligations, resulting in a diversion of our time and resources. Likewise, if competitors hire our employees, we may divert time and resources to deterring any breach by our former employees or their new employers of their legal obligations. Given the competitive nature of our industry, we have both received and asserted such claims in the past. In addition, job candidates and existing employees often consider the value of the equity awards they receive in connection with their employment. If the perceived value of

 

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our equity awards declines, it may adversely affect our ability to recruit and retain highly-skilled employees. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could be adversely affected.

If our industry does not continue to develop as we anticipate or if potential customers do not continue to adopt our platform, our sales would not grow as quickly as expected, or at all, and our business and operating results and financial condition would be adversely affected.

We operate in a rapidly evolving industry focused on modernizing financial and accounting operations. Our solutions are relatively new and have been developed to respond to an increasingly global and complex business environment with more rigorous regulatory standards. If organizations do not increasingly allocate their budgets to financial automation software as we expect or if we do not succeed in convincing potential customers that our platform should be an integral part of their overall approach to their accounting processes, our sales may not grow as quickly as anticipated, or at all. Our business is substantially dependent on enterprises recognizing that accounting errors and inefficiencies are pervasive and are not effectively addressed by legacy solutions. Future deterioration in general economic conditions may also cause our customers to cut their overall information technology spending, and such cuts may disproportionately affect software solutions like ours to the extent customers view our solutions as discretionary. If our revenue does not increase for any of these reasons, or any other reason, our business, financial condition and operating results may be materially adversely affected.

The market in which we participate is intensely competitive, and if we do not compete effectively, our operating results could be harmed.

The market for accounting and financial software and services is highly competitive and rapidly evolving. Our competitors vary in size and in the breadth and scope of the products and services they offer. We often compete with other vendors of financial automation software such as Trintech. We also compete with large, well-established, enterprise application software vendors, such as Oracle, whose Hyperion software contains components that compete with our platform. In the future, a competitor offering ERP software could include a free service similar to ours as part of its standard offerings or may offer a free standalone version of a service similar to ours. Further, other established software vendors not currently focused on accounting and finance software and services may expand their services to compete with us.

Our competitors may have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, more established customer and marketing relationships, larger marketing budgets and significantly greater resources than we do. They may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards, or customer requirements. In addition, some of our competitors have partnered with, or have acquired, and may in the future partner with or acquire, other competitors to offer services, leveraging their collective competitive positions, which makes, or would make, it more difficult to compete with them.

With the introduction of new technologies, the evolution of our platform and new market entrants, we expect competition to intensify in the future. Increased competition generally could result in reduced sales, reduced margins, losses, or the failure of our platform to achieve or maintain more widespread market acceptance, any of which could harm our business.

 

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Our financial results may fluctuate due to our long and variable sales cycle.

Our sales cycle generally varies in duration between four to nine months and, in some cases, even longer depending on the size of the potential customer. The sales cycle for our global enterprise customers is generally longer than that of our mid-market customers. Factors that may influence the length and variability of our sales cycle include:

 

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the need to educate potential customers about the uses and benefits of our software solutions;

 

•

the need to educate potential customers on the differences between traditional, on-premise software and SaaS solutions;

 

•

the relatively long duration of the commitment customers make in their agreements with us;

 

•

the discretionary nature and timing of potential customers’ purchasing and budget cycles and decisions;

 

•

the competitive nature of potential customers’ evaluation and purchasing processes;

 

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announcements or planned introductions of new products by us or our competitors; and

 

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lengthy purchasing approval processes of potential customers.

We may incur higher costs and longer sales cycles as a result of large enterprises representing an increased portion of our revenue. In this market, the decision to subscribe to our solutions may require the approval of more technical and information security personnel and management levels within a potential customer’s organization, and if so, these types of sales require us to invest more time educating these potential customers. In addition, larger organizations may demand more features and integration services and have increased purchasing power and leverage in negotiating contractual arrangements with us, which may contain restrictive terms favorable to the larger organization. As a result of these factors, these sales opportunities may require us to devote greater research and development, sales, product support, and professional services resources to individual customers, resulting in increased costs and reduced profitability, and would likely lengthen our typical sales cycle, which could strain our resources.

In addition, more sales are closed in the last month of a quarter than other times. If we are unable to close sufficient transactions in a particular period, or if a significant amount of transactions are delayed until a subsequent period, our operating results for that period, and for any future periods in which revenue from such transaction would otherwise have been recognized, may be adversely affected.

We recognize subscription revenue over the term of our customer contracts and, consequently, downturns or upturns in new sales may not be immediately reflected in our operating results and may be difficult to discern.

We recognize subscription revenue from our platform ratably over the terms of our customers’ agreements, most of which have one-year terms but an increasing number of which have up to three-year terms. As a result, most of the revenue we report in each quarter is derived from the recognition of deferred revenue relating to subscriptions entered into during previous quarters. Consequently, a decline in new or renewed subscriptions in any single quarter may have a small impact on our revenue results for that quarter. However, such a decline will negatively affect our revenue in future quarters. Accordingly, the effect of significant downturns in sales and market acceptance of our platform, and potential changes in our pricing policies or rate of expansion or retention, may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods. We may also be unable to reduce our cost structure in line with a significant deterioration in sales. In addition, a significant majority of our costs are expensed as incurred, while revenue is recognized over the life of the agreement with our customer. As a result,

 

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increased growth in the number of our customers could continue to result in our recognition of more costs than revenue in the earlier periods of the terms of our agreements. Our subscription model also makes it difficult for us to rapidly increase our revenue through additional sales in any period, as revenue from new customers must be recognized over the applicable subscription term.

We previously identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. Although we believe these material weaknesses have since been remediated, we may identify material weaknesses in the future or otherwise fail to maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting in the future and may not be able to accurately or timely report our financial condition or results of operations, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and the price of our common stock.

As a public company, we are required to maintain internal control over financial reporting and to report any material weaknesses in such internal controls. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, requires that we evaluate and determine the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting and, beginning with our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ending December 31, 2017, provide a management report on internal control over financial reporting. During 2015, we identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. Although we have remediated these material weaknesses as of December 31, 2016, we cannot assure you that additional material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting will not be identified in the future.

The process of designing and implementing internal control over financial reporting required to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will be time consuming, costly and complicated. If, during the evaluation and testing process, we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, our management will be unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective. Even if our management concludes that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, our independent registered public accounting firm may conclude that there are material weaknesses with respect to our internal controls or the level at which our internal controls are documented, designed, implemented, or reviewed. If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or when required in the future, if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion as to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, the market price of our common stock could be adversely affected, and we could become subject to litigation or investigations by the stock exchange on which our securities are listed, the SEC, or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional financial and management resources.

We rely on a limited number of data centers to deliver our cloud-based software solutions and any disruption of service at these centers could harm our business.

We manage our software solutions and serve most of our customers using a cloud-based infrastructure that is operated by a limited number of third-party data center facilities in North America and Europe. We do not control the operation of these facilities. Any changes in third-party service levels at our data centers or any disruptions or delays from errors, defects, hacking incidents, security breaches, computer viruses or other intentional bad acts or performance problems could harm our reputation, damage our customers’ businesses and adversely affect our business and operating results. Our data centers are also vulnerable to damage or interruption from earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, war, terrorist attacks, power losses, hardware failures, systems failures, telecommunications failures, and similar events. If our data centers were compromised or unavailable or our users were unable to access our solutions for any reason, our business and operations would be materially and adversely affected.

 

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Our customers have experienced minor disruptions and outages in accessing our solutions in the past, and may in the future experience, disruptions, outages and other performance problems. Although we expend considerable effort to ensure that our platform performance is capable of handling existing and increased traffic levels, the ability of our cloud-based solutions to effectively manage any increased capacity requirements depends on our third-party providers. Our third-party data center providers may not be able to meet such performance requirements, especially to cover peak levels or spikes in traffic and, as a result, our customers may experience delays in accessing our solutions or encounter slower performance in our solutions, which could significantly harm the operations of these facilities. Interruptions in our services might reduce our revenue, cause us to issue credits to customers, subject us to potential liability, and cause customers to terminate their subscriptions or harm our renewal rates.

If we do not accurately predict our infrastructure capacity requirements, our customers could experience service shortfalls. The provisioning of additional cloud hosting capacity and data center infrastructure requires lead time. As we continue to add data centers, restructure our data management plans and increase capacity in existing and future data centers, we may move or transfer our data and our customers’ data. For example, in early 2016, we began hosting customers at a data facility located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Despite precautions taken during such processes and procedures, any unsuccessful data transfers may impair the delivery of our service, and we may experience costs or downtime in connection with the transfer of data to other facilities which may lead to, among other things, customer dissatisfaction and non-renewals. The owners of our data center facilities have no obligation to renew their agreements with us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. If we are unable to renew these agreements on commercially reasonable terms, we may be required to transfer to new data center facilities, and we may incur significant costs and possible service interruption in connection with doing so.

Failure to effectively expand our sales capabilities could harm our ability to increase our customer base.

Increasing our customer base and sales will depend, to a significant extent, on our ability to effectively expand our sales and marketing operations and activities. We are substantially dependent on our direct sales force to obtain new customers. From January 1, 2014 to March 31, 2017, our sales and marketing teams increased from 68 to 317 employees. We plan to continue to expand our direct sales force both domestically and internationally. We believe that there is significant competition for experienced sales professionals with the sales skills and technical knowledge that we require. Our ability to achieve significant revenue growth in the future will depend, in part, on our success in recruiting, training and retaining a sufficient number of experienced sales professionals. New hires require significant training and time before they achieve full productivity, particularly in new sales segments and territories. Our recent hires and planned hires may not become as productive as quickly as we expect, and we may be unable to hire or retain sufficient numbers of qualified individuals in the future in the markets where we do business. Our business will be harmed if our sales expansion efforts do not generate a significant increase in revenue.

If we are unable to develop and maintain successful relationships with resellers, our business, operating results and financial condition could be adversely affected.

We believe that continued growth in our business is dependent upon identifying, developing and maintaining strategic relationships with companies that resell our solutions. We plan to expand our small but growing network of resellers and to add new resellers, in particular to help grow our mid-market business globally. Our agreements with our existing resellers are non-exclusive, meaning resellers may offer customers the products of several different companies, including products that compete with ours. They may also cease marketing our solutions with limited or no notice and with little

 

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or no penalty. We expect that any additional resellers we identify and develop will be similarly non-exclusive and not bound by any requirement to continue to market our solutions. If we fail to identify additional resellers, in a timely and cost-effective manner, or at all, or are unable to assist our current and future resellers in independently selling our solutions, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected. If resellers do not effectively market and sell our solutions, or fail to meet the needs of our customers, our reputation and ability to grow our business may also be adversely affected.

If we are not able to maintain and enhance our brand, our business, operating results and financial condition may be adversely affected.

We believe that maintaining and enhancing our reputation for accounting and finance software is critical to our relationships with our existing customers and to our ability to attract new customers. The successful promotion of our brand attributes will depend on a number of factors, including our marketing efforts, our ability to continue to develop high-quality software and our ability to successfully differentiate our platform from competitive products and services. Our brand promotion activities may not ultimately be successful or yield increased revenue. In addition, independent industry analysts provide reviews of our platform, as well as products and services offered by our competitors, and perception of our platform in the marketplace may be significantly influenced by these reviews. If these reviews are negative, or less positive as compared to those of our competitors’ products and services, our brand may be adversely affected.

The promotion of our brand requires us to make substantial expenditures, and we anticipate that the expenditures will increase as our market becomes more competitive, as we expand into new markets and as more sales are generated. To the extent that these activities yield increased revenue, this revenue may not offset the increased expenses we incur. If we do not successfully maintain and enhance our brand, our business may not grow, we may have reduced pricing power relative to competitors, and we could lose customers or fail to attract potential customers, all of which would adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Our long-term success depends, in part, on our ability to expand the sales of our solutions to customers located outside of the United States, and thus our business is susceptible to risks associated with international sales and operations.

We currently maintain offices and/or have sales personnel in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, and we intend to build out our international operations. As part of our ongoing international expansion strategy, in August 2016, we acquired Runbook, a Netherlands-based provider of financial close automation software solutions to SAP customers. We derived approximately 19% of our revenues from sales outside the United States in the three months ended March 31, 2017, and we derived approximately 16% of our revenues from sales outside the United States in the year ended December 31, 2016. Any international expansion efforts that we may undertake, including the Runbook Acquisition, may not be successful. In addition, conducting international operations in new markets subjects us to new risks that we have not generally faced in the United States. These risks include:

 

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localization of our solutions, including translation into foreign languages and adaptation for local practices and regulatory requirements;

 

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lack of familiarity and burdens of complying with foreign laws, legal standards, regulatory requirements, tariffs, and other barriers;

 

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unexpected changes in regulatory requirements, taxes, trade laws, tariffs, export quotas, custom duties, or other trade restrictions;

 

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differing technology standards;

 

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longer accounts receivable payment cycles and difficulties in collecting accounts receivable;

 

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difficulties in managing and staffing international operations and differing employer/employee relationships;

 

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fluctuations in exchange rates that may increase the volatility of our foreign-based revenue;

 

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potentially adverse tax consequences, including the complexities of foreign value-added tax (or other tax) systems and restrictions on the repatriation of earnings;

 

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uncertain political and economic climates, including the significant volatility in the global financial markets; and

 

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reduced or varied protection for intellectual property rights in some countries.

These factors may cause our international costs of doing business to exceed our comparable domestic costs. Operating in international markets also requires significant management attention and financial resources. Any negative impact from our international business efforts could negatively impact our business, results of operations and financial condition as a whole.

In addition, the President of the United States and Congress have proposed, formally or informally, various changes, including regulatory and tax reform that would have uncertain and potentially adverse effects on our business. Potential tax reforms in the United States may result in significant changes in the rules governing United States federal income taxation. Such changes may have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Such changes may also affect the federal tax considerations of the ownership and disposition of the common stock, as discussed below in “Material U.S. Federal Tax Consequences to Non-U.S. Holders of our Common Stock”.

We use third-party contractors outside of the United States to supplement our research and development capabilities, which may expose us to risks, including risks inherent in foreign operations.

We use third-party contractors outside of the United States to supplement our research and development capabilities. We currently use third-party contractors located in Romania and China. Managing operations that are remote from our U.S. headquarters is difficult and we may not be able to manage these third-party contractors successfully. If we fail to maintain productive relationships with these contractors generally, we may be required to develop our solutions in a less efficient and cost-effective manner and our product release schedules may be delayed while we hire software developers or find alternative contract development resources. Additionally, while we take precautions to ensure that software components developed by our third-party contractors are reviewed and that our source code is protected, misconduct by our third-party contractors could result in infringement or misappropriation of our intellectual property. Furthermore, any acts of espionage, malware attacks, theft of confidential information, or other malicious cyber incidents attributed to our third-party contractors may compromise our system infrastructure, expose us to litigation and lead to reputational harm that could result in a material adverse effect on our financial condition and operating results.

Any failure to protect our intellectual property rights could impair our ability to protect our proprietary technology and our brand.

Our success and ability to compete depend, in part, upon our intellectual property. We currently have one patent application, which may not result in an issued patent. We primarily rely on copyright, trade secret and trademark laws, trade secret protection, and confidentiality or license agreements with our employees, customers, partners, and others to protect our intellectual property rights. However, the steps we take to protect our intellectual property rights may be inadequate.

 

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In order to protect our intellectual property rights, we may be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect these rights. In the past, we have utilized demand letters as a means to assert and resolve claims regarding potential misuse of our proprietary or trade secret information. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time-consuming and distracting to management, and could result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property. Furthermore, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property rights. Our failure to secure, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could adversely affect our brand and adversely impact our business.

Suits by third parties for alleged infringement of their proprietary rights could cause us to incur significant expenses or liabilities.

There is considerable patent and other intellectual property development activity in our industry. Our future success depends, in part, on not infringing upon the intellectual property rights of others. From time to time, our competitors or other third parties may claim that our solutions and underlying technology infringe or violate their intellectual property rights, and we may be found to be infringing upon such rights. We may be unaware of the intellectual property rights of others that may cover some or all of our technology. Any claims or litigation could cause us to incur significant expenses and, if successfully asserted against us, could require that we pay substantial damages or ongoing royalty payments, prevent us from offering our solutions or require that we comply with other unfavorable terms. We may also be obligated to indemnify our customers or other companies in connection with any such litigation and to obtain licenses, modify our solutions or refund subscription fees, which could further exhaust our resources. In addition, we may incur substantial costs to resolve claims or litigation, whether or not successfully asserted against us, which could include payment of significant settlement, royalty or license fees, modification of our solutions, or refunds to customers of subscription fees. Even if we were to prevail in the event of claims or litigation against us, any claim or litigation regarding our intellectual property could be costly and time-consuming and divert the attention of our management and other employees from our business operations. Such disputes could also disrupt our solutions, adversely impacting our customer satisfaction and ability to attract customers.

We use open source software in our products, which could subject us to litigation or other actions.

We use open source software in our products and may use more open source software in the future. From time to time, there have been claims challenging the use of open source software against companies that incorporate open source software into their products. As a result, we could be subject to suits by parties claiming misuse of, or a right to compensation for, what we believe to be open source software. Litigation could be costly for us to defend, have a negative effect on our operating results and financial condition or require us to devote additional research and development resources to change our products. In addition, if we were to combine our proprietary software products with open source software in a certain manner, we could, under certain of the open source licenses, be required to release the source code of our proprietary software products. If we inappropriately use open source software, we may be required to re-engineer our products, discontinue the sale of our products or take other remedial actions.

Privacy and data security concerns, and data collection and transfer restrictions and related domestic or foreign regulations, may limit the use and adoption of our solutions and adversely affect our business.

Personal privacy, information security, and data protection are significant issues in the United States, Europe and many other jurisdictions where we offer our platform. The regulatory framework

 

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governing the collection, processing, storage, and use of business information, particularly information that affects financial statements and personal data, is rapidly evolving and any failure or perceived failure to comply with applicable privacy, security or data protection laws or regulations may adversely affect our business.

The U.S. federal and various state and foreign governments have adopted or proposed requirements regarding the collection, distribution, use, security, and storage of personally identifiable information and other data relating to individuals, and federal and state consumer protection laws are being applied to enforce regulations related to the online collection, use and dissemination of data. Some of these requirements include obligations on companies to notify individuals of security breaches involving particular personal information, which could result from breaches experienced by us or by organizations with which we have formed strategic relationships. Even though we may have contractual protections with such organizations, notifications related to a security breach could impact our reputation, harm customer confidence, hurt our expansion into new markets, or cause us to lose existing customers.

Further, many foreign countries and governmental bodies, including the European Union, or EU, where we conduct business and have offices, have laws and regulations concerning the collection and use of personal data obtained from their residents or by businesses operating within their jurisdiction. These laws and regulations often are more restrictive than those in the United States. Laws and regulations in these jurisdictions apply broadly to the collection, use, storage, disclosure and security of data that identifies or may be used to identify or locate an individual, such as names, email addresses and, in some jurisdictions, Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses. With regard to data transfers of personal data from our European employees and customers to the United States, we historically relied on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Safe Harbor Privacy Principles and compliance with the U.S.-EU and U.S.-Swiss Safe Harbor Frameworks as agreed to and set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the European Union and Switzerland, which established means for legitimizing the transfer of personal data by companies doing business in Europe from the EU to the U.S. As a result of the October 6, 2015 European Court of Justice opinion in Case C-362/14 (Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner) or, the ECJ Ruling, the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework was deemed an invalid method of compliance with EU restrictions on data transfers. We have taken certain measures to legitimize our transfers of personal data, both internally and on behalf of our customers, from the EU to the United States in the wake of the ECJ Ruling. Additionally, EU and U.S. political authorities adopted the U.S. EU Privacy Shield on July 12, 2016, which may provide a new mechanism for companies to transfer EU personal data to the United States. While we now have Privacy Shield certification in place that we believe allow for the lawful transfer of personal data from the EU to the U.S., it is possible that these mechanisms may be challenged or evolve to include new legal requirements that could have an impact on data transfers. It is unclear at this time whether the U.S. EU Privacy Shield will serve as an appropriate means for us to transfer EU personal data from the EU to the United States. Our means for transferring personal data from the EU may not be adopted by all of our customers and may be subject to legal challenge by data protection authorities, and we may experience reluctance or refusal by European customers to use our solutions due to potential risk exposure as a result of the ECJ Ruling. We and our customers face a risk of enforcement actions taken by EU data protection authorities regarding data transfers from the EU to the United States.

We also expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws, regulations and industry standards concerning privacy, data protection and information security in the United States, the EU and other jurisdictions. For example, the European Commission recently adopted a General Data Protection Regulation, effective in May 2018, that will supersede current EU data protection legislation, impose more stringent EU data protection requirements and provide for greater penalties for noncompliance. We cannot yet determine the impact such future laws, regulations and standards may have on our business. Such laws and regulations are often subject to differing interpretations and may

 

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be inconsistent among jurisdictions. These and other requirements could reduce demand for our service, increase our costs, impair our ability to grow our business, or restrict our ability to store and process data or, in some cases, impact our ability to offer our service in some locations and may subject us to liability. Further, in view of new or modified federal, state or foreign laws and regulations, industry standards, contractual obligations, and other legal obligations, or any changes in their interpretation, we may find it necessary or desirable to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or to expend significant resources to modify our software or platform and otherwise adapt to these changes. We may be unable to make such changes and modifications in a commercially reasonable manner or at all, and our ability to develop new products and features could be limited.

Further, following a referendum in June 2016 in which voters in the United Kingdom approved an exit from the EU, the United Kingdom government has initiated a process to leave the EU (often referred to as “Brexit”). The Brexit has created uncertainty with regard to the regulation of data protection in the United Kingdom. In particular, it is unclear whether the United Kingdom will enact data protection laws or regulations designed to be consistent with the pending EU General Data Protection Regulation and how data transfers to and from the United Kingdom will be regulated.

Our customers also expect that we comply with regulatory standards that may place additional burdens on us. Our customers expect us to meet voluntary certifications or adhere to standards established by third parties, such as the SSAE 16, SOC1 and SOC2 audit processes, and may demand that they be provided a report from our auditors that we are in compliance. If we are unable to maintain these certifications or meet these standards, it could adversely affect our customers’ demand for our service and could harm our business.

The costs of compliance with and other burdens imposed by laws, regulations and standards may limit the use and adoption of our service and reduce overall demand for it, or lead to significant fines, penalties or liabilities for any noncompliance. Privacy, information security and data protection concerns, whether valid or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our platform, particularly in certain industries and foreign countries.

We depend and rely upon SaaS applications from third parties to operate our business and interruptions or performance problems with these technologies may adversely affect our business and operating results.

We rely heavily on SaaS applications from third parties in order to operate critical functions of our business, including billing and order management, enterprise resource planning and financial accounting services. If these services become unavailable due to extended outages, interruptions or because they are no longer available on commercially reasonable terms, our expenses could increase, our ability to manage finances could be interrupted and our processes for managing sales of our solutions and supporting our customers could be impaired until equivalent services, if available, are identified, obtained and implemented, all of which could adversely affect our business.

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

We rely on computer hardware purchased or leased and software licensed from third parties in order to deliver our software solutions. This hardware and software may not continue to be available on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. Any loss of the right to use any of this hardware or software could result in delaying or preventing our ability to provide our software solutions until equivalent technology is either developed by us or, if available, identified, obtained and integrated. In addition, errors or defects in third-party hardware or software used in our software solutions could result in

 

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errors or a failure, which could damage our reputation, impede our ability to provide our platform or process information, and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

We face exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations that could harm our results of operations.

We conduct transactions, particularly intercompany transactions, in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, primarily the British pound and the Euro. As we grow our international operations, we expect the amount of our revenues that are denominated in foreign currencies to increase in the future. Accordingly, changes in the value of foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar could affect our revenue and operating results due to transactional and translational remeasurements that are reflected in our results of operations. As a result of such foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, it could be more difficult to detect underlying trends in our business and results of operations. In addition, to the extent that fluctuations in currency exchange rates cause our results of operations to differ from our expectations or the expectations of our investors, the trading price of our common stock could be adversely affected.

Additionally, as a result of Brexit, global markets and foreign currencies were adversely impacted. In particular, the value of the British pound declined as compared to the U.S. dollar and other currencies. This volatility in foreign currencies is expected to continue as the U.K. negotiates and executes its exit from the European Union, but it is uncertain over what time period this will occur. A significantly weaker British pound compared to the U.S. dollar could have a negative effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We do not currently maintain a program to hedge transactional exposures in foreign currencies. However, in the future, we may use derivative instruments, such as foreign currency forward and option contracts, to hedge exposures to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. The use of such hedging activities may not offset any or more than a portion of the adverse financial effects of unfavorable movements in foreign exchange rates over the limited time the hedges are in place. Moreover, the use of hedging instruments may introduce additional risks if we are unable to structure effective hedges with such instruments.

We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could impair our ability to compete in international markets due to licensing requirements and subject us to liability if we are not in full compliance with applicable laws.

Our solutions are subject to export controls, including the Commerce Department’s Export Administration Regulations and various economic and trade sanctions regulations established by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls. Obtaining the necessary authorizations, including any required license, for a particular export or sale may be time-consuming, is not guaranteed and may result in the delay or loss of sales opportunities. The U.S. export control laws and economic sanctions laws prohibit the export, re-export or transfer of specific products and services to U.S. embargoed or sanctioned countries, governments and persons. Even though we take precautions to prevent our solutions from being provided to U.S. sanctions targets, our solutions could be sold by resellers or could be used by persons in sanctioned countries despite such precautions. Failure to comply with the U.S. export control, sanctions and import laws could have negative consequences, including government investigations, penalties and reputational harm. We and our employees could be subject to civil or criminal penalties, including the possible loss of export or import privileges, fines, and, in extreme cases, the incarceration of responsible employees or managers. In addition, if our resellers fail to obtain appropriate import, export or re-export licenses or authorizations, we may also be adversely affected through reputational harm and penalties.

 

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In addition, various countries regulate the import of encryption technology, including through import permitting/licensing requirements, and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to distribute our solutions or could limit our customers’ ability to implement or access our solutions in those countries. Changes in our solutions or changes in export, sanctions and import regulations may create delays in the introduction and sale of our solutions in international markets, prevent our customers with international operations from accessing our solutions or, in some cases, preventing the export or import of our solutions to some countries, governments or persons altogether. Any change in export or import regulations, economic sanctions or related laws, shift in the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or change in the countries, governments, persons, or technologies targeted by such regulations, could result in decreased use of our solutions, or in our decreased ability to export or sell our solutions to existing or potential customers with international operations. Any decreased use of our solutions or limitation on our ability to export or sell our solutions would likely adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may be unable to integrate acquired businesses and technologies successfully or achieve the expected benefits of such transactions.

On August 31, 2016, we completed the Runbook Acquisition. We expect to evaluate and consider potential strategic transactions, including acquisitions of, or investments in, businesses, technologies, services, products, and other assets in the future. We also may enter into relationships with other businesses to expand our products and services, which could involve preferred or exclusive licenses, additional channels of distributions or discount pricing.

The Runbook Acquisition or any future acquisition, investment or business relationship may result in unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. In particular, we may encounter difficulties assimilating or integrating the businesses, technologies, products, personnel, or operations of the acquired companies, such as Runbook, particularly if the key personnel of the acquired company choose not to work for us, their software is not easily adapted to work with our platform, or we have difficulty retaining the customers of any acquired business due to changes in ownership, management or otherwise. In addition, Runbook offers an on-premise solution to its customers. If we are unable to migrate those customers to our cloud solution or if we are unable to integrate Runbook’s on-premise software with our platform, our business may be adversely affected. Acquisitions may also disrupt our business, divert our resources and require significant management attention that would otherwise be available for development of our existing business. Moreover, the anticipated benefits of any acquisition, investment or business relationship may not be realized or we may be exposed to unknown risks or liabilities.

Negotiating these transactions can be time-consuming, difficult and expensive, and our ability to complete these transactions may often be subject to approvals that are beyond our control. Consequently, these transactions, even if announced, may not be completed. For one or more of those transactions, we may:

 

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issue additional equity securities that would dilute our existing stockholders;

 

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use cash that we may need in the future to operate our business;

 

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incur large charges or substantial liabilities;

 

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incur debt on terms unfavorable to us or that we are unable to repay;

 

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encounter difficulties retaining key employees of the acquired company or integrating diverse software codes or business cultures; and

 

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become subject to adverse tax consequences, substantial depreciation and amortization or deferred compensation charges.

 

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The nature of our business requires the application of complex revenue and expense recognition rules and the current legislative and regulatory environment affecting generally accepted accounting principles is uncertain. Significant changes in current principles could affect our financial statements going forward and changes in financial accounting standards or practices may cause adverse, unexpected financial reporting fluctuations and harm our operating results.

The accounting rules and regulations that we must comply with are complex and subject to interpretation by the FASB, the SEC and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. Recent actions and public comments from the FASB and the SEC have focused on the integrity of financial reporting and internal controls. In addition, many companies’ accounting policies are being subject to heightened scrutiny by regulators and the public. Further, the accounting rules and regulations are continually changing in ways that could materially impact our financial statements. For example, in May 2014, the FASB issued Accounting Standards Update, or ASU, No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606), as amended, which will supersede nearly all existing revenue recognition guidance. Although the new standard permits early adoption as early as January 1, 2017, the effective date of the new revenue standard is January 1, 2018. The new standard permits adoption either by using (i) a full retrospective approach for all periods presented in the period of adoption or (ii) a modified retrospective approach with the cumulative effect of initially applying the new standard recognized at the date of initial application and providing certain additional disclosures. We will adopt the new revenue guidance in the first quarter of 2018 though we have not yet determined whether to adopt using a full retrospective or modified retrospective approach. We are currently assessing the impact of the new revenue guidance on our arrangements. We currently believe that the new guidance will impact the amount and timing of incremental costs of obtaining a contract, such as sales commissions. We generally do not pay sales commissions upon contract renewal and therefore, under the new revenue guidance, the sales commissions will be recognized over an estimated customer life rather than over the non-cancelable term under current guidance. The new guidance is also expected to impact our arrangements subject to current software revenue recognition guidance and also require incremental disclosures of our revenue arrangements. We have not yet quantified the impact of these changes. Adoption of this standard will also require changes to our business processes, systems and controls to support the new revenue recognition guidance. We are in the process of identifying such changes.

We cannot predict the impact of future changes to accounting principles or our accounting policies on our financial statements going forward, which could have a significant effect on our reported financial results, and could affect the reporting of transactions completed before the announcement of the change. In addition, if we were to change our critical accounting estimates, including those related to the recognition of license revenue and other revenue sources, our operating results could be significantly affected.

Incorrect or improper implementation or use of our solutions could result in customer dissatisfaction and negatively affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects.

Our platform is deployed in a wide variety of technology environments and into a broad range of complex workflows. Our platform has been integrated into large-scale, enterprise-wide technology environments, and specialized use cases, and our success depends on our ability to implement our platform successfully in these environments. We often assist our customers in implementing our platform, but many customers attempt to implement even complex deployments themselves or use a third-party service firm. If we or our customers are unable to implement our platform successfully, or are unable to do so in a timely manner, customer perceptions of our platform and company may be impaired, our reputation and brand may suffer, and customers may choose not to renew or expand the use of our platform.

 

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Our customers and third-party resellers may need training in the proper use of our platform to maximize its potential. If our platform is not implemented or used correctly or as intended, including if customers input incorrect or incomplete financial data into our platform, inadequate performance may result. Because our customers rely on our platform to manage their financial close and other financial tasks, the incorrect or improper implementation or use of our platform, our failure to train customers on how to efficiently and effectively use our platform, or our failure to provide adequate product support to our customers, may result in negative publicity or legal claims against us. Also, as we continue to expand our customer base, any failure by us to properly provide these services will likely result in lost opportunities for additional subscriptions to our platform.

Any failure to offer high-quality product support may adversely affect our relationships with our customers and our financial results.

In deploying and using our solutions, our customers depend on our support services team to resolve complex technical and operational issues. We may be unable to respond quickly enough to accommodate short-term increases in customer demand for product support. We also may be unable to modify the nature, scope and delivery of our product support to compete with changes in product support services provided by our competitors. Increased customer demand for product support, without corresponding revenue, could increase costs and adversely affect our operating results. Our sales are highly dependent on our business reputation and on positive recommendations from our existing customers. Any failure to maintain high-quality product support, or a market perception that we do not maintain high-quality product support, could adversely affect our reputation, our ability to sell our solutions to existing and prospective customers, our business, operating results, and financial position.

If the market for SaaS solutions develops more slowly than we expect or declines, our business would be adversely affected.

The market for SaaS solutions is less mature than the market for on-premise software applications, and the adoption rate of SaaS solutions may be slower at companies in industries with heightened data security interests or business practices requiring highly customizable application software. Many organizations have invested substantial personnel and financial resources to integrate traditional on-premise solutions into their businesses, and therefore may be reluctant or unwilling to purchase SaaS solutions. In addition, some organizations have been reluctant to use cloud-based solutions because they have concerns regarding the risks associated with the reliability or security of the technology delivery model associated with these solutions. Because our solutions involve the aggregation, storage and use of confidential information and related data, including highly confidential financial data, some customers may be reluctant or unwilling to migrate to our cloud-based solutions.

It is difficult to predict customer adoption rates and demand for our software solutions, the future growth rate and size of the market or the entry of competitive products or services. The expansion of the SaaS solutions market depends on a number of factors, including the cost, performance and perceived value associated with SaaS, as well as the ability of SaaS providers to address data security and privacy concerns. Government agencies have adopted, or may adopt, laws and regulations regarding the collection and use of personal information obtained from consumers and other individuals, or may seek to access information on our platform, either of which may reduce the overall demand for our platform. If we or other SaaS providers experience data security incidents, loss of customer data, disruptions in delivery, or other problems, the market for SaaS solutions, including our platform, may be negatively affected. If SaaS solutions do not continue to achieve market acceptance, or there is a reduction in demand for SaaS solutions caused by a lack of customer acceptance, technological challenges, data security or privacy concerns, governmental regulation, competing technologies and products, or decreases in information technology spending, it would result in decreased revenue and our business would be adversely affected.

 

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Unfavorable conditions in our industry or the global economy could limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our operating results.

Our operating results may vary based on the impact of changes in our industry or the global economy on us or our customers. The revenue growth and potential profitability of our business depend on demand for business software applications and services generally and for accounting and finance systems in particular. Weak economic conditions affect the rate of accounting and finance and information technology spending and could adversely affect our customers’ or potential customers’ ability or willingness to purchase our cloud platform, delay purchasing decisions, reduce the value or duration of their subscription contracts, or affect attrition rates, all of which could adversely affect our operating results. If economic conditions deteriorate, our customers and prospective customers may elect to decrease their accounting and finance and information technology budgets, which would limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our operating results.

Changes in laws and regulations related to the internet and cloud computing or changes to internet infrastructure may diminish the demand for our solutions and could have a negative impact on our business.

The future success of our business depends upon the continued use of the internet as a primary medium for commerce, communication and business applications. Federal, state or foreign government bodies or agencies have in the past adopted, and may in the future adopt, laws or regulations affecting the use of the internet as a commercial medium. Regulators in some industries have also adopted, and may in the future adopt, regulations or interpretive positions regarding the use of SaaS and cloud computing solutions. For example, some financial services regulators have imposed guidelines for the use of cloud computing services that mandate specific controls or require financial services enterprises to obtain regulatory approval prior to utilizing such software. Changes in these laws or regulations could require us to modify our solutions in order to comply with these changes. In addition, government agencies or private organizations have imposed and may impose additional taxes, fees or other charges for accessing the internet or commerce conducted via the internet. These laws or charges could limit the growth of internet-related commerce or communications generally, or result in reductions in the demand for internet-based solutions and services such as ours. In addition, the use of the internet as a business tool could be adversely affected due to delays in the development or adoption of new standards and protocols to handle increased demands of internet activity, security, reliability, cost, ease-of-use, accessibility, and quality of service. The performance of the internet and its acceptance as a business tool has been adversely affected by “viruses,” “worms” and similar malicious programs and the internet has experienced a variety of outages and other delays as a result of damage to portions of its infrastructure. If the use of the internet is adversely affected by these issues, demand for our solutions could decline.

We provide service level commitments under our customer contracts, and if we fail to meet these contractual commitments, our revenues could be adversely affected.

Our customer agreements typically provide service level commitments. If we are unable to meet the stated service level commitments or suffer extended periods of unavailability for our applications, we may be contractually obligated to provide these customers with service credits, refunds for prepaid amounts related to unused subscription services, or we could face contract terminations. Our revenues could be significantly affected if we suffer unscheduled downtime that exceeds the allowed downtimes under our agreements with our customers. Any extended service outages could adversely affect our reputation, revenues and operating results.

 

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Seasonality could cause our operating results and financial metrics to fluctuate from quarter to quarter and make them more difficult to predict.

We typically add fewer customers in the first quarter of the year than other quarters. We also experience a higher volume of sales at the end of each quarter and year, which is often the result of buying decisions by our customers. Seasonality may be reflected to a much lesser extent, and sometimes may not be immediately apparent, in our revenue, due to the fact that we recognize subscription revenue over the term of our agreements. We may also increase expenses in a period in anticipation of future revenues. Changes in the number of customers and users in different periods will cause fluctuations in our financial metrics and, to a lesser extent, revenues. Those changes and fluctuations in our expenses will affect our results on a quarterly basis and will make forecasting our future operating results and financial metrics difficult.

Our international operations subject us to potentially adverse tax consequences.

We report our taxable income in various jurisdictions worldwide based upon our business operations in those jurisdictions. Our intercompany relationships are subject to complex transfer pricing regulations administered by taxing authorities in various jurisdictions. The relevant taxing authorities may disagree with our determinations as to the value of assets sold or acquired or income and expenses attributable to specific jurisdictions. If such a disagreement were to occur, and our position were not sustained, we could be required to pay additional taxes, interest and penalties, which could result in one-time tax charges, higher effective tax rates, reduced cash flows, and lower overall profitability of our operations. We believe that our financial statements reflect adequate reserves to cover such a contingency, but there can be no assurances in that regard.

The enactment of legislation implementing changes in the U.S. taxation of international business activities or the adoption of other tax reform policies could materially impact our financial position and results of operations.

Recent changes to U.S. tax laws, including limitations on the ability of taxpayers to claim and utilize foreign tax credits, as well as changes to U.S. tax laws that may be enacted in the future, could impact the tax treatment of our foreign earnings. Due to expansion of our international business activities, any changes in the U.S. taxation of such activities may increase our worldwide effective tax rate and adversely affect our financial position and results of operations.

Our ability to use our net operating losses to offset future taxable income may be subject to limitations.

As of December 31, 2016, we had federal and state net operating loss carryforwards, or NOLs, of $94.7 million and $90.9 million, respectively. In general, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its NOLs to offset future taxable income. Our existing NOLs may be subject to limitations arising from previous ownership changes, and if we undergo an ownership change in connection with or after this offering, our ability to utilize NOLs could be further limited by Section 382 of the Code. Future changes in our stock ownership, some of which are outside of our control, could result in an ownership change under Section 382 of the Code. Furthermore, our ability to utilize NOLs of companies that we may acquire in the future may be subject to limitations. There is also a risk that due to regulatory changes, such as suspensions on the use of NOLs, or other unforeseen reasons, our existing NOLs could expire or otherwise be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities. For these reasons, we may not be able to realize a tax benefit from the use of our NOLs, whether or not we attain profitability.

 

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Taxing authorities may successfully assert that we should have collected, or in the future should collect, sales and use, value-added or similar taxes, and we could be subject to liability with respect to past or future sales, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

Sales and use, value-added and similar tax laws and rates vary greatly by jurisdiction and are subject to change from time to time. Some jurisdictions in which we do not collect such taxes may assert that such taxes are applicable, which could result in tax assessments, penalties and interest, and we may be required to collect such taxes in the future. Such tax assessments, penalties and interest or future requirements may adversely affect our results of operations.

The estimates of market opportunity and forecasts of market growth included in this prospectus may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the market in which we compete achieves the forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow at similar rates, if at all.

Market opportunity estimates and growth forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate. The estimates and forecasts in this prospectus relating to the size and expected growth of the market for a comprehensive platform to automate accounting and finance processes and integrate ERPs may prove to be inaccurate. Even if the market in which we compete meets the size estimates and growth forecasted in this prospectus, our business could fail to grow at similar rates, if at all.

We might require additional capital to support business growth, and this capital might not be available on acceptable terms, if at all.

We intend to continue to make investments to support our business growth and may require additional funds to respond to business challenges, including the need to develop new features or enhance our existing solutions, improve our operating infrastructure or acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, we may need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds. 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 common stock. Any debt financing secured by us in the future could involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. In addition, we may not be able to obtain additional financing on terms favorable to us, or at all. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us, when we require it, our ability to continue to support our business growth and to respond to business challenges could be significantly impaired.

Natural disasters and other events beyond our control could harm our business.

Natural disasters or other catastrophic events may cause damage or disruption to our operations, international commerce and the global economy, and thus could have a strong negative effect on us. Our business operations are subject to interruption by natural disasters, fire, power shortages, pandemics, and other events beyond our control. Although we maintain crisis management and disaster response plans, such events could make it difficult or impossible for us to deliver our solutions to our customers, and could decrease demand for our solutions. The majority of our research and development activities, corporate headquarters, information technology systems, and other critical business operations are located in California, which has experienced major earthquakes in the past. Significant recovery time could be required to resume operations and our financial condition and operating results could be harmed in the event of a major earthquake or catastrophic event.

 

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If our goodwill or intangible assets become impaired, we may be required to record a significant charge to earnings.

We review our goodwill and intangible assets for impairment when events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value may not be recoverable. Goodwill is required to be tested for impairment at least annually. As of March 31, 2017, we had goodwill and intangible assets with a net book value of $236 million related to the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition. An adverse change in market conditions, particularly if such change has the effect of changing one of our critical assumptions or estimates, could result in a change to the estimation of fair value that could result in an impairment charge to our goodwill or intangible assets. Any such charges may have a material negative impact on our operating results.

Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock and this Offering

The market price of our common stock may be volatile, and you could lose all or part of your investment.

The market price of our common stock since our initial public offering has been and may continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control and may not be related to our operating performance. Factors that could cause fluctuations in the market price of our common stock include the following:

 

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actual or anticipated fluctuations in our operating results;

 

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the financial projections we may provide to the public, any changes in these projections or our failure to meet these projections;

 

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failure of securities analysts to initiate or maintain coverage of our company, changes in financial estimates by any securities analysts who follow our company or our failure to meet these estimates or the expectations of investors;

 

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ratings changes by any securities analysts who follow our company;

 

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announcements by us or our competitors of significant technical innovations, acquisitions, strategic relationships, joint ventures, or capital commitments;

 

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changes in operating performance and stock market valuations of other technology companies generally, or those in our industry in particular;

 

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price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market from time to time, including as a result of trends in the economy as a whole;

 

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changes in accounting standards, policies, guidelines, interpretations, or principles;

 

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actual or anticipated developments in our business or our competitors’ businesses or the competitive landscape generally;

 

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developments or disputes concerning our intellectual property, or our products or third-party proprietary rights;

 

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announced or completed acquisitions of businesses or technologies by us or our competitors;

 

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new laws or regulations, or new interpretations of existing laws or regulations applicable to our business;

 

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any major change in our board of directors or management;

 

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sales of shares of our common stock by us or our stockholders;

 

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lawsuits threatened or filed against us; and

 

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other events or factors, including those resulting from war, incidents of terrorism, or responses to these events.

 

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In addition, the stock markets, and in particular the market on which our common stock is listed, have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many technology companies. Stock prices of many technology companies have fluctuated in a manner unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In the past, stockholders have instituted securities class action litigation following periods of market volatility. If we were to become involved in securities litigation, it could subject us to substantial costs, divert resources and the attention of management from operating our business, and adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and cash flows.

The Company is controlled by certain of our Principal Stockholders, whose interests may differ from those of other stockholders.

Immediately following this offering, our Principal Stockholders will beneficially own, in the aggregate, approximately     % of our outstanding common stock and directors affiliated with our Principal Stockholders will comprise a majority of our board of directors. Further, we have entered into a Stockholders’ Agreement with the Principal Stockholders, which provides that the Principal Stockholders are entitled to designate members of our board of directors as described in “Management—Board Composition.” We anticipate that the parties to the Stockholders’ Agreement will agree to vote for these nominees as well as other directors recommended by our nominating and corporate governance committee.

Under the Stockholders’ Agreement and subject to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws and applicable law, for so long as the Principal Stockholders collectively own or hold of record, directly or indirectly, in the aggregate at least 40% of their collective “Post-IPO Shares” (as defined in the Stockholders’ Agreement), as adjusted for any reorganization, recapitalization, stock dividend, stock split, reverse stock split, or similar changes in our capitalization, the following actions will require the approval of our board of directors, including the affirmative vote of at least two directors designated by Silver Lake Sumeru:

 

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any voluntary liquidation, winding up or dissolution or any action relating to a voluntary bankruptcy, reorganization or recapitalization of the company or its subsidiaries;

 

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certain dispositions of assets in excess of $50 million or entry into joint ventures requiring a capital contribution in excess of $50 million, in each case, by the company or its subsidiaries;

 

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fundamental changes in the nature of the company’s or its subsidiaries’ existing lines of business or the entry into a new significant line of business;

 

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any amendments to the company’s amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws;

 

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incurrence of indebtedness in excess of $150 million;

 

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appointment or termination of the Chief Executive Officer; and

 

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change of control transactions.

See “Certain Relationships and Related Party Transactions”.

Following our initial public offering, the Principal Stockholders are able to determine the outcome of all matters requiring stockholder approval, including mergers and other material transactions, and will be able to cause or prevent a change in the composition of our board of directors or a change in control of our company that could deprive our stockholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their common stock as part of a sale of our company and might ultimately affect the market price of our common stock.

 

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Further, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that, to the fullest extent permitted by law, the doctrine of “corporate opportunity” will not apply to Silver Lake Sumeru, Iconiq, their respective affiliates, or the directors they designate, pursuant to their rights under the Stockholders’ Agreement in a manner that would prohibit them from investing in competing businesses or doing business with our partners or customers. Accordingly, these directors will have the rights to pursue business opportunities that may be of interest to the company and which they would otherwise need to provide to the company. See “Description Capital Stock—Anti-Takeover Effects of Delaware Law and Our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws”.

Although we do not expect to rely on the “controlled company” exemption, we are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the stock exchange rules and we qualify for exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements.

Because our Principal Stockholders collectively own a majority of our outstanding common stock, we are considered a “controlled company” as that term is set forth in the stock exchange rules. Under these rules, a company of which more than 50% of the voting power is held by another person or group of persons acting together is a “controlled company” and may elect not to comply with certain stock exchange rules regarding corporate governance, including:

 

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the requirement that a majority of its board of directors consist of independent directors;

 

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the requirement that its nominating and corporate governance committee be composed entirely of independent directors with a written charter addressing the committee’s purpose and responsibilities; and

 

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the requirement that its compensation committee be composed entirely of independent directors with a written charter addressing the committee’s purpose and responsibilities.

These requirements will not apply to us as long as we remain a “controlled company.” Although we qualify as a “controlled company,” we do not expect to rely on this exemption and intend to fully comply with all corporate governance requirements under the stock exchange rules. However, if we were to utilize some or all of these exemptions, you may not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to all of the stock exchange rules regarding corporate governance.

Substantial future sales of shares of our common stock could cause the market price of our common stock to decline.

The market price of our common stock could decline as a result of substantial sales of our common stock, particularly sales by our directors, executive officers and significant stockholders, a large number of shares of our common stock becoming available for sale or the perception in the market that holders of a large number of shares intend to sell their shares. In connection with this offering, we and our directors, executive officers, Principal Stockholders and the selling stockholders have entered into lock-up agreements with the underwriters restricting sales of our common stock for 90 days after the date of this prospectus. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, however, on behalf of the underwriters, may permit us, our directors, executive officers, Principal Stockholders and the selling stockholders who are subject to these lock-up agreements to sell shares prior to the end of the lock-up period.

Following the expiration of the lock-up agreements referred to above, certain stockholders can require us to register shares of our capital stock owned by them for public sale in the United States. In addition, we filed a registration statement to register shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance under our equity incentive plans. As a result, subject to the satisfaction of applicable exercise

 

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periods, the shares of our common stock issued upon exercise of outstanding options to purchase shares of our common stock will be available for immediate resale in the United States in the open market.

Sales of our common stock as restrictions end or pursuant to registration rights may make it more difficult for us to sell equity securities in the future at a time and at a price that we deem appropriate. These sales also could cause the market price of our common stock to decline and make it more difficult for you to sell shares of our common stock.

Provisions of our corporate governance documents could make an acquisition of the company more difficult and may impede attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management, even if beneficial to our stockholders.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws and the Delaware General Corporation Law, or DGCL, contain provisions that could make it more difficult for a third-party to acquire us, even if doing so might be beneficial to our stockholders. Among other things:

 

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we have authorized but unissued shares of undesignated preferred stock, the terms of which may be established and the shares of which may be issued without stockholder approval, and which may include supermajority voting, special approval, dividend, or other rights or preferences superior to the rights of stockholders;

 

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we have a classified board of directors with staggered three-year terms;

 

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stockholder action by written consent will be prohibited from and, after the date on which the Principal Stockholders beneficially own, in the aggregate, less than 35% in voting power of our stock, entitled to vote generally in the election of directors;

 

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for as long as the Principal Stockholders beneficially own, in the aggregate, at least 40% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, any amendment, alteration, rescission, or repeal of our amended and restated bylaws or our amended and restated certificate of incorporation by our stockholders will require the affirmative vote of 60% of the voting power of our stock entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class and at any time when the Principal Stockholders beneficially own, in the aggregate, less than 40% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, any amendment, alteration, rescission, or repeal of our amended and restated bylaws or of certain provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation by our stockholders will require the affirmative vote of the holders of at least 75% of the voting power of our stock entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class outstanding; and

 

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stockholders are required to comply with advance notice requirements for nominations for elections to our board of directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders at stockholder meetings; provided, however, that such advance notice procedures will not apply to the Principal Stockholders at any time such person or entity owns in the aggregate at least 10% of the voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors.

Further, as a Delaware corporation, we are also subject to provisions of Delaware law, which may impair a takeover attempt that our stockholders may find beneficial. These anti-takeover provisions and other provisions under Delaware law could discourage, delay or prevent a transaction involving a change in control of the company, including actions that our stockholders may deem advantageous, or negatively affect the trading price of our common stock. These provisions could also discourage proxy contests and make it more difficult for you and other stockholders to elect directors of your choosing and to cause us to take other corporate actions you desire. See “Description of Capital Stock”.

 

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We are an “emerging growth company” and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our common stock less attractive to investors.

We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the federal securities laws, and we have taken advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not “emerging growth companies” including, but not limited to, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. We cannot predict if investors will find our common stock less attractive because we have relied on these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may be more volatile. We will remain an “emerging growth company” until the last day of the fiscal year following the five-year anniversary of the completion of our initial public offering, although if the market value of our common stock that is held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million as of the end of the second quarter of a fiscal year prior to the five-year anniversary, we would cease to be an “emerging growth company” as of the following December 31.

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 Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the listing requirements of the exchanges and other markets upon which our common stock is listed, and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations will increase our legal and financial compliance costs, make some activities more difficult, time-consuming, or costly, and increase demand on our systems and resources, particularly after 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 operating results. 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. We will be required to disclose changes made in our internal control and procedures on a quarterly basis and we will be required to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting for the fiscal year 2017. However, our independent registered public accounting firm will not be required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404 until the later of the year following our first annual report required to be filed with the SEC, or the date we are no longer an “emerging growth company.” As a result of the complexity involved in complying with the rules and regulations applicable to public companies, our management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could adversely affect our business and operating results. Although we have already hired additional employees to assist us in complying with these requirements, we may need to hire more employees in the future or engage outside consultants, which will increase our operating 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

 

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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 substantial 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 business operations to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to their application and practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be adversely affected.

We also expect that being a public company and these new rules and regulations will make it more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified members of our board of directors, particularly to serve on our audit committee and compensation committee, and qualified executive officers.

As a result of disclosure of information in this prospectus and in the filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition will become more visible, which we believe may result in threatened or actual litigation, including by competitors and other third parties. If such claims are successful, our business and operating results could be 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 adversely affect our business and operating results.

We do not intend to pay dividends on our common stock, so any returns will be limited to changes in the value of our common stock.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock. We currently anticipate that we will retain future earnings for the development, operation and expansion of our business and do not anticipate declaring or paying any cash dividends for the foreseeable future. Any return to stockholders will therefore be limited to the increase, if any, of our stock price, which may never occur.

If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our common stock will depend in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. If few securities analysts commence coverage of us, or if industry analysts cease coverage of us, the trading price for our common stock would be negatively affected. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our common stock or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our common stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of us or fail to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our common stock could decrease, which might cause our common stock price and trading volume to decline.

Our amended and restated bylaws designate a state or federal court located within the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for certain litigation that may be initiated by our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us.

Pursuant to our amended and restated bylaws, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the sole and exclusive forum for (1) any derivative action or proceeding brought on

 

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our behalf, (2) any action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our directors, officers or other employees to us or our stockholders, (3) any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL, or (4) any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine shall be a state or federal court located within the State of Delaware, in all cases subject to the court’s having personal jurisdiction over indispensable parties named as defendants. Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in shares of our capital stock shall be deemed to have notice of and consented to this provision. The forum selection clause in our amended and restated bylaws may have the effect of discouraging lawsuits against us or our directors and officers and may limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us.

 

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SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This prospectus contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, which statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or our future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “could,” “intends,” “target,” “projects,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential” or “continue” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern our expectations, strategy, plans or intentions. Forward-looking statements contained in this prospectus include, but are not limited to, statements about:

 

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our ability to attract new customers and expand sales to existing customers;

 

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the retention of our customers;

 

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our ability to manage growth effectively;

 

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our future financial performance and ability to achieve and maintain profitability;

 

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our ability to provide successful enhancements, new features and modifications to our solutions;

 

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the success of a limited number of solutions for which we derive substantially all of our revenues;

 

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our relationships with technology vendors, professional services firms and business process outsourcers;

 

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breaches or unauthorized access to customer data;

 

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interruptions or performance problems associated with our solutions, platform and technology; and

 

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our ability to prevent serious errors or defects in our products.

We caution you that the foregoing list may not contain all of the forward-looking statements made in this prospectus.

You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. We have based the forward-looking statements contained in this prospectus primarily on our current expectations and projections about future events and trends that we believe may affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. The outcome of the events described in these forward-looking statements is subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors described in the section titled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this prospectus. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time and it is not possible for us to predict all risks and uncertainties that could have an impact on the forward-looking statements contained in this prospectus. We cannot assure you that the results, events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or occur, and actual results, events or circumstances could differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking statements made in this prospectus relate only to events as of the date on which the statements are made. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made in this prospectus to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this prospectus or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking statements do not reflect the potential impact of any future acquisitions, mergers, dispositions, joint ventures or investments we may make.

 

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INDUSTRY AND MARKET DATA

Unless otherwise indicated, information contained in this prospectus concerning our industry and the markets in which we operate, market opportunity and market size, is based on information from various sources, including reports we commissioned with Frost & Sullivan and an independent industry publication by Gartner Inc., or Gartner.

The Gartner Report(s) described herein, (the “Gartner Report(s)”) represent(s) research opinion or viewpoints published, as part of a syndicated subscription service, by Gartner, Inc. (“Gartner”), and are not representations of fact. Each Gartner Report speaks as of its original publication date (and not as of the date of this Prospectus) and the opinions expressed in the Gartner Report(s) are subject to change without notice. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

In certain instances where the Gartner Report is identified as the source of market and industry data contained in this prospectus, the applicable report is identified by superscript notations. The source of this data is provided below:

 

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Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Financial Corporate Performance Management Solutions, May 31, 2016, or the Gartner Report.

In presenting this information, we have also made assumptions based on such data and other similar sources and on our knowledge of the markets for our solutions. While we are not aware of any misstatements regarding any third-party information presented in this prospectus, estimates of third parties, particularly as they relate to projections, involve numerous assumptions, are subject to risks and uncertainties, and are subject to change based on various factors, including those described in the section titled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this prospectus. These and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates made by the third parties and by us.

 

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USE OF PROCEEDS

We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of common stock by the selling stockholders.

MARKET PRICE OF COMMON STOCK

Our common stock has been traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “BL” since October 28, 2016. Prior to that time, there was no public market for our common stock. The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the high and low intraday sales prices for our common stock as reported on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.

 

		High				Low
Year Ended December 31, 2016:
Fourth Quarter 2016 (from October 28, 2016)		$	28.77			$	21.66
Year Ended December 31, 2017:
First Quarter 2017		$	31.40			$	25.95
Second Quarter 2017 (through May 11, 2017)		$	33.71			$	28.97

On May 11, 2017, the last reported sales price on the NASDAQ Global Select Market for our common stock was $31.87 per share.

Holders of Record

As of March 31, 2017, there were 126 shareholders of record. The number of record holders does not include beneficial holders who hold their shares in “street name,” meaning that the shares are held for their accounts by a broker or other nominee. Accordingly, we believe that the total number of beneficial holders is higher than the number of our shareholders of record.

 

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DIVIDEND POLICY

We have never declared or paid, any cash dividends on our common stock. We currently intend to retain all of our future earnings, if any, to finance our operations and do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. Any future determination as to the declaration and payment of dividends will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend on then-existing conditions, including our financial condition, operating results, contractual restrictions, capital requirements, business prospects, and other factors our board of directors may deem relevant.

 

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SELECTED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL DATA

The following tables summarize our consolidated financial data. You should read this selected consolidated financial data together with our “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus.

On September 3, 2013, we acquired BlackLine Systems, Inc., which we refer to as the “2013 Acquisition”. Prior to the 2013 Acquisition, we had no significant operations. As a result, the consolidated financial statements for the periods from January 1, 2013 to September 2, 2013 are presented as BlackLine Systems, Inc., which we refer to as the Predecessor, and all subsequent periods are presented as BlackLine, Inc., which we refer to as the “Successor”. The Successor financial statements reflect a new basis of accounting as a result of the 2013 Acquisition and therefore are not comparable to the Predecessor financial statements. We refer to the period from January 1, 2013 to September 2, 2013 as the 2013 Predecessor Period and the period from September 3, 2013 to December 31, 2013 as the 2013 Successor Period.

The consolidated statement of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 and the consolidated balance sheet data at December 31, 2016 and 2015 are derived from, and qualified by reference to, our audited financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. The consolidated statements of operations data for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of March 31, 2017 are derived from the unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. The consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2014 is derived from our audited financial statements not included in this prospectus. The consolidated statements of operations data for the 2013 Successor period and the consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2013 are derived from the consolidated financial statements of the Successor not included in this prospectus. The consolidated statements of operations data for the 2013 Predecessor periods are derived from the audited financial statements of the Predecessor not included in this prospectus. Our unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements have been prepared on the same basis as our audited consolidated financial statements and, in the opinion of management, reflect all adjustments, which consist only of normal recurring adjustments, necessary for the fair statement of those unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected in the future.

 

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Consolidated Statements of Operations Data:

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,								Year Ended December 31,												2013 Successor Period								2013 Predecessor Period
		2017				2016				2016(1)				2015				2014
		(in thousands, except per share data)
Revenues
Subscription and support		$	37,051			$	25,328			$	117,524			$	80,080			$	49,029			$	7,723							$	21,977
Professional services			1,583				1,233				5,599				3,527				2,648				860								1,407
Total revenues			38,634				26,561				123,123				83,607				51,677				8,583								23,384
Cost of revenues
Subscription and support			7,777				5,961				25,900				19,773				14,380				4,346								4,442
Professional services			1,455				979				4,311				2,956				2,218				499								1,145
Total cost of revenues(2)(3)			9,232				6,940				30,211				22,729				16,598				4,845								5,587
Gross profit			29,402				19,621				92,912				60,878				35,079				3,738								17,797
Operating expenses
Sales and marketing(2)(3)			23,496				18,169				77,810				56,546				31,837				6,895								10,453
Research and development(2)			5,948				5,272				21,125				18,216				9,705				2,225								4,738
General and administrative(2)(3)(4)(5)			8,253				5,979				27,911				20,928				11,716				4,461								12,564
Total operating expenses			37,697				29,420				126,846				95,690				53,258				13,581								27,755
Loss from operations			(8,295	)			(9,799	)			(33,934	)			(34,812	)			(18,179	)			(9,843	)							(9,958	)
Other expense
Interest income (expense), net			220				(861	)			(5,932	)			(3,215	)			(3,047	)			(781	)							(22	)
Change in fair value of the common stock warrant liability			(1,000	)			—				(5,880	)			(420	)			(3,700	)			—								—
Other expense, net			(780	)			(861	)			(11,812	)			(3,635	)			(6,747	)			(781	)							(22	)
Loss before income taxes			(9,075	)			(10,660	)			(45,746	)			(38,447	)			(24,926	)			(10,624	)							(9,980	)
Benefit from income taxes			(65	)			(1,325	)			(6,587	)			(13,713	)			(8,174	)			(3,954	)							21
Net loss		$	(9,010	)		$	(9,335	)		$	(39,159	)		$	(24,734	)		$	(16,752	)		$	(6,670	)						$	(10,001	)
Net loss per share, basic and diluted		$	(0.18	)		$	(0.23	)		$	(0.92	)		$	(0.61	)		$	(0.42	)		$	(0.17	)						$	(0.12	)
Weighted average common shares outstanding, basic and diluted			51,282				40,689				42,497				40,579				40,089				40,019								82,250

 

(1)

On August 31, 2016, we completed the Runbook Acquisition. The Runbook Acquisition has been accounted for as a business combination. The results of Runbook have been included in our consolidated results of operations for the period subsequent to the acquisition date. See Note 4 of notes to our consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus.

(2)	The following table presents stock-based compensation included in each respective expense category:

 

		Three Months Ended March  31,								Year Ended December 31,												2013 Successor Period								2013 Predecessor Period
		2017				2016				2016				2015				2014
		(in thousands)
Cost of revenues		$	250			$	141			$	715			$	466			$	249			$	—							$	86
Sales and marketing			660				672				2,490				2,418				1,059				—								124
Research and development			83				161				809				588				229				—								330
General and administrative			856				651				2,512				2,025				480				—								360
		$	1,849			$	1,625			$	6,526			$	5,497			$	2,017			$	—							$	900

 

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(3)	The following table presents the amortization of intangible assets included in each respective expense category:

 

		Three Months Ended March  31,								Year Ended December 31,												2013 Successor Period								2013 Predecessor Period
		2017				2016				2016				2015				2014
		(in thousands)
Cost of revenues		$	1,704			$	1,534			$	6,368			$	6,139			$	6,139			$	2,048							$	—
Sales and marketing			965				872				3,605				3,487				3,487				1,162								—
General and administrative			661				617				2,532				2,466				2,466				821								—
		$	3,330			$	3,023			$	12,505			$	12,092			$	12,092			$	4,031							$	—

 

(4)

General and administrative expenses include increases in fair value of contingent consideration of $0.1 million, $0.1 million, $0.4 million, and $41,000 for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016 and the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, and a decrease in fair value of contingent consideration of $0.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2014.

(5)	General and administrative expenses include acquisition-related costs totaling $1.6 million, $1.6 million and $5.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2016, the 2013 Successor Period and the 2013 Predecessor Period, respectively.

Consolidated Balance Sheet Data:

 

		As of March 31,								As of December 31,
		2017				2016				2016				2015				2014				2013
		(in thousands)
Cash and cash equivalents		$	23,448			$	13,464			$	22,118			$	15,205			$	25,707			$	14,855
Marketable securities			77,868				—				83,130				—				—				—
Total assets			416,235				285,171				420,437				286,750				285,550				275,025
Deferred revenue			88,347				56,550				80,360				52,750				34,574				17,328
Deferred revenue, noncurrent			2,400				—				2,373				—				—				—
Capital lease obligations, net of current portion			—				434				—				558				—				—
Long-term debt			—				33,668				—				28,267				25,673				23,132
Total stockholders’ equity			284,346				158,615				291,410				166,168				183,947				193,852

Key Metrics

We regularly review a number of metrics, including the following key metrics, to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate financial projections, and make strategic decisions. Each of the metrics below excludes the impact of the Runbook Acquisition.

 

		Three Months Ended March 31								Year Ended December 31,
		2017				2016				2016				2015				2014				2013
Dollar-based net revenue retention rate			117	%			120	%			116	%			120	%			118	%			120	%
Number of customers (as of end of period)			1,850				1,411				1,758				1,338				987				738
Number of users (as of end of period)			171,423				137,341				166,903				128,726				93,665				67,387

Dollar-based net revenue retention rate.    We believe that dollar-based net revenue retention rate is an important metric to measure the long-term value of customer agreements and our ability to retain and grow our relationships with existing customers over time. We calculate dollar-based net revenue retention rate as the implied monthly subscription and support revenue at the end of a period

 

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for the base set of customers from which we generated subscription revenue in the year prior to the calculation, divided by the implied monthly subscription and support revenue one year prior to the date of calculation for that same customer base. This calculation does not reflect implied monthly subscription and support revenue for new customers added during the one-year period but does include the effect of customers who terminated during the period. We define implied monthly subscription and support revenue as the total amount of minimum subscription and support revenue contractually committed to, under each of our customer agreements over the entire term of the agreement, divided by the number of months in the term of the agreement.

Number of customers.    We believe that our ability to expand our customer base is an indicator of our market penetration and the growth of our business. We define a customer as an entity with an active subscription agreement as of the measurement date. In situations where an organization has multiple subsidiaries or divisions, each entity that is invoiced as a separate entity is treated as a separate customer. However, where an existing customer requests its invoice be divided for the sole purpose of restructuring its internal billing arrangement without any incremental increase in revenue, such customer continues to be treated as a single customer. For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, the 2013 Successor Period, the 2013 Predecessor Period and the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, no single customer accounted for more than 10% of our total revenues.

Number of users.    Since our customers generally pay fees based on the number of users of our platform within their organization, we believe the total number of users is an indicator of the growth of our business. We are also beginning to sell an increasing number of non-user based strategic products.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to our results determined in accordance with GAAP, we believe the non-GAAP measures below are useful to us and our investors in evaluating our business. These non-GAAP financial measures are useful because they provide consistency and comparability with our past performance, facilitate period-to-period comparisons of operations, and facilitate comparisons with other peer companies, many of which use similar non-GAAP financial measures to supplement their GAAP results.

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,								Year Ended December 31,
		2017				2016				2016				2015				2014				2013
										(in thousands, except percentages)
Non-GAAP Revenues		$	38,634			$	26,561			$	123,839			$	83,607			$	56,629			$	38,012
Non-GAAP Gross Profit		$	31,356			$	21,296			$	100,711			$	67,483			$	46,419			$	29,714
Non-GAAP Gross Margin			81.2	%			80.2	%			81.3	%			80.7	%			82.0	%			78.2	%
Non-GAAP Net Loss		$	(2,900	)		$	(5,893	)		$	(16,478	)		$	(20,114	)		$	(2,550	)		$	(1,604	)

Non-GAAP Revenues.    Non-GAAP revenues are defined as GAAP revenues adjusted for the impact of purchase accounting resulting from the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition. Upon the completion of the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, deferred revenue was recorded at fair value, resulting in a reduction from its then carrying value. The reduction associated with the 2013 Acquisition resulted in reduced revenue for the year ended December 31, 2014 and the 2013 Successor Period, and the reduction associated with the Runbook Acquisition resulted in reduced revenue for the year ended December 31, 2016. Our non-GAAP revenues for the year ended December 31, 2013 combines the GAAP revenues for the 2013 Predecessor Period and the 2013 Successor Period adjusted for the purchase accounting adjustment. The impact of purchase accounting related to the Runbook Acquisition reduced recorded GAAP revenues during the quarters ended September 30, 2016 and December 31, 2016, but did not impact GAAP revenues for the three

 

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months ended March 31, 2016. The purchase accounting adjustment related to the Runbook Acquisition for the quarter ended March 31, 2017 was not meaningful and was thus not presented. We believe that presenting non-GAAP revenues is useful to investors as it eliminates the impact of the purchase accounting adjustment to revenues to allow for a direct comparison of revenues between periods.

Non-GAAP Gross Profit and Non-GAAP Gross Margin.    Non-GAAP gross profit is defined as non-GAAP revenues less GAAP cost of revenue adjusted for the impact of purchase accounting resulting from the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, the amortization of acquired developed technology resulting from the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, and stock-based compensation. Non-GAAP gross margin is defined as non-GAAP gross profit divided by non-GAAP revenues. Our non-GAAP Gross Profit and non-GAAP Gross Margin for the year ended December 31, 2013 combines the GAAP Gross Profit and GAAP Gross Margin for the 2013 Predecessor Period and the 2013 Successor Period adjusted for these adjustments. We believe that presenting non-GAAP gross margin is useful to investors as it eliminates the impact of certain non-cash expenses and allows a direct comparison of gross margin between periods.

Non-GAAP Net Loss.    Non-GAAP net loss is defined as GAAP net loss adjusted for the impact of the benefit from income taxes that we were able to recognize as a result of the deferred tax liabilities associated with the intangible assets established upon the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, the impact of purchase accounting to revenues resulting from the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, amortization of acquired intangible assets resulting from the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, stock-based compensation, accretion and write-off of debt discount pertaining to our credit facility, accretion and write-off of warrant discount relating to warrants issued in connection with our credit facility, the change in the fair value of contingent consideration, the change in fair value of the common stock warrant liability, acquisition-related costs for the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, and one-time cash payments to stock option holders in connection with the 2013 Acquisition. Our non-GAAP Net Loss for the year ended December 31, 2013 combines the GAAP Net Loss for the 2013 Predecessor Period and the 2013 Successor Period adjusted for these adjustments. We believe that presenting non-GAAP net loss is useful to investors as it eliminates the impact of items that have been impacted by the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, purchase accounting and other related costs in order to allow a direct comparison of net loss between current and future periods.

The benefit from income taxes excluded from our GAAP net loss represents income tax benefits that we were able to recognize as a result of the deferred tax liabilities associated with the intangible assets established upon the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition. We believe that the realization of the deferred tax assets is not more likely than not. Accordingly, we have established a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets. For 2016 and 2017 we will no longer be able to fully recognize a tax benefit, which will result in a lower effective income tax benefit than for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014. Accordingly, we believe that presenting non-GAAP net loss without this income tax benefit is useful to investors to enhance comparability of our results among periods. We have not excluded income tax expense relating to our international operations where we are not able to recognize a tax benefit from our deferred tax liabilities associated with the intangible assets established upon the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition as we expect that this will continue to be reflected in our future statements of operations.

The purchase accounting adjustment to revenue resulting from the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition impacted the 2013 and 2014 periods and the 2016 period, respectively, and the purchase accounting adjustment to revenue resulting from the Runbook Acquisition is not expected to have a material impact our 2017 results, and, as a result, these amounts have been excluded from GAAP loss to enhance comparability to other periods presented.

 

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Amortization of intangibles includes the amortization expense associated with the developed technology, trademarks, non-compete agreements, and customer relationships that were capitalized as a result of the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition. These amortization expenses would not have been incurred absent the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition and are excluded from GAAP net loss to enhance comparability to competitors that did not undergo a similar transaction or recognize similar intangible assets.

We have excluded the effect of stock-based compensation expense in calculating our non-GAAP net loss. Although stock-based compensation is a key incentive offered to our employees and directors, we continue to evaluate our performance excluding stock-based compensation expense. We record stock-based compensation expense related to grants of options and, depending on the size, timing, and the terms of the grants, stock-based compensation expense may vary significantly.

We incurred additional indebtedness to fund the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, and this indebtedness gave rise to debt and warrant discounts that we accreted through interest expense. The accretion of debt and warrant discounts were excluded from GAAP net loss as these costs would not have been incurred without the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition. The accretion of debt discounts for financing transactions not used to fund the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition were not included in the reconciliation to non-GAAP net income (loss) as these financings were used to finance general corporate matters.

Contingent consideration represents the cash consideration required to be paid to certain equity holders if we realize a tax benefit from the net operating losses generated from stock options exercised concurrent with the 2013 Acquisition. Changes in the fair value of contingent consideration liability primarily reflects changes in the expected timing of our ability to utilize the net operating losses. This liability would not exist had the 2013 Acquisition not occurred and thus we exclude changes in the fair value of contingent consideration from our GAAP net loss.

Common stock warrants were issued in conjunction with debt used to fund the 2013 Acquisition and the value of these warrants is impacted by a number of factors not directly attributable to our financial performance, including factors affecting our stock price and the volatility of peer companies’ stock price. Accordingly, for our internal financial measures we exclude the change in the fair value of common stock warrants from our GAAP net loss.

The acquisition-related costs in 2016 and the acquisition-related costs in 2013 as well as compensation costs for payments to stock option holders were a direct result of the Runbook Acquisition and the 2013 Acquisition, respectively, and we have excluded them from GAAP net loss for each respective period to enhance comparability of our results between periods.

We believe that presenting non-GAAP net loss is useful to investors as it eliminates the impact of items that have been impacted by the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, purchase accounting and other related costs in order to allow a direct comparison of net loss between current and future periods.

Our non-GAAP financial measures have limitations as analytical tools and you should not consider them in isolation or as a substitute for an analysis of our results under GAAP. There are a number of limitations related to the use of these non-GAAP financial measures versus their nearest GAAP equivalents. First, non-GAAP revenues, non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP net loss are not substitutes for revenue, gross profit, gross margin and net loss, respectively. Second, these non-GAAP financial measures may not provide information directly comparable to measures provided by other companies in our industry, as those other companies may calculate their non-GAAP financial measures differently, particularly related to adjustments for

 

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acquisition accounting and non-recurring expenses. Third, these non-GAAP measures exclude certain recurring expenses that have been and will continue to be significant expenses of our business.

Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

The following table presents a reconciliation of revenues, gross profit, gross margin and net loss, the most comparable GAAP measures, to non-GAAP revenues, non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP net loss:

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,								Year Ended December 31,												2013 Combined				2013 Successor Period								2013 Predecessor Period
		2017				2016				2016				2015				2014
										(in thousands, except percentages)
Non-GAAP Revenues
Revenues		$	38,634			$	26,561			$	123,123			$	83,607			$	51,677			$	31,967			$	8,583							$	23,384
Purchase accounting adjustment to revenues(1)			—				—				716				—				4,952				6,045				6,045								—
Total Non-GAAP Revenues		$	38,634			$	26,561			$	123,839			$	83,607			$	56,629			$	38,012			$	14,628							$	23,384
Non-GAAP Gross Profit:
Gross profit			29,402				19,621			$	92,912			$	60,878			$	35,079			$	21,535			$	3,738							$	17,797
Purchase accounting adjustment to revenues(1)			—				—				716				—				4,952				6,045				6,045								—
Amortization of developed technology			1,704				1,534				6,368				6,139				6,139				2,048				2,048								—
Stock-based compensation expense			250				141				715				466				249				86				—								86
Total Non-GAAP Gross Profit		$	31,356			$	21,296			$	100,711			$	67,483			$	46,419			$	29,714			$	11,831							$	17,883
Gross Margin			76.1	%			73.9	%			75.5	%			72.8	%			67.9	%			67.4	%			43.6	%							76.1	%
Non-GAAP Gross Margin			81.2	%			80.2	%			81.3	%			80.7	%			82.0	%			78.2	%			80.9	%							76.5	%
Non-GAAP Net Loss:
Net Loss		$	(9,010	)		$	(9,335	)		$	(39,159	)		$	(24,734	)		$	(16,752	)		$	(16,671	)		$	(6,670	)						$	(10,001	)
Benefit from income taxes			(162	)			(1,402	)			(6,956	)			(13,934	)			(8,282	)			(3,972	)			(3,972	)							—
Purchase accounting adjustment to revenues(1)			—				—				716				—				4,952				6,045				6,045								—
Amortization of intangibles			3,330				3,023				12,505				12,092				12,092				4,031				4,031								—
Stock-based compensation expense			1,849				1,625				6,526				5,497				2,017				900				—								900
Accretion and write-off of debt discount			—				65				1,303				228				228				57				57								—
Accretion and write-off of warrant discount			—				69				754				276				276				74				74								—
Change in fair value of contingent consideration			93				62				371				41				(781	)			—				—								—
Change in fair value of the common stock warrant liability			1,000				—				5,880				420				3,700				—				—								—
Acquisition-related costs			—				—				1,582				—				—				7,220				1,634								5,586
Compensation costs for payments to stock option holders in association with the 2013 Acquisition			—				—				—				—				—				712				—								712
Total Non-GAAP Net Loss			(2,900	)			(5,893	)		$	(16,478	)		$	(20,114	)		$	(2,550	)		$	(1,604	)		$	1,199							$	(2,803	)

 

(1)	The purchase accounting adjustment for the quarter ended March 31, 2017 related to the Runbook Acquisition was not meaningful and was thus not presented. The Company is presenting non-GAAP net revenues for consistency with prior presentations.

 

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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF

FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

The following Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations should be read together with our consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes included elsewhere within this prospectus. This discussion includes both historical information and forward-looking information that involves risk, uncertainties and assumptions. Our actual results may differ materially from management’s expectations as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, those discussed in the section entitled “Risk Factors.”

Overview

We have created a comprehensive cloud-based software platform designed to transform and modernize accounting and finance operations for organizations of all types and sizes. Our secure, scalable platform supports critical accounting processes such as the financial close, account reconciliations, intercompany accounting, and controls assurance. By introducing software to automate these processes and to enable them to function continuously, we empower our customers to improve the integrity of their financial reporting, increase efficiency in their accounting and finance processes and enhance real-time visibility into their operations.

As of March 31, 2017, we had more than 1,800 customers with over 170,000 users in over 130 countries exclusive of the Runbook Acquisition. Additionally, we continue to build strategic relationships with technology vendors, professional services firms, business process outsourcers, and resellers.

We are a holding company and conduct our operations through our wholly-owned subsidiary, BlackLine Systems, Inc. BlackLine Systems, Inc. funded its business with investments from our founder and cash flows from operations until September 3, 2013, when we acquired BlackLine Systems, Inc. and Silver Lake Sumeru and Iconiq acquired a controlling interest in us, which we refer to as the “2013 Acquisition.” We refer to Silver Lake Sumeru and Iconiq collectively as our “Investors.” The 2013 Acquisition was accounted for as a business combination under GAAP and resulted in a change in accounting basis as of the date of the 2013 Acquisition.

Our platform consists of seven core cloud-based products, including Account Reconciliation, Task Management, Transaction Matching, Journal Entry, Variance Analysis, Consolidation Integrity Manager, and Daily Reconciliation. Customers typically purchase these products in packages that we refer to as solutions, but they have the option to purchase these products individually. Current solutions include Reconciliation Management and Financial Close Management, as well as, Intercompany Hub and Insights, which were introduced in November 2015.

We derived approximately 92% of our revenue from subscription and support to our cloud-based software platform, approximately 4% from our legacy on-premise software and approximately 4% from professional services for the three months ended March 31, 2017. The majority of subscriptions are sold through one-year non-cancellable contracts, with a growing percentage of subscriptions sold through three-year contracts. We price our subscriptions based on a number of factors, primarily the number of users having access to the products and the number of products purchased by the customer. Subscription revenue is recognized ratably over the term of the customer agreement. The first year of subscription fees are typically payable within 30 days after execution of a contract, and thereafter upon renewal.

Professional services consist of implementation and consulting services. Although our platform is ready to use immediately after a new customer has access to it, we typically help customers implement our solutions for a fixed fee, which is initially recorded as deferred revenue and recognized on a

 

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proportional performance basis as the services are performed. We also provide consulting services to help customers optimize the use of our products. We charge customers for our consulting services on a time-and-materials basis and we recognize that revenue as services are performed.

We typically invoice customers annually in advance for annual and multi-year subscriptions and invoice in advance or on a time-and-materials basis for professional services. We record amounts invoiced for portions of annual subscription periods that have not occurred or services that have not been performed as deferred revenue on our consolidated balance sheet.

We sell our platform primarily through our direct sales force, which leverages our relationships with technology vendors, professional services firms and business process outsourcers. In particular, we have a strategic relationship with SAP. Our solution is an SAP-endorsed business solution that integrates with SAP’s ERP solutions. Under our agreement with SAP, which we entered into in 2013, we pay SAP a fee based on a percentage of revenues from our new customers that use an SAP ERP system. We continue to pay SAP a fee for these customers over the term of their subscription agreements. For the three months ended March 31, 2017, revenues from our customers under this agreement accounted for $6.8 million, or approximately 18%, of our total revenues. For the year ended December 31, 2016, revenues from our customers under this agreement accounted for $20.7 million, or approximately 17%, of our total revenues. For the year ended December 31, 2015, revenues from our customers under this agreement accounted for $9.4 million, or approximately 11%, of our total revenues. Additionally, we are expanding our channel of resellers, particularly in markets outside of the United States.

We target our sales and marketing efforts at both enterprise and mid-market businesses. We define the enterprise market as companies with greater than $500 million in annual revenue, and we define mid-market as companies with between $50 and $500 million in annual revenue. For the three months ended March 31, 2017, sales to enterprise and mid-market customers represented 84% and 16% of our revenues, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 sales to enterprise customers represented 85% and 86%, respectively, while sales to mid-market customers represented and 15% and 14% of our revenues, respectively. Additionally, we target our efforts at both new customers and existing customers. Existing customers may renew their subscriptions and broaden the deployment of our platform across their organizations by increasing the number of users accessing our platform or by adding additional products. We have historically signed a higher percentage of agreements with new customers, as well as renewal agreements with existing customers, in the fourth quarter of each year and usually during the last month of the quarter. This can be attributed to buying patterns typical in the software industry. As the terms of most of our customer agreements are measured in full year increments, agreements initially entered into the fourth quarter or last month of any quarter will generally come up for renewal at that same time in subsequent years. This seasonality is reflected in our revenues, though the impact to overall annual or quarterly revenues is minimal due to the fact that we recognize subscription revenue ratably over the term of the customer contract.

We believe the addressable market for our platform is large and growing. According to a study we commissioned with Frost & Sullivan, in 2015, there were more than 165,000 corporate organizations worldwide that are in our addressable market with revenues greater than $50 million. As a result, we expect to continue to grow our direct sales team and to expand our relationships with technology vendors, professional services firms, business process outsourcers, and resellers. We also intend to continue to invest in research and development to extend the functionality of our platform and develop new solutions and features.

For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, we had revenues of $123.1 million, $83.6 million and $51.7 million respectively, and we incurred net losses of $39.2 million, $24.7 million and $16.8 million, respectively. For the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, we had revenues of $38.6 million and $26.6 million, respectively, and we incurred net losses of $9.0 million and $9.3 million, respectively.

 

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On November 2, 2016, we completed our initial public offering and raised net proceeds of approximately $151.9 million and used $67.7 million of the proceeds to repay all amounts outstanding under our credit facility.

Runbook Acquisition

On August 31, 2016, we completed our acquisition of Runbook Company B.V., or Runbook, a Netherlands-based provider of financial close automation software and integration solutions for SAP customers, or the Runbook Acquisition. We acquired Runbook to enhance the connectivity and integration of our platform to SAP and other systems. We believe this acquisition enhances our position as a leading provider of software solutions to automate the financial close process for SAP customers and supports our European expansion strategy.

The aggregate purchase consideration of $34.1 million for the Runbook Acquisition, which is subject to final working capital working adjustments, was paid in cash on the acquisition date. The estimated purchased working capital included approximately $2.6 million in cash. We amended our credit facility to add an additional term loan pursuant to which we borrowed $30.0 million and used the proceeds and cash on hand to fund the acquisition. In connection with our initial public offering, we repaid all amounts outstanding under the term loan. We incurred $1.6 million in transaction costs and fees to complete the Runbook Acquisition.

Runbook’s revenues consist of license fees associated with the sale of its on-premise software, post-contract support, and professional services required to implement its solutions and train its customers.

Factors Affecting Performance

We believe that our future performance will depend on many factors, including those described below. While these areas present significant opportunity, they also present risks that we must manage to achieve successful results. See the section titled “Risk Factors”. If we are unable to address these challenges, our business and operating results could be adversely affected.

Expansion and Further Penetration of Our Customer Base.    We employ a “land-and-expand” sales strategy that focuses on efficiently acquiring new customers and growing our relationships with existing customers over time. As the chart below illustrates, we have a history of attracting new customers and expanding their revenue with us over time. Building upon this success, we believe significant opportunity exists for us to acquire new customers in both the enterprise and mid-market segments across all geographies, as well as expand the use of our platform by selling additional products and increasing the number of users within our current customers’ organizations.

 

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The chart reflects annualized subscription and support revenue for the group of customers that became our customers in each respective cohort year. A “cohort” is a grouping of customers by the year specified. For instance, the 2012 cohort includes all customers whose contract start date is between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012. We calculate annualized subscription and support revenue at a particular date as the total amount of minimum subscription and support revenue contractually committed under each of our customer agreements for that month through the remaining term of the agreement, divided by the remaining number of months in the term of the agreement, multiplied by twelve. Our annualized subscription and support revenue as of March 31, 2017 for each of our 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 customer cohorts represented an increase over the initial annualized subscription and support revenue for such customer cohorts of 3.4x, 2.3x, 1.9x, 1.5x, 1.2x and 1.0x, respectively. We calculate initial annualized subscription and support revenue for any given cohort year as the sum of annualized subscription and support revenue as of the first month of each customer agreement that was entered into within that given cohort year. Accordingly, in contrast to annualized subscription and support revenue, initial annualized subscription and support revenue does not reflect any changes in the payments due under or the duration of customer agreements following the first month of the customer agreement. The above chart excludes the impact of the Runbook Acquisition.

Investment in Growth.    We plan to continue to invest in our business so that we can capitalize on our market opportunity. We intend to continue to grow our global sales and marketing team to acquire new customers and to increase sales to existing customers. We intend to continue to grow our research and development team to extend the functionality and range of our applications to bring new and improved solutions to accounting and finance. However, we expect our sales and marketing expenses and research and development expenses as a percentage of revenues to decrease over time as we grow our revenues and gain economies of scale by increasing our customer base and increase sales to our existing customer base. We believe that these investments will contribute to our long-term growth, although they may adversely affect our profitability in the near term.

 

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Leveraging Strategic Relationships.    We plan to continue to strengthen and expand our relationships with technology vendors, professional services firms, business process outsourcers, and resellers. These relationships enable us to increase the speed of deployment and offer a wider range of integrated services to our customers. We intend to support these existing relationships, seek additional relationships and further expand our channel of resellers to help us increase our presence in existing markets and to expand into new markets. Our business and results of operations will be significantly affected by our success in leveraging and expanding these relationships.

Market Adoption of Our Platform.    A key focus of our sales and marketing efforts is creating market awareness about the benefits of our cloud-based SaaS platform. The market for SaaS solutions for accounting and finance is less mature than the market for on-premise accounting and finance software applications, and potential customers may be slow or unwilling to migrate from their legacy solutions such as spreadsheets, manual processes or home grown solutions. It is difficult to predict customer adoption rates and demand, the future growth rate and size of the SaaS platform for accounting and finance market or the entry of competitive solutions. Our business and operating results will be significantly affected by the degree to, and speed with, which organizations adopt our solutions.

Key Metrics

We regularly review a number of metrics, including the following key metrics, to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate financial projections, and make strategic decisions. Each of the metrics below exclude the impact of the Runbook Acquisition.

 

		Three Months Ended March 31								Year Ended December 31,
		2017				2016				2016				2015				2014
Dollar-based net revenue retention rate			117	%			120	%			116	%			120	%			118	%
Number of customers (as of end of period)			1,850				1,411				1,758				1,338				987
Number of users (as of end of period)			171,423				137,341				166,903				128,726				93,665

For additional information, refer to “Selected Consolidated Financial Data—Key Metrics”.

Key Components of our Results of Operations

Revenues

Subscription and support.    The majority of subscriptions are sold through one-year non-cancellable contracts and a growing percentage of subscriptions are sold through three-year contracts. Fees are based on a number of factors, including the number of users having access to the products and the number of products purchased by the customer. The first year of subscription fees are typically payable within 30 days after execution of a contract, and thereafter upon renewal. We initially record the subscription fees as deferred revenue and recognize revenue on a straight-line basis over the term of the agreement. At any time during the subscription period, customers may increase their number of users and add products. Additional fees are payable for the remainder of the initial or renewed contract term. Customers may only reduce their number of users or subscription to products upon renewal of their arrangement. Revenues from subscriptions to our cloud-based software platform comprised approximately 92% of our revenues for the three months ended March 31, 2017.

Subscription and support revenues also include revenues associated with sales of on-premise software licenses and related support. Prior to our migration to SaaS in 2012, we licensed our legacy

 

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on-premise software. We no longer develop any new applications or functionality for our legacy on-premise software, but we continue to provide post-contract support to five customers that had not migrated to our SaaS solution as of December 31, 2016.

On August 31, 2016, we acquired Runbook. We plan to migrate Runbook’s licensed products to a cloud-based platform, but we continue to sell Runbook’s on-premise software to existing Runbook customers and provide post-contract support and implementation services.

Revenues recognized from sales of software licenses, support and implementation services related to software arrangements comprised 4% and less than one-half of 1% of total revenues for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and less than 1% and 1% of total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Professional services.    We offer our customers implementation and consulting services. Although our platform is ready to use immediately after a new customer has access to it, we typically help customers implement our solutions for a fixed fee and we recognize revenue over the period such services are performed. We also provide consulting and training services to help customers optimize the use of our products. We charge customers for our consulting and training services on a time-and-materials basis and we recognize revenue as services are performed. Professional services revenues comprised approximately 4% of our revenues for the three months ended March 31, 2017.

For a description of our revenue accounting policies, see “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations-Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates.”

Cost of Revenues

Subscription and support cost of revenues.    Subscription and support cost of revenues primarily consists of amortization of developed technology costs resulting from the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition, salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation associated with our hosting operations and support personnel, data center costs related to hosting our cloud-based software, and amortization of capitalized internal-use software costs. We also allocate a portion of overhead to subscription and support cost of revenues.

Professional services costs of revenues.    Costs associated with providing professional services primarily consist of salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation associated with our implementation personnel. These costs are expensed as incurred when the services are performed. We also allocate a portion of overhead to professional services cost of revenues.

Operating Expenses

Sales and marketing.    Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel costs of our sales and marketing employees, including salaries, sales commissions and incentives, benefits and stock-based compensation expense, travel and related costs, commissions paid in connection with our strategic relationships, outside consulting fees, marketing programs, including lead generation, costs of our annual conference, advertising, and trade shows, other event expenses, and allocated overhead costs. We defer sales and partner commissions and amortize them ratably over the term of the corresponding subscription agreement. Sales and marketing expenses also include amortization of customer relationship intangible assets. We expect sales and marketing expenses will increase as we expand our direct sales teams and increase sales through our strategic relationships and resellers.

Research and development.    Research and development expenses consist primarily of salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation associated with our engineering, product and quality

 

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assurance personnel and allocated overhead costs. Research and development expenses also include the cost of third-party contractors. Other than internal-use software development costs that qualify for capitalization, research and development costs are expensed as incurred. We expect research and development costs to increase as we develop new solutions and make improvements to our existing platform.

General and administrative.    General and administrative expenses consist primarily of salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation associated with our executive, finance, legal, human resources, compliance, and other administrative personnel, accounting, auditing and legal professional services fees, recruitment costs, other corporate-related expenses, and allocated overhead costs. General and administrative expenses also include amortization of covenant not to compete and tradename intangible assets, foreign exchange gains and losses, as well as acquisition-related costs to business combinations and the change in fair value of contingent consideration. We expect that general and administrative expenses will increase as we incur the costs of compliance associated with being a publicly-traded company, including legal, audit and consulting fees.

Interest Income (Expense)

Interest income (expense), net consists primarily of interest expense from borrowings under our credit facility and amortization of debt discounts and issuance costs. We repaid in full all outstanding debt and terminated our credit facility in November 2016. In connection with the termination of our credit facility, we expensed the then-unamortized debt discounts and issuance costs.

Change in Fair Value of Common Stock Warrant Liability

We issued warrants to purchase common stock in connection with our credit facility. The warrants are measured at fair value each period, with changes in fair value recorded in our consolidated statement of operations. The warrants will continue to be measured at fair value each period until the earlier of their exercise or termination. Increases in the fair value of our common stock will result in an increase in the fair value of our common stock warrant liability and a corresponding increase in our net loss.

Benefit from Income Taxes

We are subject to federal and state income taxes in the United States and taxes in foreign jurisdictions. As of December 31, 2016, we were in a net deferred tax liability position primarily as a result of intangible assets acquired in the Runbook Acquisition. This deferred tax liability and the deferred tax liabilities previously recorded as a result of the 2013 Acquisition have been an available source of income to realize our losses in foreign and U.S. jurisdictions and accordingly, we have recorded an income tax benefit in our statement of operations.

We record a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets to the extent that realization of the deferred tax assets, including consideration of our deferred tax liabilities, is not more likely than not. For the year ended December 31, 2016, for both federal and state income taxes, our deferred assets exceeded our deferred tax liabilities and because of our recent history of operating losses we believe that the realization of the deferred tax assets is currently not more likely than not. Accordingly, we have recorded a valuation allowance against our federal and state deferred tax assets. Taxes for international operations are not material for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014.

Our effective tax rate for the periods presented differs from the U.S. federal tax rate of 34% due primarily to the valuation allowance on our federal and state net deferred tax assets, expenses not deductible for income tax purposes including the change in fair value of common stock warrants, state taxes, acquisition-related costs, and other tax credits.

 

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Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to our results determined in accordance with GAAP, we believe the non-GAAP measures below are useful to us and our investors in evaluating our business. These non-GAAP financial measures are useful because they provide consistency and comparability with our past performance, facilitate period-to-period comparisons of operations and facilitate comparisons with other peer companies, many of which use similar non-GAAP financial measures to supplement their GAAP results.

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,								Year Ended December 31,
		2017				2016				2016				2015				2014
										(in thousands, except percentages)
Non-GAAP Revenues		$	38,634			$	26,561			$	123,839			$	83,607			$	56,629
Non-GAAP Gross Profit		$	31,356			$	21,296			$	100,711			$	67,483			$	46,419
Non-GAAP Gross Margin			81.2	%			80.2	%			81.3	%			80.7	%			82.0	%
Non-GAAP Net Loss		$	(2,900	)		$	(5,893	)		$	(16,478	)		$	(20,114	)		$	(2,550	)

For additional information and our reconciliation of Non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP, refer to “Selected Consolidated Financial Data—Non-GAAP Financial Measures”.

Results of Operations

We accounted for the 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition as business combinations. The 2013 Acquisition and the Runbook Acquisition resulted in the following principal impacts on our consolidated financial statements:

 

•

A reduction in revenues for the year ended December 31, 2014 as a result of the deferred revenue at the 2013 Acquisition date being recorded at fair value at an amount less than its then carrying value;

 

•

Increased amortization costs resulting from recording of intangible assets at fair value. We record amortization of acquired developed technology in cost of revenues, amortization of customer relationships in sales and marketing expenses, and amortization of covenants not to compete and tradename intangible assets in general and administrative expenses;

 

•

Shortly after the 2013 Acquisition, we issued debt, which increased our interest expense for the periods post-2013 Acquisition. We financed the purchase of the Runbook Acquisition through a term loan which increased our interest expense for the period through the termination of the credit facility. In November 2016, we repaid our credit facility in full with the proceeds from our initial public offering.

 

•

Increased operating costs in 2016 as a result of the employees and contractors assumed in the Runbook Acquisition.

Comparison of Three Months Ended March 31, 2017 and 2016

Total Revenues

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
		(in thousands)
Subscription and support		$	37,051			$	25,328
Professional services			1,583				1,233
Total revenues		$	38,634			$	26,561

 

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		March 31,
		2017				2016
Number of customers (as of end of period)*			1,850				1,411
Number of users (as of end of period)*			171,423				137,341

 

*	Exclusive of the Runbook Acquisition

Total revenues increased by $12.1 million, or 45%, for the three months ended March 31, 2017 as compared to the corresponding 2016 period primarily due to an increase in the number of customers, an increase in the number of users added by existing customers and an increase in the number of products purchased by existing customers. The total number of customers increased by 31% while the total number of users increased by 25% between March 31, 2016 and March 31, 2017.

Total cost of revenues

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
		(in thousands, except percentages)
Subscription and support		$	7,777			$	5,961
Professional services			1,455				979
Total cost of revenues			9,232				6,940
Gross Margin			76.1	%			73.9	%

Total cost of revenues increased by $2.3 million, or 33%, during the three months ended March 31, 2017 as compared to the corresponding 2016 period primarily due to a $1.8 million increase in salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation, a $0.2 million increase in amortization of capitalized software costs and a $0.2 million increase in amortization of developed technology. Salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation increased primarily due to growth in headcount, which increased by 42% between March 31, 2016 and 2017. Amortization of our capitalized software development costs increased due to larger total capitalized costs as we expanded the functionality of our solutions. Amortization of developed technology increased due to the Runbook Acquisition.

The improvement in gross margin during the three months ended March 31, 2017 as compared to the corresponding 2016 period was primarily the result of amortization of developed technology associated with the 2013 Acquisition included in our cost of revenues which is a fixed cost each period. Accordingly, an increase in revenues resulted in an improvement in our gross margin.

Sales and marketing

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
		(in thousands, except percentages)
Sales and marketing		$	23,496			$	18,169
Percentage of total revenues			60.8	%			68.4	%

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $5.3 million, or 29%, during the three months ended March 31, 2017 as compared to the corresponding 2016 period primarily due to a $3.3 million increase in salaries, sales commissions and incentives, a $0.9 million increase in commissions payable to third parties that refer customers to us, a $0.4 million increase in advertising and trade shows, and a $0.3 million increase in travel and related costs. The increase in salaries, sales commissions and incentives was primarily driven by an increase in headcount and revenue growth. Our sales and marketing headcount increased by 38% between March 31, 2016 and 2017. The increase in

 

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commissions payable to third parties was primarily driven by the expansion of our relationships with technology vendors, including SAP. The increase in advertising and trade shows was primarily due to an increase in our marketing efforts. Travel and related costs have increased due to expansion of our sales organization.

Research and development

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
		(in thousands, except percentages)
Research and development		$	5,948			$	5,272
Percentage of total revenues			15.4	%			19.8	%

Research and development expenses increased by $0.7 million, or 13%, during the three months ended March 31, 2017 as compared to the corresponding 2016 period primarily due to a $0.8 million increase in salaries and benefits and a $0.3 million increase in services provided by third-party contractors. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in capitalized costs related to software development of $0.3 million. Our research and development headcount increased by 39% between March 31, 2016 and 2017. The additional headcount and number of third-party contractors were used to further maintain, enhance and develop our platform.

General and administrative

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
		(in thousands, except percentages)
General and administrative		$	8,253			$	5,979
Percentage of total revenues			21.4	%			22.5	%

General and administrative expenses increased by $2.3 million, or 38%, during the three months ended March 31, 2017 as compared to the corresponding 2016 period primarily due to a $1.4 million increase in outside services and a $0.5 million increase in salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation. The increase in outside services comprised primarily of legal, accounting and consulting costs associated with being a public company. The increase in salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation was primarily driven by an increase in headcount. Our general and administrative headcount increased by 35% between March 31, 2016 and 2017.

Interest income

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
		(in thousands)
Interest income		$	224			$	4

Interest income increased by $0.2 million during the three months ended March 31, 2017 as compared to the corresponding 2016 period due to interest earned from investments in marketable securities. In November 2016, we completed our initial public offering and used a portion of the proceeds to invest in marketable securities.

Interest expense

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
		(in thousands)
Interest expense		$	(4	)		$	(865	)

 

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Interest expense decreased by $0.9 million during the three months ended March 31, 2017 as compared to the 2016 corresponding period due to the termination of our credit facility and associated repayment of term loans in November 2016.

Change in fair value of common stock warrant liability

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
		(in thousands)
Change in fair value of common stock warrant liability		$	(1,000	)		$	—

We value our common stock warrants using a binomial lattice model. The primary input into the binomial lattice model is the fair value of our common stock. The fair value of our common stock increased by approximately 8% between January 1, 2017 and March 31, 2017 increasing our common stock liability by $1.0 million or 9%. There was no significant change in the value of our common stock during the three months ended March 31, 2016.

Benefit from income taxes

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
		(in thousands)
Benefit from income taxes		$	(65	)		$	(1,325	)

The effective tax rate for the three months ended March 31, 2017 of 0.7% differs from the U.S. federal statutory rate of 34% primarily as a result of the valuation allowance for U.S. federal and state income taxes. The effective tax rate for the three months ended March 31, 2016 of 12.4% differs from the U.S. federal statutory rate of 34% primarily as a result of state taxes, net of federal benefit, foreign taxes and a valuation allowance on State of California net deferred tax assets. We record a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets to the extent that realization of the deferred tax assets, including consideration of its deferred tax liabilities, is not more likely than not. The income tax benefit for the 2016 period is a result of the absorption of deferred tax liabilities recorded as a result of the 2013 Acquisition. Taxes for international operations are not material for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016.

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

Total revenues

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
		(in thousands)
Subscription and support		$	117,524			$	80,080			$	49,029
Professional services			5,599				3,527				2,648
Total revenues		$	123,123			$	83,607			$	51,677

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
Number of customers (as of end of period)*			1,758				1,338				987
Number of users (as of end of period)*			166,903				128,726				93,665

 

*	Exclusive of the Runbook Acquisition

 

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Total revenues increased by $39.5 million, or 47.3%, and $31.9 million, or 61.8%, for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively, primarily due to an increase in the number of customers, an increase in the number of users added by existing customers and an increase in the number of products purchased by existing customers. The total number of customers increased by 31.4% and 35.6% during the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. The total number of users increased by 29.7% and 37.4% during the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

The increase in total revenues from the year ended December 31, 2014 to December 31, 2015 was also impacted by purchase accounting. In connection with the 2013 Acquisition, deferred revenue was recorded at fair value, resulting in a reduction from its then-carrying value. This reduction resulted in reduced revenue in the 2014 period by $5.0 million. There was no corresponding reduction in the 2015 period. Excluding the impact of this purchase accounting adjustment, our total revenue increased by 47.6% for the year ended December 31, 2015 as compared to 2014.

Total cost of revenues

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
		(in thousands, except percentages)
Subscription and support		$	25,900			$	19,773			$	14,380
Professional services			4,311				2,956				2,218
Total cost of revenues			30,211				22,729				16,598
Gross Margin			75.5	%			72.8	%			67.9	%

Total cost of revenues increased by $7.5 million, or 32.9%, in 2016 as compared to 2015, primarily due to a $5.6 million increase in salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation and a $0.8 million increase in amortization of capitalized software costs. Salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation increased primarily due to growth in headcount, which increased by 45% between December 31, 2015 and 2016. Amortization of our capitalized software development costs increased due to larger total capitalized costs as we expanded the functionality of our solutions.

Total cost of revenues increased by $6.1 million, or 36.9%, in 2015 as compared to 2014, primarily due to a $4.0 million increase in salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation, a $1.1 million increase in data center costs and a $0.6 million increase in amortization of capitalized software costs. Salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation increased primarily due to growth in headcount, which increased by 69% between December 31, 2014 and 2015. Costs associated with our datacenter increased due to costs of additional bandwidth associated with the growth in our customer base. Amortization of our capitalized software development costs increased due to larger total capitalized costs as we expanded the functionality of our solutions.

Our gross margin was 75.5%, 72.8% and 67.9% for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively. The improvement in gross margin in 2016 compared to 2015 was primarily the result of amortization of developed technology associated with the 2013 Acquisition and included in our cost of revenues, which is a fixed cost each period. Accordingly, an increase in revenues resulted in an improvement in our gross margin. The improvement in gross margin was partially offset by the amortization expense of acquired developed technology associated with the Runbook Acquisition in August 2016.

The improvement in gross margin in 2015 compared to 2014 was primarily the result of the impact of purchasing accounting adjustments, which reduced revenue in the 2014 period with no

 

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corresponding adjustments in 2015. In addition, the increase in gross margin in 2015 compared to 2014 was impacted by the amortization of developed technology included in our cost of revenues, which is a fixed cost each period.

Sales and marketing

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
		(in thousands, except percentages)
Sales and marketing		$	77,810			$	56,546			$	31,837
Percentage of total revenues			63.2	%			67.6	%			61.6	%

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $21.3 million, or 37.6%, for the year ended December 31, 2016 primarily due to a $12.2 million increase in salaries, sales commissions and incentives and stock-based compensation, a $3.0 million increase in commissions expense for third parties that refer customers to us, a $1.1 million increase in travel and related costs, a $1.1 million increase in advertising and trade shows, and a $0.7 million increase in outside consulting fees. The increase in salaries, sales commissions and incentives and stock-based compensation was primarily driven by an increase in headcount and revenue growth. Our sales and marketing headcount increased by 31% between December 31, 2015 and 2016. The increase in commissions payable to third parties was primarily driven by revenue growth associated with our relationship with SAP as an endorsed business solution. The increase in advertising and trade shows was primarily due to an increase in our marketing efforts. The increase in consulting fees was primarily due to an increase in digital marketing services.

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $24.7 million, or 77.6%, for the year ended December 31, 2015 primarily due to a $16.4 million increase in salaries, sales commissions and incentives and stock-based compensation, a $2.4 million increase in commissions payable to third parties that refer customers to us, a $1.6 million increase in travel and related costs, a $1.0 million increase in advertising and trade shows, and a $0.9 million increase in outside consulting fees. The increase in salaries, sales commissions and incentives and stock-based compensation was primarily driven by an increase in headcount and revenue growth. Our sales and marketing headcount increased by 59% between December 31, 2014 and 2015. The increase in commissions payable to third parties was primarily driven by the expansion of our relationships with technology vendors, including SAP. The increase in advertising and trade shows was primarily due to an increase in our marketing efforts. The increase in outside consulting fees was primarily due to an increase in digital marketing services.

Research and development

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
		(in thousands, except percentages)
Research and development		$	21,125			$	18,216			$	9,705
Percentage of total revenues			17.2	%			21.8	%			18.8	%

Research and development expenses increased by $2.9 million, or 16.0%, for the year ended December 31, 2016 primarily due to a $2.5 million increase in salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation due to an increase in headcount and a $1.2 million increase in services provided by third-party contractors. These increases were partially offset by an increase in capitalized costs related to software development of $1.1 million. Our research and development headcount increased by 38% between December 31, 2015 and 2016. Costs of third-party contractors increased by 27% between 2015 and 2016. The additional headcount and number of third-party contractors were used to further maintain, enhance and develop our platform.

 

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Research and development expenses increased by $8.5 million, or 87.7%, for the year ended December 31, 2015 primarily due to a $5.5 million increase in salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation due to an increase in headcount and a $3.2 million increase in services provided by third-party contractors. These increases were partially offset by an increase in capitalized costs related to software development of $0.7 million. Our research and development headcount increased by 32% between December 31, 2014 and 2015. Costs of third-party contractors increased by 238% between 2014 and 2015. The additional headcount and number of third-party contractors were used to further maintain, enhance and develop our platform.

General and administrative

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
		(in thousands, except percentages)
General and administrative		$	27,911			$	20,928			$	11,716
Percentage of total revenues			22.7	%			25.0	%			22.7	%

General and administrative expenses increased by $7.0 million, or 33.4%, during the year ended December 31, 2016 primarily due to a $3.9 million increase in salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation due to an increase in headcount of 30% between December 31, 2015 and 2016, a $0.9 million increase in computer software expenses, a $0.5 million increase in professional services costs due primarily to a $1.6 million increase in legal, accounting and auditing fees related to the Runbook Acquisition largely offset by a reduction of $1.1 million in initial public offering readiness fees and recruitment costs, and a $0.4 million increase in foreign exchange transaction losses due to the strengthening of the U.S. Dollar. In addition, our general and administrative costs in 2016 increased by $0.3 million relating to the change in fair value of contingent consideration. There was no significant change in contingent consideration during 2015.

General and administrative expenses increased by $9.2 million, or 78.6%, during the year ended December 31, 2015 primarily due to a $4.0 million increase in salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation due to an increase in headcount of 72% between December 31, 2014 and 2015 and stock option grants to new executive officers and other employees, a $2.8 million increase in professional services costs due to legal, accounting and auditing fees as we prepared for our initial public offering, additional recruitment costs, and a $0.5 million increase in facility-related expenses related to the expansion of our global headquarters. In addition, our general and administrative costs in 2014 were reduced by $0.8 million relating to the change in fair value of contingent consideration. There was no significant change in contingent consideration during 2015.

Interest expense, net

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
		(in thousands)
Interest expense, net		$	(5,932	)		$	(3,215	)		$	(3,047	)

Interest expense, net increased by $2.7 million, or 84.5%, during the year ended December 31, 2016 primarily due to a $1.6 million increase in the accretion and write-off of debt issuance costs associated with borrowings under our credit facility, a $0.7 million prepayment penalty for early termination of our credit facility, and a $0.6 million increase in interest expense primarily due to a $30.0 million term loan under our credit facility issued to fund the Runbook Acquisition in August 2016. These increases were offset by a $0.2 million increase in interest income earned in 2016.

 

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Interest expense, net increased by $0.2 million, or 5.5%, during the year ended December 31, 2015 due to an increase in interest expense on a larger long-term debt principal balance. During the year ended December 31, 2015, we paid between 20% and 30% of our interest costs in cash and the remainder increased the principal balance.

Change in fair value of common stock warrant liability

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
		(in thousands)
Change in fair value of common stock warrant liability		$	(5,880	)		$	(420	)		$	(3,700	)

We value our common stock warrants using a binomial lattice model. The primary input into the binomial lattice model is the fair value of our common stock. The fair value of our common stock increased by approximately 84% between December 31, 2015 and December 31, 2016, resulting in a $5.9 million, or 107%, increase in our common stock warrant liability.

The fair value of our common stock did not significantly change between December 31, 2014 and December 31, 2015.

Benefit from income taxes

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
		(in thousands)
Benefit from income taxes		$	(6,587	)		$	(13,713	)		$	(8,174	)

Our effective tax rate was 14.4% in 2016, 35.7% in 2015, and 32.8% in 2014. The effective tax rate differs from the U.S. federal statutory rate of 34% in 2016 primarily because of our full valuation allowance on our federal and state deferred tax assets, expenses not deductible for income tax purposes including the change in fair value of common stock warrants, state taxes net of federal benefit, acquisition-related costs, and other tax credits. We record a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets to the extent that realization of the deferred tax assets, including consideration of our deferred tax liabilities, is not more likely than not. For 2016, our federal and state deferred tax assets exceeded our deferred tax liabilities and given our cumulative losses, we believe that it is not more likely than not that these deferred tax assets will be realized. Accordingly, we recorded a valuation allowance on our net deferred tax assets. In 2015, we recorded a valuation allowance on our State of California deferred tax assets as these deferred tax assets exceeded our State of California deferred tax liabilities. Taxes for our international operations were not material in 2016, 2015 and 2014.

Quarterly Results of Operations

The following tables set forth selected key metrics and unaudited quarterly consolidated statements of operations for the last eight quarters. The consolidated financial statements for each of these quarterly periods have been prepared on a basis consistent with our audited financial statements and include, in the opinion of management, all normal recurring adjustments necessary for the fair statement of the financial information contained in these statements. The historical financial results are not necessarily indicative of future results and should be read in conjunction with our annual financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus.

 

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The following table sets forth selected metrics data for each of the periods indicated:

 

		Three Months Ended
		March 31, 2017				Dec 31, 2016				Sep 30, 2016				Jun 30, 2016				Mar 31, 2016				Dec 31, 2015				Sep 30, 2015				Jun 30, 2015
Dollar-based net revenue retention rate*			117	%			116	%			118	%			119	%			120	%			120	%			120	%			120	%
Number of customers (as of end of period)*			1,850				1,758				1,625				1,523				1,411				1,338				1,219				1,145
Number of users (as of end of period)*			171,423				166,903				156,774				147,466				137,341				128,726				119,912				111,383

 

*	Exclusive of Runbook Acquisition

The following table sets forth selected GAAP information for each of the periods indicated:

 

		Three Months Ended
		March 31, 2017				Dec 31, 2016				Sep 30, 2016				Jun 30, 2016				Mar 31, 2016				Dec 31, 2015				Sep 30, 2015				Jun 30, 2015
		(in thousands, except per share data)
Revenues		$	38,634			$	35,340			$	32,196			$	29,026			$	26,561			$	24,474			$	21,661			$	19,425
Gross Profit			29,402				26,673				24,655				21,963				19,621				18,127				15,718				13,939
Gross Margin.			76.1	%			75.5	%			76.6	%			75.7	%			73.9	%			74.1	%			72.6	%			71.8	%
Net Loss		$	(9,010	)		$	(15,664	)		$	(6,619	)		$	(7,541	)		$	(9,335	)		$	(7,207	)		$	(6,735	)		$	(6,538	)

The following table sets forth selected non-GAAP information for each of the periods indicated:

 

		Three Months Ended
		Mar 31, 2017				Dec 31, 2016				Sep 30, 2016				Jun 30, 2016				Mar 31, 2016				Dec 31, 2015				Sep 30, 2015				Jun 30, 2015
		(in thousands, except percentages)
Non-GAAP Revenues		$	38,634			$	35,877			$	32,375			$	29,026			$	26,561			$	24,474			$	21,661			$	19,425
Non-GAAP Gross Profit			31,356			$	29,204			$	26,579			$	23,632			$	21,296			$	19,777			$	17,379			$	15,612
Non-GAAP Gross Margin			81.2	%			81.4	%			82.1	%			81.4	%			80.2	%			80.8	%			80.2	%			80.4	%
Non-GAAP Net Loss		$	(2,900	)		$	(3,858	)		$	(2,196	)		$	(4,531	)		$	(5,893	)		$	(6,138	)		$	(5,917	)		$	(5,278	)

 

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The following table presents a reconciliation of revenues, gross profit, gross margin and net loss, the most comparable GAAP measures, to non-GAAP revenues, non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP net loss.

 

		Three Months Ended
		March 31, 2017				Dec 31, 2016				Sep 30, 2016				Jun 30, 2016				Mar 31, 2016				Dec 31, 2015				Sep 30, 2015				Jun 30, 2015
		(in thousands, except percentages)
Non-GAAP Revenues:
Revenues		$	38,634			$	35,340			$	32,196			$	29,026			$	26,561			$	24,474			$	21,661			$	19,425
Purchase accounting adjustment to revenues			—				537				179				—				—				—				—				—
Non-GAAP Revenues(1)		$	38,634			$	35,877			$	32,375			$	29,026			$	26,561			$	24,474			$	21,661			$	19,425
Non-GAAP Gross Profit:
Gross profit			29,402			$	26,673			$	24,655			$	21,963			$	19,621			$	18,127			$	15,718			$	13,939
Purchase accounting adjustment to revenues			—				537				179				—				—				—				—				—
Amortization of developed technology			1,704				1,704				1,595				1,535				1,534				1,535				1,535				1,535
Stock-based compensation expense			250				290				150				134				141				115				126				138
Non-GAAP Gross Profit(1)		$	31,356			$	29,204			$	26,579			$	23,632			$	21,296			$	19,777			$	17,379			$	15,612
Gross Margin			76.1	%			75.5	%			76.6	%			75.7	%			73.9	%			74.1	%			72.6	%			71.8	%
Non-GAAP Gross Margin(1)			81.2	%			81.4	%			82.1	%			81.4	%			80.2	%			80.8	%			80.2	%			80.4	%
Non-GAAP Net Loss:
Net Loss		$	(9,010	)		$	(15,664	)		$	(6,619	)		$	(7,541	)		$	(9,335	)		$	(7,207	)		$	(6,735	)		$	(6,538	)
Benefit from income taxes			(162	)			(2,135	)			(1,926	)			(1,493	)			(1,402	)			(3,959	)			(3,824	)			(3,704	)
Purchase accounting adjustment to revenues			—				537				179				—				—				—				—				—
Amortization of intangible assets			3,330				3,321				3,138				3,023				3,023				3,023				3,023				3,023
Stock-based compensation expense			1,849				1,992				1,360				1,549				1,625				1,627				1,560				1,522
Accretion and write-off of debt discount			—				1,061				96				81				65				57				57				57
Accretion and write-off of warrant discount			—				547				69				69				69				69				69				69
Change in fair value of contingent consideration			93				93				135				81				62				2				13				13
Change in fair value of common stock warrant liability			1,000				6,180				—				(300	)			—				250				(80	)			280
Acquisition-related costs			—				210				1,372				—				—				—				—				—
Non-GAAP Net Loss(1)			(2,900	)		$	(3,858	)		$	(2,196	)		$	(4,531	)		$	(5,893	)		$	(6,138	)		$	(5,917	)		$	(5,278	)

 

(1)

Non-GAAP revenues, non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP net loss are not a measure of our financial performance under GAAP and should not be considered as an alternative to revenues, gross profit, gross margin and net loss, respectively, in accordance with GAAP. For a definition of non-GAAP revenues, non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP net loss, see “Selected Consolidated Financial Data—Non-GAAP Financial Measures.”

Liquidity and Capital Resources

At March 31, 2017, our principal sources of liquidity were $101.3 million of cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities, which primarily consist of short-term, investment-grade commercial paper, corporate bonds, U.S. treasury bonds, and asset-backed securities. We believe our existing cash and cash equivalents, investments in marketable securities and cash from operations will be sufficient to meet our working capital needs, capital expenditures and financing obligations for at least the next 12 months.

Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our growth rate, the expansion of our direct sales force, strategic relationships and international operations, the timing and

 

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extent of spending to support research and development efforts, and the continuing market acceptance of our solutions. We may require additional equity or debt financing. Sales of additional equity could result in dilution to our stockholders. If we raise funds by borrowing from third parties, the terms of those financing arrangements would require us to incur additional interest expense and may include negative covenants or other restrictions on our business that could impair our operating flexibility. We can provide no assurance that additional financing will be available at all or, if available, that we could be able to obtain financing on terms favorable to us. If we are unable to raise additional capital when needed, we would be required to curtail our operating activities and capital expenditures, and our business, operating results and financial condition would be adversely affected.

Historical Cash Flows

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

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,								Year Ended December 31,
		2017				2016				2016				2015				2014
										(in thousands)
Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities		$	(1,705	)		$	(4,651	)		$	(4,808	)		$	1,006			$	8,943
Net cash used in investing activities			3,629				(1,216	)			(119,674	)			(12,367	)			(2,866	)
Net cash provided by financing activities			(594	)			4,126				131,395				859				4,775

Net Cash Provided by (Used In) Operating Activities

Our net loss and cash flows from operating activities are significantly influenced by our investments in headcount and infrastructure to support anticipated growth. In recent periods, our net loss has generally been significantly greater than our use of cash for operating activities due to our subscription-based revenue model in which billings occur in advance of revenue recognition, as well as a substantial amount of non-cash charges incurred by us. Non-cash charges primarily include depreciation and amortization, stock-based compensation, non-cash interest expense related to the accretion and write-off of debt discounts, paid in kind interest, and deferred taxes.

For the three months ended March 31, 2017, cash used in operations was $1.7 million resulting from our net loss of $9.0 million offset by net non-cash expenses of $7.6 million, and net cash flow used through changes in operating assets and liabilities of $0.3 million. The $0.3 million of net cash flows used as a result of changes in our operating assets and liabilities reflected a $8.0 million increase in deferred revenue as a result of the growth of our customer and user base which are billed in advance of our revenue recognition. This change in our operating assets and liabilities was partially offset by a $3.3 million decrease in accounts payable, a $2.5 million decrease in accrued expenses primarily associated with payments of 2016 employee bonuses during the quarter and a $1.6 million increase in accounts receivable due to the growth of our customer and user base.

For the three months ended March 31, 2016, cash used in operations was $4.7 million resulting from our net loss of $9.3 million offset by net non-cash expenses of $4.9 million, and net cash flow used through changes in operating assets and liabilities of $0.2 million. The $0.2 million of net cash flows used as a result of changes in our operating assets and liabilities reflected a $3.8 million increase in deferred revenue as a result of the growth of our customer and user base which are billed in advance of our revenue recognition. This change in our operating assets and liabilities was partially offset by a $2.0 million decrease in accrued expenses primarily associated with payments of 2015 employee bonuses during the quarter and a $1.5 million increase in accounts receivable due to the growth of our customer and user base.

For the year ended December 31, 2016, cash used in operations was $4.8 million, resulting from our net loss of $39.2 million and a $6.4 million payment for paid-in-kind interest, largely offset by net

 

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cash flows provided through changes in net non-cash expenses of $27.3 million and changes in our operating assets and liabilities of $13.4 million. The $13.4 million of net cash flows provided as a result of changes in our operating assets and liabilities reflected a $29.5 million increase in deferred revenue as a result of the growth of our customer and user base, which are billed in advance of our revenue recognition, a $3.9 million increase in accrued expenses primarily associated with increases in employee-related accruals as a result of increases in headcount and bonuses, and a $3.5 million increase in accounts payable associated with the growth of the business. The changes in our operating assets and liabilities were partially offset by a $15.5 million increase in accounts receivable due to the growth of our customer and user base, a $3.4 million increase in deferred sales commissions due to an increase in revenue, a $3.1 million increase in prepaid expenses and other current assets due primarily to increases in prepaid software subscriptions and insurance recognized to expense over a period of one year or less, and a $1.2 million decrease in other long-term liabilities due primarily to amortization of leasehold improvement allowances and free rent periods associated with the expansion of our corporate headquarters.

For the year ended December 31, 2015, cash provided by operations was $1.0 million, resulting from our net loss of $24.7 million, largely offset by net cash flows provided through changes in our operating assets and liabilities of $16.4 million and net non-cash expenses of $9.4 million. The $16.4 million of net cash flows provided as a result of changes in our operating assets and liabilities reflected a $18.2 million increase in deferred revenue as a result of the growth of our customer and user base, which are billed in advance of our revenue recognition, a $6.8 million increase in accrued expenses primarily associated with increases in employee-related accruals as a result of increases in headcount and bonuses, and professional services costs, a $2.0 million increase in other long-term liabilities primarily related to deferred rent due to the leasehold improvement allowances and free rent periods associated with the expansion of our corporate headquarters, and a $1.1 million increase in accounts payable associated with the growth of our business. The changes in our operating assets and liabilities were partially offset by a $6.2 million increase in accounts receivable due to the growth of our customer and user base and a $4.3 million increase in deferred sales commissions due to an increase in revenues.

During the year ended December 31, 2014, cash provided by operations was $8.9 million resulting from our net loss of $16.8 million, largely offset by net cash flows provided through changes in our operating assets and liabilities of $13.0 million and non-cash expenses of $12.6 million. The $13.0 million of net cash flows provided as a result of changes in our operating assets and liabilities reflected a $17.2 million increase in deferred revenue as a result of the growth of our customer and user base which are billed in advance of our revenue recognition, a $3.2 million increase in accrued expenses primarily associated with increases in employee-related accruals as a result of increases in headcount, and a $1.0 million increase in deferred rent due to the leasehold improvement allowances and free rent periods associated with the expansion of our corporate headquarters. The changes in our operating assets and liabilities were partially offset by a $6.8 million increase in accounts receivable due to the growth of our customer and user base, a $1.3 million increase in deferred sales commissions due to an increase in commissionable revenues and a $1.1 million increase in prepaid expenses and other current assets associated with the growth of our business.

Net Cash Used In Investing Activities

Our primary investing activities have consisted of capital expenditures for property and equipment and capitalized software development costs. In August 2016, we completed our Runbook Acquisition. In November 2016, we completed our initial public offering and used a portion of the proceeds to invest in marketable securities.

 

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For the three months ended March 31, 2017, cash provided by investing activities was $3.6 million as a result of $5.2 million in maturities of marketable securities, offset by $1.1 million in payments of costs related to capitalized software development activities and $0.5 million in purchases of property and equipment.

For the three months ended March 31, 2016, we used $1.2 million in cash primarily as a result of $0.8 million in payments of costs related to capitalized software development activities. During the three months ended March 31, 2016, we also purchased $0.4 million of property and equipment.

For the year ended December 31, 2016, we used $119.7 million in cash as a result of $83.2 million of investments in marketable securities, which are primarily comprised of U.S. Treasury and corporate bonds, the Runbook Acquisition, with a total purchase price of $34.1 million, subject to a final working capital adjustment, offset by cash acquired in the amount of $2.6 million, $3.3 million in capitalized software development costs and $1.7 million of purchases of property and equipment.

For the year ended December 31, 2015, we used $12.4 million in cash primarily as a result of $10.1 million in purchases of property and equipment of which $7.1 million related to the expansion of our global headquarters. During 2015, we also paid $2.3 million of costs related to capitalized software development activities.

For the year ended December 31, 2014, we used $2.9 million in cash as a result of $1.4 million in capitalized software development costs and $1.4 million of purchases of property and equipment, of which $0.8 million related to the expansion of our global headquarters.

Net Cash Provided By Financing Activities

For the three months ended March 31, 2017, cash used in financing activities was $0.6 million primarily as a result of $0.5 million of principal payments on capital lease obligations.

For the three months ended March 31, 2016, financing activities provided $4.1 million in cash primarily as a result of proceeds from our 2016 term loan, net of issuance costs, of $4.8 million issued in March 2016. These proceeds were largely offset by payments of $0.7 million for initial public offering costs.

For the year ended December 31, 2016, financing activities provided $131.4 million in cash primarily as a result of the successful completion of our initial public offering, which resulted in proceeds of $151.9 million, net of underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses, including $4.4 million in cash paid for deferred offering costs. During the year, we also received $34.3 million in proceeds under our credit facility, $3.1 million in proceeds from our issuance of common stock to former employees of Runbook Company B.V. and $2.9 million in proceeds from exercise of stock options. The net cash provided by financing activities was largely offset by the termination of our credit facility in November 2016 and the associated repayment of term loans and prepayment penalties in the amount of $60.7 million.

For the year ended December 31, 2015, financing activities provided $0.9 million in cash primarily as a result of $1.4 million in proceeds from exercises of stock options. These proceeds were partially offset by $0.5 million in principal payments on capital lease obligations.

For the year ended December 31, 2014, financing activities provided $4.8 million in cash primarily as a result of our issuances of common stock.

Backlog

We enter into both single and multi-year subscription contracts for our solutions. The timing of our invoices to the customer is a negotiated term and thus varies among our subscription contracts. For

 

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multi-year agreements, 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. Until such time as these amounts are invoiced, they are not recorded in revenues, deferred revenue or elsewhere in our consolidated financial statements and are considered by us to be backlog. As of December 31, 2016 and March 31, 2017, we had backlog of approximately $78.7 million and $84.8 million, respectively. We expect backlog will change from period to period for several reasons, including the timing and duration of customer agreements, varying billing cycles of subscription agreements, and the timing and duration of customer renewals. Because revenue for any period is a function of revenue recognized from deferred revenue under contracts in existence at the beginning of the period, as well as contract renewals and new customer contracts during the period, backlog at the beginning of any period is not necessarily indicative of future revenue performance. We do not utilize backlog as a key management metric internally.

Contractual Obligations and Commitments

The following table summarizes our contractual obligations at March 31, 2017:

 

		Total				Less Than 1 Year				1-3 Years				3-5 Years				More than 5 Years
Operating lease obligations(1)			16,270				4,806				6,038				3,790				1,636
Capital lease obligations			442				442				—				—				—
Purchase obligations			1,353				1,353				—				—				—
		$	18,065			$	6,601			$	6,038			$	3,790			$	1,636

 

(1)	Operating leases include total future minimum rent payments under non-cancelable operating lease agreements as described in Note 10 of our consolidated financial statements appearing elsewhere in this prospectus.

We are required to pay up to a maximum of $8 million of contingent consideration relating to our 2013 Acquisition if we realize a tax benefit from the use of net operating losses generated from the stock option exercises concurrent with the 2013 Acquisition. We have not included this obligation in the table above, because there is a high degree of uncertainty regarding the amount and timing of future cash flows to extinguish this liability. The settlement of this liability depends on our ability to generate taxable income in the future to realize this tax benefit.

At December 31, 2016, liabilities for unrecognized tax benefits of $0.4 million are not included in the table above because, due to their nature, there is a high degree of uncertainty regarding the timing of future cash outflows and other events that extinguish these liabilities.

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

As part of our ongoing business, we do not have any relationships with other entities or financial partnerships, such as entities often referred to as structured finance or special purpose entities that have been established for the purpose of facilitating off-balance sheet arrangements or other contractually narrow or limited purposes. We are therefore not exposed to any financing, liquidity, market, or credit risk that could arise if we had engaged in those types of relationships.

In the ordinary course of business, we may provide indemnification of varying scope and terms to customers, vendors, investors, directors, and officers with respect to certain matters, including, but not limited to, losses arising out of our breach of such agreements, services to be provided by us, or from intellectual property infringement claims made by third parties. These indemnification provisions may survive termination of the underlying agreement and the maximum potential amount of future payments we could be required to make under these indemnification provisions may not be subject to maximum

 

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loss clauses. The maximum potential amount of future payments we could be required to make under these indemnification provisions is indeterminable. We have never paid a material claim, nor have we been sued in connection with these indemnification arrangements. As of December 31, 2016, we have not accrued a liability for these indemnification arrangements because the likelihood of incurring a payment obligation, if any, in connection with these indemnification arrangements is not probable or reasonably estimable.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Our financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, in the United States. The preparation of consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the dates of the consolidated financial statements, and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. We evaluate our estimates and assumptions on an ongoing basis. Our estimates are based on historical experience and various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Our actual results could differ from these estimates.

We believe that the following critical accounting policies involve a greater degree of judgment or complexity than our other accounting policies. Accordingly, these are the policies we believe are the most critical to a full understanding and evaluation of our consolidated financial condition and results of operations. See “Significant Accounting Policies” in Note 2 of the accompanying notes to our consolidated financial statements for additional information.

Revenue Recognition and Deferred Revenue

Subscription and support revenue. Customers pay subscription fees for access to our SaaS platform generally for a one-year period. In more limited cases, customers may pay for up to three years in advance. Fees are based on a number of factors, including the solutions subscribed for by the customer and the number of users having access to the solutions. The first year subscription fees are typically payable within 30 days after the execution of the arrangement, and thereafter upon renewal. We initially record the subscription fees as deferred revenue and recognize revenue on a straight-line basis over the term of the agreement. At any time during the subscription period, customers may increase the number of their users or subscribe for additional products. Additional user fees and additional product subscriptions are payable for the remainder of the initial or extended contract term. Subscription and support revenue also includes software revenue related to maintenance and support fees on legacy BlackLine solutions and software license and maintenance revenue on Runbook software sales.

Professional services. We offer customers assistance in implementing our solutions and optimizing their use. Professional services include training and consulting. These services are billed on either a fixed fee or time and material basis. Revenues from time and material arrangements are recognized as services are performed and revenues from fixed fee arrangements are initially recorded as deferred revenue and recognized on a proportional performance basis as the services are performed.

We recognize revenues when: (i) persuasive evidence of an arrangement for the sale of our solutions or implementation and consulting services exists, (ii) the solutions have been made available or delivered, or services have been performed, (iii) the sales price is fixed or determinable, and (iv) collectability is reasonably assured. The timing and amount we recognize as revenue is determined based on the facts and circumstances of each customer’s arrangement. Evidence of an arrangement

 

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consists of a signed customer agreement. We consider that delivery of a solution has commenced once we provide the customer with log-in information to access and use the solution. Fees are fixed based on stated rates specified in the customer agreement. We assess collectability based on a number of factors, including the creditworthiness of the customer, review of their financial information or transaction history. If collectability is not considered reasonably assured, revenue is deferred until the fees are collected.

The majority of customer arrangements include multiple deliverables such as subscriptions to our SaaS solutions and professional services. We recognize revenue in accordance with the guidance for arrangements with multiple deliverables under Accounting Standards Update, or ASU, 2009-13—Revenue Recognition (Topic 605) – Multiple-Deliverable Revenue Arrangements – a Consensus of the Emerging Issues Task Force or ASU 2009-13. For subscription agreements, as customers do not have the right to the software code underlying our solutions, subscription revenue arrangements are outside the scope of software revenue recognition guidance as defined by ASC Topic 985-605, Software. Our agreements do not contain any refund provisions other than in the event of our non-performance or breach.

For multiple-deliverable revenue arrangements, we first assess whether each deliverable has value to the customer on a standalone basis. We have determined that the SaaS solutions have standalone value, because, once access is given to the customer, the solutions are fully functional and do not require any additional development, modification, or customization. Professional services have standalone value, because third-party partners and customers themselves can perform these services without our involvement. The performance of these professional services generally does not require highly specialized or technologically skilled individuals and the professional services are not essential to the functionality of the solutions.

We allocate revenue among the separate non-contingent deliverables in an arrangement under the relative selling price method using the selling price hierarchy established in ASU 2009-13. This hierarchy requires the selling price of each deliverable in a multiple deliverable arrangement to be based on, in descending order: (i) vendor-specific objective evidence of fair value, or VSOE, (ii) third-party evidence of fair value, or TPE, or (iii) management’s best estimate of the selling price, or BESP.

We are not able to determine VSOE or TPE for our deliverables, because the deliverables are typically bundled and infrequently sold separately within a consistent price range. Additionally, management has determined that there are no third-party offerings reasonably comparable to our solutions. Therefore, the selling prices of subscriptions to the SaaS solutions and professional services are based on BESP. The determination of BESP requires us to make significant estimates and judgments. We consider numerous factors, including the nature of the deliverables themselves, geography, customer size and number of users, and discounting practices. The determination of BESP is made through consultation with senior management. We update our estimates of BESP on an ongoing basis as events and as circumstances may require. As our marketing strategies evolve, we may modify its pricing practices in the future, which could result in changes in relative selling prices and BESP.

In addition to our direct sales and marketing efforts, we have strategic relationships with business process outsourcers, or BPOs, and resellers. The BPOs and resellers place orders with us after receiving an order from an end customer. The BPOs and resellers receive business terms of sale similar to those received by our direct customers, and payment to us is not contingent on the receipt of payment from the end customer. The BPOs and resellers negotiate pricing with the end customer and are responsible for implementation services, if any, and for certain support levels directly with the end customer. We recognize revenue over the term of the arrangement for the contractual amount charged to the BPO or reseller, once access to our solution has been provided to the end customer provided that the other revenue recognition criteria noted above have been met.

 

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Deferred Sales Commissions

Deferred sales commissions are the incremental costs that are directly associated with non-cancelable subscription contracts with customers and consist of sales commissions paid to our direct sales force and third-party partners. The commissions are deferred and amortized over the non-cancelable terms of the related customer contracts, which are typically one year in duration. The commission payments are paid in full the month after the customer’s service commences. The deferred commission amounts are recoverable through the future revenue streams under the non-cancelable customer contracts. We believe this is the preferable method of accounting as the sales commission charges are so closely related to the revenue from the non-cancelable customer contracts that they should be recorded as an asset and charged to expense over the same period that the subscription revenue is recognized. Amortization of deferred sales commissions is included in sales and marketing in our consolidated statements of operations.

Stock-based Compensation

We account for stock-based compensation awards granted to employees and directors based on the awards’ estimated grant date fair value. We estimate the fair value of our stock options using the Black-Scholes option-pricing model. For awards that vest solely based on continued service (“service-only vesting conditions”), the resulting fair value, net of estimated forfeitures, is recognized on a straight-line basis over the period during which an employee is required to provide service in exchange for the award, usually the vesting period, which is generally four years. We recognize the fair value of stock options which contain performance conditions based upon the probability of the performance conditions being met, net of estimated forfeitures, using the graded vesting method. Estimated forfeitures are based upon our historical experience and we revise our estimates, if necessary, in subsequent periods if actual forfeitures differ from initial estimates.

Determining the grant date fair value of options using the Black-Scholes option pricing model requires management to make assumptions and judgments. These estimates involve inherent uncertainties and if different assumptions had been used, stock-based compensation expense could have been materially different from the amounts recorded.

The assumptions and estimates are as follows:

 

•

Value per share of our common stock.    Prior to our initial public offering in October 2016, because there was no public market for our common stock, our management, with the assistance of a third-party valuation specialist, determined the fair value of our common stock at the time of the grant of stock options by considering a number of objective and subjective factors, including our actual operating and financial performance, market conditions and performance of comparable publicly-traded companies, developments and milestones in our company, the likelihood of achieving a liquidity event and transactions involving our common stock, among other factors. The fair value of the underlying common stock was determined by our board of directors through the date of the initial public offering. The fair value of our common stock was determined in accordance with applicable elements of the practice aid issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Valuation of Privately Held Company Equity Securities Issued as Compensation. For awards granted subsequent to our initial public offering, the fair value of our common stock is based on the closing price of our common stock, as reported on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, on the date of grant.

 

•

Expected volatility.    We determine the expected volatility based on historical average volatilities of similar publicly traded companies corresponding to the expected term of the awards.

 

•

Expected term.    We determine the expected term of awards which contain service-only vesting conditions using the simplified approach, in which the expected term of an award is

 

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presumed to be the mid-point between the vesting date and the expiration date of the award. For awards granted which contain performance conditions, we estimate the expected term based on estimates of post-vesting employment termination behavior taking into account the life of the award.

 

•

Risk-free interest rate.    The risk-free interest rate is based on the United States Treasury yield curve in effect during the period the options were granted corresponding to the expected term of the awards.

 

•

Estimated dividend yield.    The estimated dividend yield is zero, as we do not currently intend to declare dividends in the foreseeable future.

In October 2016, we granted options to purchase shares of common stock to two executive officers that vest upon meeting certain performance conditions and continued service. The performance conditions include meeting yearly cash flow targets and cumulative annual recurring revenue targets through 2019. If each yearly cash flow target is met through 2019, but the full cumulative annual recurring target through 2019 is not met, the executive officers are still able to vest in the award if an additional cash flow target for 2020 and a cumulative annual recurring revenue target through 2020 are achieved. The cash flow performance targets for each year are determined concurrently with the annual budget process and because each yearly target has not yet been set, no grant date for the options has been established. As of December 31, 2016, we determined that the achievement of the performance targets is not probable and accordingly, no stock-based compensation expense has been recorded for these awards. To the extent that the awards become probable of vesting prior to the grant date, the amount of compensation cost to be recognized will be based on the then fair value of the options. The fair value of the options will be remeasured each period until a grant date has been established. Accordingly, stock-based compensation cost, if any, to be recognized will depend on the value of the stock options when all performance conditions have been set and whether the performance conditions are probable of being achieved.

Capitalized Software Costs

We account for the costs of computer software obtained or developed for internal use in accordance with ASC 350, Intangibles-Goodwill and Other (“ASC 350”). We capitalize certain costs in the development of our SaaS subscription solutions when (i) the preliminary project stage is completed, (ii) management has authorized further funding for the completion of the project and (iii) it is probable that the project will be completed and performed as intended. These capitalized costs include personnel and related expenses for employees and costs of third-party contractors who are directly associated with and who devote time to internal-use software projects and, when material, interest costs incurred during the development. Capitalization of these costs ceases once the project is substantially complete and the software is ready for its intended purpose. Costs incurred for significant upgrades and enhancements to our SaaS software solutions are also capitalized. Costs incurred for post-configuration training, maintenance and minor modifications or enhancements are expensed as incurred. Capitalized software development costs are amortized using the straight-line method over an estimated useful life of three years.

Business Combinations

The results of businesses acquired in a business combination are included in our consolidated financial statements from the date of the acquisition. Purchase accounting results in assets and liabilities of an acquired business being recorded at their estimated fair values on the acquisition date. Any excess consideration over the fair value of assets acquired and liabilities assumed is recognized as goodwill.

 

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We perform valuations of assets acquired and liabilities assumed and allocate the purchase price to its respective assets and liabilities. Determining the fair value of assets acquired and liabilities assumed requires our management to use significant judgment and estimates including the selection of valuation methodologies, estimates of future revenue, costs and cash flows, discount rates and selection of comparable companies. We engage the assistance of valuation specialists in concluding on fair value measurements in connection with determining fair values of assets acquired and liabilities assumed in a business combination.

The fair value of the deferred revenue at the date of acquisition is determined based on the estimated direct and incremental costs to fulfill the legal performance obligations associated with the deferred revenue, plus a reasonable profit margin. To the extent that the fair value of deferred revenue at the acquisition date is less than it’s then carrying value, the revenue in periods subsequent to the acquisition date is reduced until such time that the underlying revenue is recognized.

Contingent consideration payable in cash arising from business combinations is recorded as a liability and measured at fair value each period. Changes in fair value are recorded in general and administrative expenses in the consolidated statements of operations. Determining the fair value of the contingent consideration each period requires our management to make assumptions and judgments. These estimates involve inherent uncertainties and if different assumptions had been used, the fair value of contingent consideration could have been materially different from the amounts recorded. We are required to pay up to a maximum of $8 million of contingent consideration relating to our 2013 Acquisition if we realize a tax benefit from the use of net operating losses generated from the stock option exercises concurrent with the 2013 Acquisition. We determine the fair value of contingent consideration by discounting estimated future taxable income. The significant inputs used in the fair value measurement of contingent consideration are the timing and amount of taxable income in any given period and determining an appropriate discount rate which considers the risk associated with the forecasted taxable income. Significant changes in the estimated future taxable income and the periods in which they are generated would significantly impact the fair value of the contingent consideration liability.

Income Taxes

We use the liability method of accounting for income taxes. Under the liability method, deferred taxes are determined based on the temporary differences between the financial statement and tax bases of assets and liabilities, using tax rates expected to be in effect during the years in which the bases differences are expected to reverse. A valuation allowance is recorded when it is more likely than not that some of the deferred tax assets will not be realized.

We have assessed our income tax positions and recorded tax benefits for all years subject to examination, based upon our evaluation of the facts, circumstances and information available at each period-end. For those tax positions where we have determined there is a greater than 50% likelihood that a tax benefit will be sustained, we have recorded the largest amount of tax benefit that may potentially be realized upon ultimate settlement with a taxing authority that has full knowledge of all relevant information. For those income tax positions where we have determined there is a less than 50% likelihood that a tax benefit will be sustained, no tax benefit has been recognized in our financial statements.

Fair Value of Common Stock Warrants

In September 2013, in connection with a $25 million term loan agreement, we issued warrants to purchase 499,999 shares of common stock at an exercise price per share of $5.00. The warrants are exercisable at any time by the holder and expire upon the earlier of ten years from the issuance date or the sale of our company.

 

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These warrants are classified as a liability and are measured at fair value each period with changes in fair value recorded in our consolidated statement of operations. The warrants will continue to be measured at fair value each period until the earlier of exercise or termination.

Determining the fair value of the common stock warrants each period requires our management to make assumptions and judgments. These estimates involve inherent uncertainties and if different assumptions had been used, fair value of the common stock warrants could have been materially different from the amounts recorded. The fair value is determined using a binomial lattice valuation model. The significant inputs used in the fair value measurement of the common stock warrants are the estimated fair value of our common stock and to a lesser extent the expected stock volatility, the probability of a change in control and future stock issuances which impact the term of the warrants. Significant increases or decreases in the estimated fair value of our common stock would significantly impact the fair value of the warrant liability. The fair value of our common stock is based on a number of quantitative and qualitative factors as described in Stock-Based Compensation section above.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

See Note 2, “Significant Accounting Policies-Recently Issued Accounting Standards,” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements and Note 2, “Basis of Presentation, Significant Accounting Policies and Recently-Issued Accounting Pronouncements,” of the Notes to Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements included elsewhere in this prospectus for a description of recent accounting pronouncements, including the expected dates of adoption and estimated effects on our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk

We have operations both within the United States and internationally, and we are exposed to market risks in the ordinary course of our business. These risks primarily include interest rate, foreign exchange and inflation risks, as well as risks relating to changes in the general economic conditions in the countries where we conduct business. To reduce these risks, we monitor the financial condition of our clients and limit credit exposure by collecting in advance and setting credit limits as we deem appropriate. In addition, our investment strategy has historically been to invest in financial instruments that are highly liquid and readily convertible into cash and that mature within three months from the date of purchase. To date, we have not used derivative instruments to mitigate the impact of our market risk exposures. We have also not used, nor do we intend to use, derivatives for trading or speculative purposes.

Interest Rate Risk

We are exposed to market risk related to changes in interest rates.

We had cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities of $101.3 million as of March 31, 2017. Our cash equivalents and marketable securities consist of highly liquid, investment-grade commercial paper, corporate bonds, U.S. treasury bonds, and asset-backed securities. The carrying amount of our cash equivalents and marketable securities reasonably approximates fair value due to the highly liquid nature of these instruments. The primary objectives of our investment activities are the preservation of capital, the fulfillment of liquidity needs and the fiduciary control of cash and investments. We do not enter into investments for trading or speculative purposes. Our investments are exposed to market risk due to fluctuations in interest rates, which may affect our interest income and the fair market value of our investments. Due to the short-term nature of our investment portfolio, however, we do not believe an immediate 10% increase or decrease in interest rates would have a material effect on the fair market value of our portfolio. We therefore do not expect our operating results or cash flows to be materially affected by a sudden change in market interest rates.

 

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We do not believe our cash equivalents and marketable securities have significant risk of default or illiquidity. While we believe our cash equivalents and marketable securities do not contain excessive risk, we cannot provide absolute assurance that in the future our investments will not be subject to adverse changes in market value. In addition, we maintain significant amounts of cash and cash equivalents at one or more financial institutions that are in excess of federally insured limits. We cannot be assured that we will not experience losses on these deposits.

Foreign Currency Risk

We have foreign currency risks related to our revenue and operating expenses denominated in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar. Our historical revenues have primarily been denominated in U.S. Dollars, and a significant portion of our current revenues continue to be denominated in U.S. Dollars. However, we expect an increasing portion of our future revenues to be denominated in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar, primarily the Euro and British pound. The effect of an immediate 10% adverse change in foreign exchange rates on foreign-denominated accounts receivable at March 31, 2017 would not be material to our financial condition or results of operations. Our operating expenses are generally denominated in the currencies of the countries in which our operations are located, primarily the United States and, to a much lesser extent, the United Kingdom, other European Union countries, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa. Increases and decreases in our foreign-denominated revenue from movements in foreign exchange rates are partially offset by the corresponding decreases or increases in our foreign-denominated operating expenses.

As our international operations grow, our risks associated with fluctuation in currency rates will become greater, and we will continue to reassess our approach to managing this risk. In addition, currency fluctuations or a weakening U.S. Dollar can increase the costs of our international expansion. To date, we have not entered into any foreign currency hedging contracts, since exchange rate fluctuations have not had a material impact on our operating results and cash flows. Based on our current international structure, we do not plan on engaging in hedging activities in the near future.

Inflation Risk

We do not believe that inflation has had a material effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. Nonetheless, if our costs were to become subject to significant inflationary pressures, we may not be able to fully offset such higher costs through price increases. Our inability or failure to do so could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

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BUSINESS

Overview

We have created a comprehensive cloud-based software platform designed to transform and modernize accounting and finance operations for organizations of all types and sizes. Our secure, scalable platform supports critical accounting processes such as the financial close, account reconciliation, intercompany accounting, and controls assurance. By introducing software to automate these processes and to enable them to function continuously, we empower our customers to improve the integrity of their financial reporting, achieve efficiencies and enhance real-time visibility into their operations.

Critical accounting and finance processes underlie the integrity of an organization’s financial reports. The lack of effective accounting and finance tools can result in inefficient and cumbersome processes and, in some cases, accounting errors, restatements and write-offs, as well as material weaknesses and significant deficiencies. Traditional enterprise resource planning, or ERP, systems do not generally provide effective solutions for processes handled outside of an organization’s general ledger, such as balance sheet account reconciliation, intercompany transaction accounting and the broader financial close process. Many organizations also use multiple ERPs and other financial systems without a platform to efficiently integrate them. As a result, to manage these tasks, organizations rely on spreadsheets and other error-prone and labor-intensive processes that are unsuited for the increasing regulatory complexity and transaction volumes encountered by many modern businesses. We believe that we are creating a new category of powerful cloud-based software that is capable of automating and streamlining accounting and finance operations, in a manner that complements and supports traditional ERP systems. We believe our customers benefit from cost savings through improvements in process management and staff productivity, in addition to managing a faster financial close.

Our mission is to transform how accounting and finance departments operate. Our approach modernizes what historically has been done through batch processing and manual controls typically applied only during the month, quarter or year-end financial close, and delivers dynamic workflows embedded within a real-time, highly automated framework, a process we refer to as “continuous accounting.” It also enables up-to-date analytics, provides industry-benchmarked metrics and is designed to help customers run more efficiently while achieving greater accuracy, control and transparency. We believe the need for our software has been driven by growing business and information technology complexities, transaction volumes and expanding regulatory requirements. Our software integrates with, and obtains data from, more than 30 different ERP systems, including NetSuite, Oracle, SAP, and Workday, as well as many other financial systems and applications such as bank accounts, sub-ledgers and in-house databases.

We believe that we have a leading position in the enhanced financial controls and automation market because we were one of the first companies to bring software with this functionality to market and we have a limited number of competitors. The 2016 Gartner Report^* identified us as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Financial Corporate Performance Management Solutions for our completeness of vision and ability to execute. According to a study we commissioned with Frost & Sullivan, in 2015 there were more than 46,000 corporate organizations in North America and more than 165,000 worldwide that are in our addressable market with revenues greater than $50 million. According to Frost & Sullivan, these companies employ over 13 million accounting and finance personnel, with over 5.5 million in North America alone, all of whom could be potential users of our software platform. Based

 

*	See “Industry and Market Data.”

 

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on its assessment of the number of corporate organizations, accounting and finance personnel globally and certain assumptions regarding pricing of our products, Frost & Sullivan estimates that our total addressable market in 2015 was $7.2 billion in North America and $9.4 billion in Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America, and is expected to grow to a global total addressable market of $19.7 billion by 2018.

We sell our software solutions primarily through our direct sales force, which leverages our relationships with technology vendors, professional services firms and business process outsourcers, to expand our sales process and market reach. Our distribution strategy is based on a “land-and-expand” model and is designed to capitalize on the ease of use and implementation. Our customers include large public and private organizations and small and medium-size businesses across a variety of industries, including healthcare, technology, telecommunications, financial services, consumer retail, and industrial equipment and services. As of March 31, 2017, we had more than 1,800 customers with over 170,000 users in over 130 countries exclusive of the Runbook Acquisition as described below. Additionally, we continue to build strategic relationships with technology vendors, professional services firms, business process outsourcers, and resellers.

We are a holding company and conduct our operations through our wholly-owned subsidiary, BlackLine Systems, Inc. BlackLine Systems, Inc. funded its business with investments from Therese Tucker, our founder and Chief Executive Officer, and cash flows from operations until September 3, 2013, when we acquired BlackLine Systems, Inc. and Silver Lake Sumeru and Iconiq acquired a controlling interest in us, which we refer to as the “2013 Acquisition.” We refer to Silver Lake Sumeru and Iconiq collectively as our “Investors.” The 2013 Acquisition was accounted for as a business combination under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America, or GAAP, and resulted in a change in accounting basis as of the date of the 2013 Acquisition.

On August 31, 2016, we acquired Runbook. The primary purpose of the Runbook Acquisition was to enhance our position as a leading provider of software solutions to automate the financial close process for SAP customers and secondarily to support our European expansion strategy.

We have experienced significant revenue growth and adoption of our platform in recent periods. For the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, we had revenues of $123.1 million and $83.6 million, respectively, and we incurred net losses of $39.2 million and $24.7 million, respectively. For the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, we had revenues of $38.6 million and $26.6 million, respectively, and we incurred net losses of $9.0 million and $9.3 million, respectively. See “Summary Consolidated Financial Data” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and other information included in this prospectus for a discussion of our financial performance.

Industry Background

Accounting is a Universal Mission-Critical Function

Organizations need reliable financial information to plan and execute business initiatives, measure operational progress and satisfy regulatory and financial obligations. For each period-end, enterprise accounting functions typically record, process, reconcile, consolidate, and report financial transactions that are consolidated into useable financial information. These activities typically support other core business functions such as payroll, treasury, procure-to-pay, and order-to-cash processes. Traditionally, many accounting processes, such as balance sheet account reconciliation, intercompany transaction accounting and the broader financial close calendar, are managed and tracked with spreadsheets that are manually reconciled on a periodic basis, and which are often labor-intensive, inefficient and error-prone. The risks of employing traditional methods include lapses in regulatory compliance, damage to brand and public image, and negative impacts on financial health and transparency.

 

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Modern Business is Increasingly Complex

Organizations of all sizes are operating in an increasingly global, complex and fast-moving business environment that presents significant challenges to the performance of the accounting and finance functions. Accountants must process and verify transactions that occur both within and across international borders, involve multiple currencies and require compliance with varying legal, regulatory and tax frameworks. This transactional complexity is exacerbated by other factors typical of global business, such as distance, language barriers and differing time zones. In addition, modern enterprises generate massive amounts of transaction data. It is common for organizations to have thousands of different accounts-potentially comprising billions of records-and to use numerous different financial and operational systems to store that data. Furthermore, companies employ increasingly sophisticated corporate structures that often require accountants to reconcile accounts across various business units and geographies. We believe that the complexity of modern corporate structures and transactions, combined with mounting transaction volumes and a fragmented information technology landscape, creates a significant need for increased automation, efficiency and visibility in accounting and finance.

The Risk of Regulatory Non-Compliance is Significant

Public accounting follows a variety of rules and standards for the processing, recognition and reporting of transactions. These standards, such as generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, and International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, are highly specific, apply differently across industries and geographies and, in some cases, provide conflicting guidance. More specific frameworks such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 govern internal controls, disclosure management and audit conduct. Some highly-regulated industries, including financial services, gaming and insurance, have additional specific regulatory requirements. In addition, accounting standards periodically change, such as the revenue recognition accounting standard issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or the FASB in 2014, which must be adopted by public companies by next year and will require an overhaul of many public accounting systems and practices. The resulting tangle of stringent, changing and sometimes conflicting regulations typically requires that organizations maintain more than one set of records, invest heavily in implementing and monitoring internal controls, and undergo expensive and time-consuming audits.

Incorrect financial information can have severe repercussions. A single restatement can cost millions of dollars in forensic accounting and audit fees, lead to significant remediation expenses, generate investor lawsuits, and seriously damage an enterprise’s reputation. A material weakness can also trigger noncompliance with debt covenants and damage an organization’s credit-worthiness. The Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has also proposed new rules that will require companies to “claw back” incentive-based executive compensation as a result of an accounting restatement. According to the Center for Audit Quality, from 2003 to 2012, 10,479 accounting restatements were reported by SEC reporting companies, including 4,246 restatements requiring reissuance of the affected financial statements, and there was a demonstrated negative near-term effect on the public market price of securities of many companies making such restatements.

Companies Lack Real-Time, Actionable Data from Their Accounting Departments

As complexity, transaction volume and regulatory scrutiny increase, management teams often find themselves without clear and immediate insight into their accounting and finance processes and results. In most cases, the accounting department’s work is done within desktop applications or with the use of spreadsheets, leaving management with an incomplete view of their progress in closing, consolidating and reporting each period. By the time data is manually compiled, it is often days or weeks out-of-date, limiting the ability to effectively track and analyze fluctuations and trends, detailed metrics on individual and team performance, and transaction risk profiles in a timely manner.

 

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Such lack of visibility limits the ability of accounting managers to influence ongoing accounting operations. Instead, they are often relegated to conducting quality control measures after a process is completed. Important decisions may be made by less experienced employees and costly errors, such as unreconciled balances or unapproved fund transfers, may go undetected. In addition, the discipline of accounting frequently lacks established metrics by which to gauge performance.

Accounting Professionals Face Compressed Deadlines and a Heightened Expectation of Accuracy

Many organizations, and public companies in particular, have adopted a practice of reporting financial information by a fixed date following their quarter close. Given limited resources, an accelerated timetable can put immense pressure on a company’s accounting function. Accounting professionals are expected not only to address business and regulatory challenges but also to achieve completeness and accuracy of operating results to ensure financial integrity. Given these challenges and deadlines, accountants are often forced to leave certain accounts and transactions unreconciled, which can dramatically increase risk and create situations of concern for controllers, chief financial officers and audit committee members.

Traditional Accounting Processes and Tools are Inefficient

The processes and software solutions traditionally employed by accountants, such as general ledgers and ERP systems, do not provide effective solutions for critical, non-general ledger accounting and finance processes such as balance sheet account reconciliation, intercompany transaction accounting and the overall management of the entire financial close process. Most core accounting and finance systems are designed as batch transaction repositories without the ability to consume and process continuous streams of data. In addition, most organizations use multiple ERPs and many other financial systems across their IT environments. Traditionally available accounting tools are inflexible, expensive to configure and maintain, and do not scale easily. As a result, we are addressing a clear need for new scalable accounting and finance tools that can consume data from a variety of sources, process it quickly with embedded business logic, provide a collaborative workspace for accountants, and then store information within a data warehouse or ERP system. Furthermore, accounting processes themselves have not evolved over time and instead remain focused on producing financial information only after period-end, ignoring the growing demand for a more streamlined, continuous approach to accounting.

The BlackLine Solution

We provide a powerful cloud-based software platform designed to automate and streamline accounting and finance operations. The key elements of our solutions include:

Comprehensive Platform

We offer an integrated suite of applications that delivers a broad range of capabilities that would otherwise require the purchase and use of multiple products to support critical accounting processes such as the financial close, account reconciliations, intercompany accounting, and controls assurance. Our platform consists of seven core cloud-based products, including Account Reconciliation, Task Management, Transaction Matching, Journal Entry, Variance Analysis, Consolidation Integrity Manager, and Daily Reconciliation. Customers typically purchase these products in packages that we refer to as solutions, but they have the option to purchase these products individually. Current solutions include our Reconciliation Management and Financial Close Management, Intercompany Hub, and Insights. The technology underpinning our platform includes a comprehensive base of accounting-specific business logic and rules engines, which enable our customers to implement continuous accounting.

 

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Enterprise Integration

Our platform provides simple, secure and automated tools and integrations to transfer data to and from a range of enterprise-wide processes and systems, including ERPs, financial systems and in-house databases, and other custom applications and data. Our platform integrates with over 30 ERP systems, including NetSuite, Oracle, SAP, and Workday. In addition, for companies with multiple systems and complex needs, we can connect with any number of general ledger systems simultaneously, resolving many of the issues associated with consolidating data across systems.

Independence

Our platform is not dependent on any single operating system and works with most major ERP systems our customers may use. Our cross-system functionality allows us to reach a broader group of customers. We are also able to focus on and innovate for the needs of the customers irrespective of updates or changes in their existing systems. We believe this independence provides us with a competitive advantage in the industry over traditional methods.

Ease of Use

Our platform is designed by accountants, for accountants, to be intuitive and easy to use. We strive to enable any user to rapidly implement our platform to manage their accounting and finance activities, from the simplest to the most sophisticated tasks. Our user-friendly interface provides clear visualization of accounting and finance data, enables user collaboration and streamlines business processes.

Innovation

Our ability to develop innovative products has been a key driver of our success and organic growth. Through a history and culture of thought leadership, we have created a new category of powerful software that automates and streamlines antiquated, manual accounting processes to better meet our clients’ diverse and rapidly changing needs, and we continue to focus on providing advanced solutions to time and labor intensive accounting practices. Examples of recent innovations include the launches of our Intercompany Hub solution, which is designed to manage all intercompany transactions through one centralized, cloud-based system, and the launch of our Insights solution, which provides real-time performance measures and a benchmarking dashboard.

Security

The robust security features embedded in our platform are designed to meet or exceed both industry standards and the stringent security requirements of our customers. We engage independent security auditors to assess the effectiveness of our comprehensive information security program consisting of risk-driven policies and procedures.

Key Benefits

Our platform is designed to provide the following benefits to our customers:

Flexibility and scalability

Our unified cloud platform is designed for modern business environments and has broad applicability across large and small organizations in almost any industry. The platform supports complex corporate structures, provides integration across all core financial systems, manages multiple currencies and languages, and scales to support high transaction volumes.

 

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Embedded controls and workflow

Our platform was designed for the complex global regulatory environment. Our platform embeds key controls within standardized, repeatable and well-documented workflows, which are designed to result in substantially reduced risk of non-compliance or negative audit findings, greater tolerance for regulatory complexity and increased confidence in financial reports.

Real-time visibility

We provide users with real-time visibility into the status, progress and quality of their accounting processes. With configurable dashboards, user-defined reporting and the ability to drill down to individual reconciliations, journals and tasks, users can track open items, identify bottlenecks within a process or intervene to prevent mistakes.

Automation and efficiency

Our platform can ingest data from a variety of sources, including ERP systems and other data repositories, and apply powerful, rules-driven automation to reconciliations, journals and transactions. This streamlines accounting processes, minimizes manual data entry and improves individual productivity to help ensure that accounting processes are completed on time. As a result, this automation allows users to focus on value-added activities instead of process management.

Continuous processing

Our platform helps organizations embed quality control, compliance and financial integrity into their day-to-day processes rather than rely on the traditional process of validating financial information at the end of each period. Activities such as account reconciliation and variance analysis can be performed in real-time, thus reducing the risk of errors and creating a more agile accounting environment.

Our Growth Strategy

We intend to continue investing in a number of growth initiatives to provide our customers with advanced solutions and to address and expand our market opportunity. Our principal growth strategies include the following:

Continue to Innovate and Expand Our Platform

Our ability to develop new, market-leading applications and functionalities is integral to our success. We intend to continue extending the functionality and range of our applications to bring new and improved solutions to accounting and finance. Examples of recent innovations include the launch of our Intercompany Hub solution, which is designed to manage all intercompany transactions through one centralized, cloud-based system and the launch of our Insights solution, which provides real-time performance measures and a benchmarking dashboard.

Enhance Our Leadership Position in the Enterprise Market and Mid-Market Customer Base

We believe we have a leading position in the enhanced financial controls and automation market with both enterprise market and mid-market customers, and we were recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Report^* in the Magic Quadrant for Financial Corporate Performance Management Solutions for

 

*	See “Industry and Market Data.”

 

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our completeness of vision and ability to execute. We had more than 1,800 customers across a variety of industries and geographies as of March 31, 2017 exclusive of the Runbook Acquisition. Our customers include some of the largest multi-national enterprises, as well as leading medium and small businesses around the world. We intend to leverage our brand, history of innovation and customer focus to maintain and grow our leadership position with enterprise market customers. We believe that mid-market businesses are particularly underserved and that our platform can help these businesses modernize their accounting and finance processes efficiently and effectively. We have made recent investments to grow our mid-market sales team and plan to continue leveraging our network of resellers to grow our mid-market business globally.

Increase Customer Spend through Expanded Usage and Adoption of Additional Products

We believe there is a significant opportunity to increase sales of our products within our existing customer base. We pursue a land-and-expand sales model to increase the use of our platform by selling additional solutions and features and increasing the number of users within our customers’ organizations. Our pricing model is designed to allow us to capture additional revenue as our customers’ usage of our platform grows, providing us with an opportunity to increase the lifetime value of our customer relationships.

Expand Our International Operations and Customer Footprint

We believe that we have a significant opportunity to expand the use of our cloud-based products outside the United States. We derived approximately 19% of our revenues from sales outside the United States in the three months ended March 31, 2017, and we derived approximately 16% of our revenues from sales outside of the United States in the year ended December 31, 2016. We believe there are substantial opportunities to increase sales to customers outside of the U.S. In August 2016, we acquired Runbook primarily to enhance our position as a leading provider of software solutions to automate the financial close process for SAP customers and secondarily to support our European expansion strategy. We currently have users in over 130 countries, and our platform supports applicable international accounting standards, as well as 16 languages and all currencies specified by the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO currencies. We have an established presence in Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, and Singapore, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, and we intend to invest in further expanding our footprint in these and other regions.

Extend Our Customer Relationships and Distribution Channels

We have established strong relationships with key industry participants to supplement marketing and delivery of our applications. These relationships include agreements with technology vendors such as SAP and NetSuite, professional services firms such as Deloitte and KPMG, and business process outsourcers, or BPOs, such as Cognizant, Genpact and IBM.

These relationships enable us to effectively market our solutions by offering a complementary suite of services to our customers. In particular, we offer our customers an integrated SAP-endorsed business solution through our relationship with SAP. We intend to continue to strengthen and expand our existing relationships, seek new relationships and further expand our distribution channels to help us expand into new markets and increase our presence in existing markets.

Customers

Our customers include multinational corporations, large domestic enterprises and mid-market companies across a broad array of industries. These businesses include publicly-listed entities and privately-owned enterprises, as well as non-profit entities. As of March 31, 2017, we had over 170,000

 

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individual users in over 130 countries across more than 1,800 customers exclusive of the Runbook Acquisition. We define a customer as an entity with an active subscription agreement as of the measurement date. In situations where an organization has multiple subsidiaries or divisions, each entity that is invoiced as a separate entity is treated as a separate customer. However, where an existing customer requests its invoice be divided for the sole purpose of restructuring its internal billing arrangement without any incremental increase in revenue, such customer continues to be treated as a single customer. For the three months ended March 31, 2017, sales to enterprise and mid-market customers represented 84% and 16% of our revenues, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, sales to enterprise customers represented 85% and 86% of our revenues, respectively, while sales to mid-market customers represented 15% and 14% of our revenues, respectively.

Our customers operate in complex, diverse and often global information technology ecosystems with numerous general ledgers, sub-ledgers, treasury systems, and ERP systems from different vendors, including NetSuite, Oracle, SAP, and Workday. Our platform is designed for and used by employees across the organization, including end users such as internal accounting employees, controllers and chief accounting officers, as well as chief financial officers and other senior executives and external auditors.

We believe our customers benefit from improvements in process management and staff productivity, in addition to a faster financial close. Cost savings are achieved from the reconciliations of accounts, across approval and review roles, in process administration, and in audit, storage and paper expenses.

The following is a sample of our current customers across some of the industries we serve. The customers below vary in size of their respective business and the amount of revenue we derive from them.

 

Consumer/Retail		Healthcare		Financial Services
Costco Wholesale Corporation Kraft Heinz Foods Company Mondelez The Coca-Cola Company Under Armour		Alliance Healthcare Services American Dental Partners, Inc. Brooks Rehabilitation DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc. Shire Pharmaceuticals Zeltiq Aesthetic		CSAA Insurance Exchange Russell Investment Group RSA Insurance Group plc SunTrust Bank Xoom Corporation
Technology		Industrial/Energy		Services
Adaptive Insights Autodesk GoDaddy.com Rackspace Zendesk, Inc.		British Gas Trading Limited Greif Inc. Hubbell Incorporated Kimberly-Clark Global Sales, LLC		Brink’s Company Kempinski Hotels Orange Lake Resorts SiriusXM Radio Inc.

Products and Services

Our platform consists of seven core cloud-based products, including Transaction Matching, Account Reconciliations, Consolidation Integrity Manager, Journal Entry, Variance Analysis, Task Management, and Daily Reconciliations. Customers typically purchase these in packages that we refer to as solutions, but they have the option to purchase these products individually. While our current solutions include our Reconciliation Management, Financial Close Management, Intercompany Hub, and Insights, we update our solution packages from time to time.

 

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Reconciliation Management

The process of verifying and validating transactions, balances and consolidated financial results is referred to as account reconciliation. Our Reconciliation Management solution provides a framework for the reconciliation process, allowing users to build integrity checks and automation into the entire end-to-end work flow. The solution includes:

 

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Account Reconciliations provides a centralized workspace from which users can collaborate to complete account reconciliations. Features include standardized templates, workflows for review and approval, linkage to policies and procedures, and integrated storage of supporting documentation. The product automates otherwise manual activities in the reconciliation process, significantly reducing time and effort and increasing productivity. It also enhances internal controls by facilitating the appropriate segregation of duties, simplifying reconciliation audits and adding transparency and visibility to the reconciliation process.

 

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Transaction Matching analyzes and reconciles high volumes of individual transactions from different sources of data based upon user-configured logic. Our rules engine automatically identifies exceptions, errors, missing data, and variances within massive data sets. The matching engine processes millions of records per minute, can be used with any type of data and allows customers to reconcile transactions in real-time.

 

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Consolidation Integrity Manager manages the automated system-to-system tie-out process that occurs during the consolidation phase of the financial close. Companies with multiple ERPs utilize a consolidation system to produce their consolidated financial results. Because these systems contain and produce information that changes continually and requires constant adjustments, a final tie-out that is typically handled manually in a spreadsheet is necessary

 

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prior to publishing results. This product automates the tie-out process, aggregating balances from dozens or hundreds of different systems and allowing users to identify exceptions and create adjustments quickly.

 

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Daily Reconciliations narrows the scope of a reconciliation to a single day’s transactions or balance detail. Users can then perform their analysis in minutes per day, rather than attempting to review an entire month’s worth of activity in a limited time during the period-end close. Some industries, such as banking, require that organizations track the creation and certification of daily reconciliations. Daily reconciliations are a prime example of continuous accounting in action.

Financial Close Management

The collection of processes by which organizations reconcile, consolidate and report on their financial information at the end of each period is referred to as the financial close. Our Financial Close Management solution allows customers to manage the key steps within the close, applying automation where possible, and ensure that tasks are properly completed and reviewed. This solution includes the components of the Reconciliation Management solution, as well as the following products:

 

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Task Management enables users to create and manage processes and task lists. The product provides automatic and recurring task scheduling, includes configurable workflow and provides a management console for accounting and finance projects. Though most commonly used with the financial close, users can create task lists and projects for hundreds of different use cases ranging from external audits to environmental impact surveys.

 

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Journal Entry allows users to manually or automatically generate, review and post manual journal entries. Journals can be automatically allocated across multiple business units and calculated based on complex, client-defined logic. More importantly, the addition of validation and approval checkpoints helps ensure the integrity of information passed to other financial applications. Customers can use the Journal Entry product to pass information to hundreds of different ERPs and subsystems in a configurable, easily consumable format.

 

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Variance Analysis provides “always-on” monitoring and automatically identifies anomalous fluctuations in balance sheet and income statement account balances. Once an account in flux is identified, users are automatically alerted so they can research and determine the source of the fluctuation.

Intercompany Hub

Intercompany transactions occur when entities within a corporate parent organization transact with each other. These transactions are some of the most complex and frequent sources of uncertainty for the accounting function. Our Intercompany Hub solution, which was made generally available in November 2015, manages the entire intercompany transaction lifecycle within our platform and we believe it is the only widely available end-to-end intercompany solution. This solution includes the following features:

 

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Intercompany Workflow replaces informal, ad-hoc intercompany requests and approvals with a simple, structured workflow approval process. The application stores permissions by entity and transaction type, ensuring that both the initiator and the approver of the intercompany transaction are authorized to conduct business.

 

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Intercompany Processing records an organization’s intercompany transactions once they reach an appropriate completion level and posts them to the appropriate systems from a single source. The product automatically incorporates local taxes, exchange rates, invoicing requirements, and customer-specific transfer pricing so that the resulting journal entries will net, which reduces the possibility of intercompany differences and eliminates the need to perform a manual reconciliation.

 

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Netting and Settlement automatically generate a real-time, aggregated settlement matrix, which shows the balance of transactions across an entire organization. Users can filter the information by transaction type, currency or business relationship, easing the process of netting transactions and helping them make informed, strategic decisions.

Insights

Our platform provides us with detailed information about the accounting and finance function for most of our cloud-based customers. Insights, which was made generally available in November 2015, aggregates and analyzes that information and can help clients assess productivity, risk and timeliness. We also provide a series of key performance indicators and allow clients to compare metrics across their own operating entities, set goals and gauge their performance over time. Insights provides benchmarking, scores for a variety of industries, company sizes, and geographies. These benchmarks are drawn from actual client usage of the application, rather than survey data, which provides valuable context for users.

Services

Customer service is essential to our success. We offer the following services for our customers:

 

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Implementation. With a focus on configuration over customization, our implementation approach favors rapid and efficient deployments led by accounting experts, rather than technical resources. A typical project will focus on mapping our application to a customer’s current or ideal process, coaching them on best practices, and helping organizations become self-sufficient, instead of dependent on additional professional services. For clients that elect to work with a business process outsourcer or other company for implementation services, our implementation team provides ongoing support in order to ensure that the implementation or finance transformation projects are completed successfully. We generally provide this service for a fixed fee.

 

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Support. We provide live customer support 24/7/365 from our offices in Los Angeles, Sydney and London. All customers have access to support resources by phone, email or through our portal, free of charge.

 

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Customer Success. Our customer success managers, many of whom are former users, provide customers with best practices and help create a roadmap for expanded usage of our platform. We believe that this service, which is made available to all customers, is central to our retention and upsell efforts.

 

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Training. We offer a variety of live and web-based training options, but most customers elect to consume their training through our e-learning environment, BlackLine U. Courses cover platform functionality, as well as the underlying concepts that make reconciliation, the financial close and other accounting and finance activities necessary.

Sales and Marketing

We sell our solutions through our direct sales force. Our enterprise field sales team focuses on selling our solutions to large, global enterprises with annual revenues above $500 million and, in North America, our enterprise field sales team focuses on maximizing the lifetime value of our customer relationships through retention and upsell efforts. Our mid-market sales team focuses on selling our solutions to mid-market businesses with annual revenues between $50 million and $500 million. We also have an account management team dedicated to our existing mid-market and international customer base that generates sales by focusing on contract renewals, expanding the current number of users within an organization and up-selling additional products.

 

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Our direct sales force leverages our relationships with technology vendors such as SAP and NetSuite, professional services firms such as Deloitte and KPMG and business process outsourcers such as Cognizant, Genpact and IBM, to influence and drive customer growth. In particular, we offer our customers an integrated SAP-endorsed business solution in connection with our relationship with SAP. We also utilize a reseller channel that includes software vendors throughout the world and offer training in our solutions so that our reach is further extended.

Our marketing efforts are focused on creating sales leads, establishing and extending our brand proposition, generating product awareness, and cultivating our community of users. We generate sales leads primarily through word-of-mouth, search engine marketing, outbound lead generation, and our network of business process outsourcers, business services organizations and resellers. We leverage online and offline marketing channels on a global basis and organize customer roundtables and user conferences and release white papers, case studies, blogs, and digital programs and seminars. We have further extended our brand awareness through sponsorships with leading industry organizations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, or AICPA, the Institute of Management Accountants, or IMA, the Financial Executives International, or FEI, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, or ICAEW, and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, or ACCA.

Technology, Operations and Development

Technology

Our platform has been designed to deliver a consistent, scalable, high-performing, and secure experience for our customers. Our platform is enabled by rules engines, flexible templates, role-based workflows, and accounting-specific business logic. We deliver our hosted solution on a single code base and via a multi-tenant architecture with unique database instances for each customer. All SaaS customers run the current version of our platform and access it through a web browser. We utilize industry-leading hardware and software components to deliver on the following objectives:

 

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Scalability and Performance.     Our platform supports a high, sustained level of client activity and a large, globally distributed client base while remaining high-performing and reliable. Our infrastructure incorporates load balancing technology and can scale quickly to absorb spikes in usage. We also monitor application performance and intervene, as necessary, to prevent degradation. Finally, our platform incorporates technologies to manage volume within the solutions. These include a near real-time data warehouse, a high-volume transaction processing engine and a custom-built user interface.

 

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Reliability.     During 2016, we had no unscheduled downtime and 99.92% total availability, including scheduled maintenance. Client data is mirrored between primary and alternate data centers, providing effective redundancy and disaster recovery.

 

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Flexibility.     Our application architecture is modular, which allows us to quickly release new products or expand existing feature-sets by combining and configuring existing components. Our development has always been both rapid and responsive, which allows us to support a wide array of clients and bring new products to market while maintaining a consistent user interface and single, cohesive code base.

Security

Due to the sensitive nature of the data we store for our clients, we place a heavy emphasis on security. Our infrastructure and software products are designed to meet and exceed rigorous security standards and to assure customers that we are taking appropriate measure to protect their data.

 

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We maintain a comprehensive information security management system that extends companywide and integrates into our core technology and business processes. This system includes deployment of a variety of detective, preventive and deterrent controls that include technical and administrative safeguards. The controls are regularly tested, both internally and by third-party audits and penetration tests. We are certified for compliance with the ISO 27001 framework, and we regularly undergo SSAE16, ISAE 3402 and SOC audits. We believe that we are in compliance with regulatory requirements and that we employ security best practices. A dedicated team of security professionals orchestrate our information security program. Our information security controls and practices include strong encryption for data at rest and in transit and extensive monitoring with comprehensive security incident detection and response process.

Operations

We host our platform and solutions for our customers in data centers located in North America (Culpeper, Virginia and Las Vegas, Nevada) and Europe (Amsterdam, Netherlands and London, United Kingdom). We contract with Verizon (Virginia and Netherlands), SuperNap (Nevada) and VMware (UK) for use of these data center facilities. These facilities provide extensive physical security, including manned security 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with video surveillance, redundant power and environmental controls, and technical controls, including biometric access. Network equipment, servers and applications are managed by our employees, and we staff a network operations center, or NOC, to monitor performance 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. We regularly conduct risk and security assessments of these facilities and review their SSAE16, SOC and/or ISO 27001 attestations and certifications to ensure that our datacenter providers have adequate controls to maintain availability and security of our services.

Development

Our research and development organization focuses on developing new software solutions and enhancing existing products, conducting software and quality assurance testing and improving our core technology. Our research and development organization is located primarily in our Los Angeles, California headquarters, where we are committed to recruiting, hiring and retaining top technical talent. We invest substantial resources in research and development to drive core technology innovation and to bring new products to market.

Our research and development expenses were $21.1 million, $18.2 million and $5.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, and the three months ended March 31, 2017, respectively. Our research and development expenses as a percentage of revenue were 17.2%, 21.8% and 15.4% for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 and the three months ended March 31, 2017, respectively.

Competition

The market for accounting and financial software and services is competitive, rapidly evolving and requires deep understanding of the industry standards, accounting rules and global financial regulations.

We compete with vendors of financial automation software such as Trintech, and we also compete with components of Oracle’s Hyperion software.

We believe the principal competitive factors in our market include the following:

 

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level of customer satisfaction;

 

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ease of deployment and use of applications;

 

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ability to integrate with multiple legacy enterprise infrastructures and third-party applications;

 

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domain expertise on accounting best practices;

 

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ability to innovate and respond to customer needs rapidly;

 

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capability for configurability, integration and scalability of applications;

 

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cloud-based delivery model;

 

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advanced security and reliability features;

 

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brand recognition and historical operating performance; and

 

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price and total cost of ownership.

We believe we are positioned favorably against our competitors based on these factors. However, certain of our competitors may have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, more established customer and marketing relationships, larger marketing budgets, and significantly greater resources.

Intellectual Property and Proprietary Rights

Our intellectual property and proprietary rights are important to our business. We currently have one pending patent application. We primarily rely on copyright, trade secret and trademark laws, trade secret protection, and confidentiality or license agreements with our employees, customers, partners, and others to protect our intellectual property rights. Though we rely in part upon these legal and contractual protections, we believe that factors such as the skills and ingenuity of our employees and the functionality and frequent enhancements to our solutions are larger contributors to our success in the marketplace.

Despite our efforts to preserve and protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights, unauthorized third parties may attempt to copy, reverse engineer or otherwise obtain portions of our software. Competitors may attempt to develop similar products that could compete in the same market as our products. Unauthorized disclosure of our confidential information by our employees or third parties could occur. Laws of other jurisdictions may not protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights from unauthorized use or disclosure in the same manner as the United States. The risk of unauthorized use of our proprietary and intellectual property rights may increase as our company continues to expand outside of the United States.

Third-party infringement claims are also possible in our industry, especially as software functionality and features expand, evolve and overlap with other industry segments.

Information about Segment and Geographic Revenue

Information about segment and geographic revenue is set forth in Notes 2 and 15 of the “Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements” elsewhere in this prospectus.

Employees and Culture

We believe our employees and culture are fundamental to our success. Therese Tucker, our founder and Chief Executive Officer, has led our company since its inception in 2001 and has built and

 

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maintained a culture committed to empowering our employees and communities around us. Our motto “Think. Create. Serve.” expresses our core values as a company dedicated to innovation and creativity, collaboration and action and service to each other and our customers.

We seek to hire talented employees and are focused on their long-term development and training. We work to foster a collaborative, performance-driven working environment where integrity, open and honest communication and accountability are embraced and cultivated. By mixing these important features with an element of fun, we seek to maintain a satisfying workplace for our employees. We are proud of our recognition as a best place to work in the Los Angeles area in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016.

Many of our employees have previously worked for our customers. We believe this uniquely positions us to build compelling and effective products while also enhancing the user experience for our customers. Our desire to build a platform that creates value for all stakeholders in the accounting and financial process informs our decisions regarding product design and development.

We also believe in making a positive impact on our communities. Each year during our annual Users Conference, we join with our customers to perform a day of community service—in 2016, through a joint event with LA Mission, our employees, interested clients and partners volunteered their time to distribute food to local needy residents. In 2014 and 2015, through joint events with Windy City Habitat for Humanity and Atlanta-based Habitat for Humanity, we helped to rebuild homes in the cities of Chicago and Atlanta.

As of March 31, 2017, we employed 640 people globally. None of our employees are represented by a labor union or covered by a collective bargaining agreement. We have not experienced any work stoppages, and we consider our relations with our employees to be good.

Facilities

Our principal executive offices are located in Los Angeles, California where we occupy approximately 66,000 square feet of space under a lease that expires in June 2022. We also occupy additional leased offices located in Chicago, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia; New York, New York; London, the United Kingdom; Melbourne, Australia; Sydney, Australia; Paris, France; Johannesburg, South Africa; Frankfurt, Germany; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Vancouver, Canada; Ede, Netherlands; and Singapore. We believe that our properties are generally suitable to meet our needs for the foreseeable future. In addition, to the extent we require additional space in the future, we believe that it would be readily available on commercially reasonable terms.

Legal Proceedings

From time to time, we may be subject to legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business. In addition, from time to time, third parties may assert intellectual property infringement claims against us in the form of letters and other forms of communication. As of the date of this prospectus, we are not a party to any litigation the outcome of which, if determined adversely to us, would individually or in the aggregate be reasonably expected to have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, prospects, cash flows, financial position or brand.

 

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MANAGEMENT

Executive Officers, Directors and Key Employees

The following table provides information regarding our executive officers, directors and key employees as of May 11, 2017:

 

Name		Age				Position
Executive Officers:
Therese Tucker			55			Chief Executive Officer and Director
Chris Murphy			48			Chief Revenue Officer
Mark Partin			49			Chief Financial Officer
Karole Morgan-Prager			54			Chief Legal and Administrative Officer
Non-Employee Directors:
Jason Babcoke			44			Director
John Brennan			52			Chairman
William Griffith			45			Director
Hollie Haynes			45			Director
Graham Smith			57			Director
Thomas Unterman			72			Director
Other Key Employees:
Max Solonski			45			Chief Security Officer
Mario Spanicciati			36			Chief Marketing Officer and Director
Karen Flathers			50			Chief Customer Officer

Executive Officers

Therese Tucker is our founder and has served as our Chief Executive Officer and a member of our board of directors since August 2001. Prior to founding the Company, Ms. Tucker served as Chief Technology Officer for SunGard Treasury Systems, Inc., a provider of software solutions and information technology services, from 1998 to 2001. Ms. Tucker holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Ms. Tucker is a valuable member of our board of directors, possessing over 25 years of experience in the finance and technology industry and the operational insight and expertise she has accumulated as our founder and Chief Executive Officer.

Chris Murphy has served as our Chief Revenue Officer since March 2014. Prior to joining us, Mr. Murphy served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Financial Solutions Group for Infor, Inc., a provider of business management enterprise software, from March 2004 to February 2014. From May 2003 to February 2004, Mr. Murphy served as the Vice President of Global Sales Operations for Melita International, a provider of customer contact management solutions. From October 1999 to May 2003, Mr. Murphy served as the Vice President of Sales Operations for divine, inc., an internet incubator. From October 1991 to June 1999, Mr. Murphy served in various financial roles for Platinum Technology Inc., a management software and database company, Information Resources, Inc, a market research company, and United States Cellular Corporation, a provider of wireless services. Mr. Murphy holds an M.B.A. from DePaul University, Charles H. Kellstadt Graduate School of Business, a B.S. in finance from University of South Carolina, Darla Moore School of Business and a B.A. in French from University of South Carolina, Columbia.

Mark Partin has served as our Chief Financial Officer since January 2015 and as our Treasurer since February 2015. Prior to joining us, Mr. Partin served as the Chief Financial Officer for Fiberlink

 

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Communications Corporation (now MaaS360, an IBM Company), an Enterprise Mobility Management company from 2005 to 2014. From 1995 to 2005, Mr. Partin served in various senior financial roles for companies such as Headhunter.net, Inc. (now Careerbuilder.com), Contour Medical, Inc. (acquired by Sun Healthcare Group, Inc.), American Health Imaging, and Williams Group International. From 1991 to 1995, Mr. Partin was a CPA and auditor with Arthur Andersen & Co. in Atlanta, Ga. Mr. Partin holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in business administration from the University of Tennessee.

Karole Morgan-Prager has served as our Chief Legal Officer since May 2015 and as our Secretary since August 2015 and was named Chief Legal and Administrative Officer in October 2016. Prior to joining us, Ms. Morgan-Prager served as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of McClatchy Company, a newspaper and internet publisher, from July 1995 to May 2015. She was named Vice President of The McClatchy Company in May 1998 and Vice President, Corporate Development in May 2012. From November 1992 to June 1995, Ms. Morgan-Prager served as Associate General Counsel for The Times Mirror Company, a newspaper publishing company that was acquired by Tribune Co. From October 1987 to October 1992, Ms. Morgan-Prager was an Associate with the law firm Morrison & Foerster, working on corporate securities matters. Ms. Morgan-Prager holds a J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles and a B.A. in Journalism and Political Science from University of Nevada.

Non-Employee Directors

Jason Babcoke has served as a member of our board of directors since September 2013. Mr. Babcoke has served as a Managing Director of Sumeru Equity Partners, a private equity firm, since March 2014. Since July 2011, Mr. Babcoke has served as a Principal for Silver Lake Sumeru, a middle-market investment group of Silver Lake, a global private equity firm. From August 2008 to July 2011, Mr. Babcoke worked at Symphony Technology Group, a private equity firm. From July 2004 to August 2006, Mr. Babcoke served as a Senior Manager for Life Technologies, a biotech company. From February 2001 to March 2004, Mr. Babcoke served as Director of Engineering for Angstron Systems, Inc., a nano-deposition technology company, acquired by Novellus. From July 2000 to January 2001, Mr. Babcoke served as a Venture Capital Associate for The Spark Group, a technology-focused investment group. Currently, Mr. Babcoke serves as a member of the board of directors for Buildium, LLC and Snow Software. Mr. Babcoke holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Babcoke is a designee of Silver Lake Sumeru.

Mr. Babcoke brings valuable experience in venture capital investing and knowledge of technology companies to the board of directors.

John Brennan has served as a member of our board of directors since September 2013 and is the Chairman of our board of directors. Mr. Brennan cofounded Sumeru Equity Partners, a private equity firm and has served as Managing Director since March 2014. Since February 2008, Mr. Brennan has served as a Managing Director for Silver Lake Sumeru, a middle-market investment group of Silver Lake, a global private equity firm. From June 2003 to February 2008, Mr. Brennan served as Senior Vice President of Platform Software for Adobe Systems Incorporated, a computer software company. Mr. Brennan served as Senior Vice President of SMB Segment Operations for Hewlett Packard Company, an information technology company, from April 2000 to June 2003 and as Principal and Associate Partner of Electronics and High-Tech Practice for Accenture Strategic Services, a management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, from August 1991 to March 1999. Currently, Mr. Brennan serves as a member of the board of directors for ForeFlight, LLC, Influence Health, Inc. (formerly Medseek), Talend, Digital Reasoning Systems, Inc. and Buildium, LLC. Mr. Brennan holds an M.B.A. from University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business and a B.A. in History from Yale University. Mr. Brennan is a designee of Silver Lake Sumeru.

 

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Mr. Brennan brings valuable management experience as well as experience in venture capital investing and knowledge of technology companies to the board of directors.

William Griffith has served as a member of our board of directors since September 2013. Since January 2013, Mr. Griffith has served as a partner of ICONIQ Capital Group, L.P., the parent company of an independent SEC Registered Investment Advisor and one of our Principal Stockholders. From January 2012 to December 2012, Mr. Griffith was a private investor. From August 2000 to December 2011, Mr. Griffith was employed by Technology Crossover Ventures, a private equity and venture capital firm, and served as a General Partner starting in 2003. Prior to joining Technology Crossover Ventures, Mr. Griffith served as an Associate for Beacon Group Ventures, a private equity firm acquired by JP Morgan Chase & Co. Before joining Beacon Group Ventures, Mr. Griffith served as an Investment Banking Analyst at Morgan Stanley, a financial services company. Currently, Mr. Griffith serves as a Board member for Age of Learning, Inc. and Procore Technologies, Inc. Mr. Griffith holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and an A.B. in History and Engineering from Dartmouth College. Mr. Griffith is a designee of Iconiq.

Mr. Griffith brings valuable experience to the board of directors, both as an investment professional in the technology industry and as a result of his service as a board member for private and publicly traded companies.

Hollie Haynes has served as a member of our board of directors since September 2013. Ms. Haynes founded Luminate Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and has served as its Managing Partner since January 2015. Since June 2007, Ms. Haynes has served as Managing Director for Silver Lake Sumeru, a middle-market investment group of Silver Lake, a global private equity firm. Ms. Haynes joined Silver Lake in August 1999. From June 1993 to July 1997, Ms. Haynes served in various analyst roles for Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm, and Morgan Stanley, an investment bank. Currently, Ms. Haynes serves as a member of the board of directors of various private companies. Ms. Haynes holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University. Ms. Haynes is a designee of Silver Lake Sumeru.

Ms. Haynes is a valuable member of our board of directors, bringing experience in the technology and financial industries and service as a board member for privately held companies.

Graham Smith has served as a member of our board of directors since May 2015. Mr. Smith served as Executive Vice President of Salesforce, Inc., a provider of customer relationship management software from April 2015 to June 2015. He also served as Salesforce, Inc.’s Executive Vice President, Finance from August 2014 to March 2015, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer from March 2008 to August 2014, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Designate from December 2007 to March 2008. From January 2003 to December 2007, Mr. Smith served as Chief Financial Officer of Advent Software, Inc., a provider of portfolio accounting software. Mr. Smith has served as a member of the board of directors for Splunk Inc., a provider of operational intelligence software, since July 2011, MINDBODY, Inc., a provider of software to the wellness industry, since February 2015, Xero, Inc., a provider of online accounting software, since February 2015 and Citrix Systems, Inc., a provider of workplace software, since December 2015. Mr. Smith holds a B.Sc. in Economics and Politics from University of Bristol in England and qualified as a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Mr. Smith brings valuable experience to our board of directors, including his experience in the software industry and service as an executive and a director for publicly traded companies, where he has served on various committees and held leadership roles.

Thomas Unterman has served as a member of our board of directors since 2010. Since September 1999, Mr. Unterman has served as Partner for Rustic Canyon Partners, an early stage

 

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venture capital firm, which he founded in September 1999. From August 1992 to December 1999, Mr. Unterman served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of The Times Mirror Company, a newspaper publishing company that was acquired by Tribune Co. Currently, Mr. Unterman serves as Chairman of the Board of the California Community Foundation and UCLA Technology Development Corp. He is a Trustee of the California State Teachers Retirement System and a Director of several Los Angeles community based non-profit companies. He also serves as a director for several of the Rustic Canyon portfolio companies and Praedicat, a private company. Mr. Unterman holds a J.D. from University of Chicago and a B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton University.

Mr. Unterman is a valuable member of our board of directors, bringing substantial experience as an executive officer of a public company, as an investment professional and as a director of private technology companies. We also believe that Mr. Unterman brings historical knowledge and continuity to the board of directors.

Other Key Employees

Karen Flathers joined us in September 2016 as our Chief Customer Officer. Prior to joining us, Ms. Flathers served as the Vice President Global Field Operations of Zoura Inc., a provider of SaaS-based billing, commerce and finance management products from September 2015 to September 2016. Ms. Flathers also served as Zoura Inc.’s Vice President Professional Services from September 2014 to September 2015. From September 2008 to June 2014, Ms. Flathers served as Senior Vice President Services and Support/General Manager Software of Aclara Technologies LLC, a provider of SaaS and on premise solutions to the utility industry. From January 1999 to September 2008, Ms. Flathers served in various senior professional services roles for SAP America, Inc., a developer of business software solutions. Ms. Flathers holds a B.A. from Brown University.

Max Solonski has served as our Vice President of Information Security from March 2012 to October 2015 and was named Chief Security Officer in October 2015. From November 2010 to March 2012, Mr. Solonski served as Senior Manager of Information Security and Compliance for Mattel, Inc., a multinational toy manufacturing company. From February 2009 to November 2010, Mr. Solonski served as Manager of Global Information Security for Westfield Corporation, one of the world’s leading shopping center companies. From April 2006 to January 2009, Mr. Solonski served as Manager of Information Security for Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., an entertainment company. From April 2002 to April 2006, Mr. Solonski served as Senior Security Analyst for The Walt Disney Company, a multinational mass media and entertainment company.

Mario Spanicciati joined us in 2004 and has served as our Chief Marketing Officer since October 2016. Previously, Mr. Spanicciati served as our Chief Strategy Officer from August 2015 to October 2016 and as our Executive Vice President. He has been a member of our board of directors since September 2013. Prior to joining us, Mr. Spanicciati served as an Analyst for Merrill Lynch’s Private Banking & Investment Group, a division of Merrill Lynch that offers personalized wealth management products and services from January 2003 to June 2004. Mr. Spanicciati holds a B.S. in Hotel Administration from Cornell University.

Mr. Spanicciati is a valuable member of our board of directors, bringing important perspective and experience as our Chief Marketing Officer. We also believe that he brings historical knowledge, operational expertise and continuity to the board of directors.

 

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Board Composition

Our board of directors is currently comprised of eight members. Within one year of the effective date of the registration statement for our initial public offering, or by October 26, 2017, we intend to increase the size of our board of directors by one director and will fill the vacancy with a director who will be elected to serve on our audit committee and who satisfies the enhanced independence standards for audit committee members established by applicable SEC rules and the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market, or NASDAQ.

Our board of directors consists of three classes of directors, each serving staggered three-year terms. Upon expiration of the term of a class of directors, directors in that class will be elected for a three-year term at the annual meeting of stockholders in the year in which that term expires. Each director’s term continues until the election and qualification of his or her successor, or his or her earlier death, resignation or removal. Any increase or decrease in the number of directors will be distributed among the three classes so that, as nearly as possible, each class will consist of one-third of the directors.

 

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Our Class I directors are Ms. Tucker and Messrs. Spanicciati and Unterman.

 

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Our Class II directors are Ms. Haynes and Mr. Babcoke.

 

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Our Class III directors are Messrs. Brennan, Griffith and Smith.

Our board of directors is responsible for, among other things, overseeing the conduct of our business, reviewing and, where appropriate, approving our long-term strategic, financial and organizational goals and plans, and reviewing the performance of our chief executive officer and other members of senior management. Following the end of each year, our board of directors will conduct an annual self-evaluation, which includes a review of any areas in which the board of directors or management believes the board of directors can make a better contribution to our corporate governance, as well as a review of our committee structure and an assessment of the board of directors’ compliance with corporate governance principles. In fulfilling the board of directors’ responsibilities, directors have full access to our management and independent advisors.

Stockholders’ Agreement

We are party to an Amended and Restated Stockholders’ Agreement with our Principal Stockholders, dated as of October 27, 2016, or the Stockholders’ Agreement. Pursuant to the Stockholders’ Agreement, our Principal Stockholders are entitled to designate members of our Board as follows:

Silver Lake Sumeru is entitled to designate: (i) seven directors of up to a 13 member Board for so long as Silver Lake Sumeru beneficially owns more than 35% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding; (ii) six directors for so long as Silver Lake Sumeru beneficially owns 35% or less, but more than 25% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding; (iii) three directors for so long as Silver Lake Sumeru beneficially owns 25% or less, but more than 20% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding; (iv) two directors for so long as Silver Lake Sumeru beneficially owns 20% or less, but more than 10% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding; and (v) one director for so long as Silver Lake Sumeru beneficially owns 10% or less, but at least 5% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding.

Iconiq is entitled to designate one director for so long as Iconiq beneficially owns at least 5% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding.

 

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Silver Lake Sumeru and Iconiq designees to our board of directors will each serve until the annual meeting of stockholders in the year in which their respective board terms expire. If Silver Lake Sumeru or Iconiq meet the applicable beneficial ownership thresholds as of 120 days prior to such annual meetings, the Silver Lake Sumeru or Iconiq designees will be nominated by our board of directors for election by the stockholders at such annual meeting. The Principal Stockholders will agree to vote their shares in favor of the directors nominated as set forth above. In addition, Silver Lake Sumeru and Iconiq shall be entitled to designate the replacement for any of their respective board nominees or designees, as applicable, whose board service terminates prior to the end of the director’s term. In each case, Silver Lake Sumeru’s and Iconiq’s nominees or designees, as applicable, must comply with applicable law and stock exchange rules.

Silver Lake Sumeru has designated Messrs. Babcoke and Brennan and Ms. Haynes pursuant to the Stockholders’ Agreement and Iconiq has designated Mr. Griffith pursuant to the Stockholders’ Agreement.

Ms. Tucker and Mr. Spanicciati are also each be entitled to membership on our board of directors, subject to the following: in the event that Ms. Tucker or Mr. Spanicciati ceases to be employed by the company for any reason and she or he beneficially owns less than 5% of the total number of shares of our common stock outstanding (i) she or he will be required to immediately tender her or his resignation from our board of directors effective only upon acceptance by our board of directors and (ii) our board of directors may, in its sole discretion, accept or reject such resignation. If our board of directors rejects the resignation, Ms. Tucker or Mr. Spanicciati, as applicable, will continue to have the right to be designated for membership on our board of directors; provided that our board of directors will have the right, by unanimous vote of the other directors (excluding both Ms. Tucker and Mr. Spanicciati), to require such director’s resignation from our board of directors if the our board of directors determines such resignation would be in the best interests of the company, regardless of the number of shares of common stock held by Ms. Tucker or Mr. Spanicciati.

Silver Lake Sumeru shall also have the right to have one designee serve on the audit committee until a new independent director is elected within one year of the effective date of the registration statement for our initial public offering, two designees serve on the compensation committee, and two designees serve on the nominating and corporate governance committee, subject to compliance with applicable law and stock exchange rules, so long as Silver Lake Sumeru owns at least 15% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding. The Stockholders’ Agreement, subject to certain exceptions, also prohibits us from increasing or decreasing the size of our board of directors without the prior written consent of Silver Lake Sumeru so long as Silver Lake Sumeru owns at least 15% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding. The affiliates of each of the Principal Stockholders have agreed to vote their shares in favor of the directors designated as set forth above.

Director Independence

Our board of directors has undertaken a review of its composition, the composition of its committees and the independence of each director. Based upon information requested from and provided by each director concerning his or her background, employment and affiliations, including family relationships, and considering the relationships that each non-employee director has with our company and all other facts and circumstances our board of directors deemed relevant in determining their independence, our board of directors has determined that each of our directors, other than Ms. Tucker and Mr. Spanicciati, are “independent directors” as defined under the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market. In addition, our board of directors determined that Messrs. Smith and Unterman, who are members of our audit committee, satisfy the enhanced independence standards for audit

 

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committee members established by applicable SEC rules and the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market. Our board of directors has determined that Ms. Haynes and Mr. Brennan, who are members of our compensation committee, satisfy the enhanced independence standards for compensation committee members established by applicable SEC rules and the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market. Our board of directors has determined that Mr. Brennan and Mr. Unterman, who are members of our nominating and corporate governance committee, satisfy the independence standards for nominating and corporate governance committee members established by applicable SEC rules and the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Under the corporate governance rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market, we are eligible for certain phase-in periods with respect to director independence and board committee structure. The phase-in periods required us to have a majority of independent members on the audit committee within 90 days of the effective date of the registration statement for our initial public offering, and a fully independent audit committee within one year of the effective date of the registration statement for our initial public offering, or by October 26, 2017. Our audit committee consisted of a majority of independent directors upon the listing date of our common stock and we expect to have a fully independent audit committee no later than October 26, 2017. Mr. Babcoke is currently serving on our audit committee in accordance with the phase-in requirements permitted by the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Because the Principal Stockholders own a majority of our outstanding stock, we are a “controlled company” as that term is set forth in the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market and we are eligible to rely on certain corporate governance exemptions. Although we qualify as a “controlled company,” we do not currently and do not expect in the future to rely upon these exemptions.

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

Board Leadership Structure

Our board of directors has adopted corporate governance guidelines that provide that one of our independent directors will serve as our lead independent director at any time when our Chief Executive Officer serves as the Chairman of the Board or if the Chairman is not otherwise independent. The lead independent director will be responsible for calling separate meetings of the independent directors, determining the agenda and serving as chair of meetings of independent directors, reporting to the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of our board of directors regarding feedback from executive sessions, serving as spokesperson for the company as requested, and performing such other responsibilities as may be designated by a majority of the independent directors from time to time.

Currently, the roles of Chief Executive Officer and Chairman are separate and Mr. Brennan, an independent director, serves as the Chairman of the Board. Our board of directors believes that having an independent director serve as the non-executive Chairman of the Board is the appropriate leadership structure for our company at this time because it allows our Chief Executive Officer to focus on executing our company’s strategic plan and managing our company’s operations and performance, while allowing the Chairman of the Board to focus on the effectiveness of the board and independent oversight of our senior management team.

Role of Board in Risk Oversight Process

Risk is inherent with every business, and we face a number of risks, including strategic, financial, business and operational, legal and compliance, and reputational. We have designed and implemented processes to manage risk in our operations. Management is responsible for the day-to-day

 

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management of risks the company faces, while our board of directors, as a whole and assisted by its committees, has responsibility for the oversight of risk management. Our board of directors reviews strategic and operational risk in the context of discussions, question and answer sessions, and reports from the management team at each regular board meeting, receives reports on all significant committee activities at each regular board meeting, and evaluates the risks inherent in significant transactions. Our board of directors also assesses risks relating to our corporate governance practices, the independence of the board and potential conflicts of interest. Our audit committee assists our board in fulfilling its oversight responsibilities with respect to risk management in the areas of internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures, legal and regulatory compliance, and also, among other things, discusses with management and the independent auditor guidelines and policies with respect to risk assessment and risk management. Our compensation committee assesses risks relating to our executive compensation plans and arrangements, and whether our compensation policies and programs have the potential to encourage excessive risk taking.

Our board of directors believes its current leadership structure supports the risk oversight function of the board. In particular, our board believes that our non-executive Chairman and our majority of independent directors provide a well-functioning and effective balance to the members of executive management on our board.

Board Committees

Our board of directors has established a standing audit committee, compensation committee and nominating and corporate governance committee. As described above, pursuant to the Stockholders’ Agreement, Silver Lake Sumeru has the right to have one designee serve on the audit committee until a new independent director is elected to serve on the audit committee within one year of the effective date of the registration statement for our initial public offering, or by October 26, 2017, two designees serve on the compensation committee, and two designees serve on the nominating and corporate governance committee, so long as Silver Lake Sumeru owns at least 15% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding, subject to compliance with applicable law and stock exchange rules. Each of the committees has the composition and the responsibilities described below.

Audit Committee.     Our audit committee currently consists of Messrs. Babcoke, Smith and Unterman, with Mr. Smith serving as chairperson. Each of Messrs. Smith and Unterman is considered an “audit committee financial expert” as defined in Item 407(d)(5) of Regulation S-K promulgated under the Securities Act and all members of the audit committee are financially literate. Our audit committee operates under a written charter approved by our board of directors and that satisfies the applicable rules and regulations of the SEC and the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Our audit committee oversees our corporate accounting and financial reporting process and assists our board of directors in monitoring our financial systems and our legal and regulatory compliance. Our audit committee also:

 

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oversees the work of our independent registered public accounting firm (“independent auditors”) and our internal control functions;

 

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approves the hiring, discharging and compensation of our independent auditors;

 

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approves engagements of the independent auditors to render any audit or permissible non-audit services;

 

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reviews the qualifications, independence and performance of our independent auditors;

 

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reviews the scope of the annual audit;

 

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reviews our financial statements and reviews our critical accounting policies and estimates;

 

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reviews the adequacy and effectiveness of our internal controls;

 

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reviews and discusses with management and our independent auditors the results of our annual audit and our quarterly financial statements;

 

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reviews our risk assessment and risk management processes;

 

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establishes procedures for receiving, retaining and investigating complaints received by us regarding accounting, internal accounting controls or audit matters; and

 

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reviews and approves related party transactions under Item 404 of Regulation S-K.

Compensation Committee.     Our compensation committee currently consists of Ms. Haynes and Mr. Brennan, with Mr. Brennan serving as the chairperson. Our compensation committee operates under a written charter approved by our board of directors and that satisfies the applicable rules and regulations of the SEC and the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Our compensation committee oversees our corporate compensation programs. Our compensation committee also:

 

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reviews and recommends policies relating to compensation and benefits of our officers and employees;

 

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reviews and approves corporate goals and objectives relevant to compensation of our Chief Executive Officer and other senior officers;

 

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evaluates the performance of our officers in light of established goals and objectives;

 

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recommends compensation of our officers based on its evaluations;

 

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administers our equity compensation plans; and

 

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makes recommendations regarding non-employee director compensation to the full board of directors.

Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.     Our nominating and corporate governance committee currently consists of Mr. Brennan and Mr. Unterman, with Mr. Unterman serving as the chairperson. Our nominating and corporate governance committee operates under a written charter approved by our board of directors and that satisfies the applicable rules and regulations of the SEC and the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Our nominating and corporate governance committee oversees and assists our board of directors in reviewing and recommending nominees for election as directors. Our nominating and corporate governance committee also:

 

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evaluates and makes recommendations regarding the organization and governance of the board of directors and its committees;

 

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assesses the performance of members of the board of directors and make recommendations regarding committee and chair assignments;

 

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recommends desired qualifications for board of directors membership and conduct searches for potential members of the board of directors;

 

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reviews and makes recommendations with regard to our corporate governance guidelines;

 

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approves our committee charters;

 

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oversees compliance with our code of business conduct and ethics;

 

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contributes to succession planning;

 

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reviews actual and potential conflicts of interest of our directors and officers other than related party transactions reviewed by our audit committee; and

 

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oversees the board self-evaluation process.

Code of Business Conduct and Ethics

Our board of directors has adopted a written code of business conduct and ethics that applies to all of our employees, officers and directors, including our chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and other executive and senior financial officers. The full text of our code of business conduct and ethics is available on the corporate governance section of our website, which is located at http://investors.blackline.com. We intend to disclose any amendments to our code of business conduct and ethics, or waivers of its requirements, on our website or in filings under the Exchange Act.

Compensation Committee Interlocks and Insider Participation

During 2016, our compensation committee was comprised of Ms. Haynes and Mr. Brennan. Mr. Brennan is the chairperson of our compensation committee. None of the members of our compensation committee is an officer or employee of our company. None of our executive officers currently serves, or in the past year has served, as a member of the board of directors or compensation committee of any entity that has one or more executive officers serving on our board of directors or compensation committee.

Limitation on Liability and Indemnification Matters

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws provide that we will indemnify our directors and officers, and may indemnify our employees and other agents, to the fullest extent permitted by the Delaware General Corporation Law, which prohibits our amended and restated certificate of incorporation from limiting the liability of our directors for the following:

 

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any breach of the director’s duty of loyalty to us or to our stockholders;

 

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acts or omissions not in good faith or that involve intentional misconduct or a knowing violation of law;

 

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unlawful payment of dividends or unlawful stock repurchases or redemptions; and

 

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any transaction from which the director derived an improper personal benefit.

If Delaware law is amended to authorize corporate action further eliminating or limiting the personal liability of a director, then the liability of our directors will be eliminated or limited to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law, as so amended. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation does not eliminate a director’s duty of care and in appropriate circumstances, equitable remedies, such as injunctive or other forms of non-monetary relief, remain available under Delaware law. This provision also does not affect a director’s responsibilities under any other laws, such as the federal securities laws or other state or federal laws. Under our amended and restated bylaws, we will also be empowered to purchase insurance on behalf of any person whom we are required or permitted to indemnify.

 

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In addition to the indemnification required in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, we have entered into indemnification agreements with each of our current directors, officers, and certain employees. These agreements provide indemnification for certain expenses and liabilities incurred in connection with any action, suit, proceeding, or alternative dispute resolution mechanism, or hearing, inquiry, or investigation that may lead to the foregoing, to which they are a party, or are threatened to be made a party, by reason of the fact that they are or were a director, officer, employee, agent, or fiduciary of our company, or any of our subsidiaries, by reason of any action or inaction by them while serving as an officer, director, employee, agent, or fiduciary, or by reason of the fact that they were serving at our request as a director, officer, employee, agent, or fiduciary of another entity. In the case of an action or proceeding by, or in the right of, our company or any of our subsidiaries, no indemnification will be provided for any claim where a court determines that the indemnified party is prohibited from receiving indemnification. We believe that these bylaw provisions and indemnification agreements are necessary to attract and retain qualified persons as directors and officers. We also maintain directors’ and officers’ liability insurance.

The limitation of liability and indemnification provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may discourage stockholders from bringing a lawsuit against directors for breach of their fiduciary duties. They may also reduce the likelihood of derivative litigation against directors and officers, even though an action, if successful, might benefit us and our stockholders. A stockholder’s investment may be harmed to the extent we pay the costs of settlement and damage awards against directors and officers pursuant to these indemnification provisions. Insofar as we may provide indemnification for liabilities arising under the Securities Act to our directors, officers, and controlling persons pursuant to the foregoing provisions, or otherwise, we have been advised that, in the opinion of the SEC, such indemnification is against public policy as expressed in the Securities Act, and is, therefore, unenforceable. There is no pending litigation or proceeding naming any of our directors or officers as to which indemnification is being sought, nor are we aware of any pending or threatened litigation that may result in claims for indemnification by any director or officer.

Director Compensation

Outside Director Compensation Policy

Our board of directors adopted our Outside Director Compensation Policy in connection with our initial public offering. Members of our board of directors who are not employees are eligible for compensation under our Outside Director Compensation Policy. Accordingly, neither Ms. Tucker nor Mr. Spanicciati, both executive officers of BlackLine, is eligible for awards under our Outside Director Compensation Policy.

Under our Outside Director Compensation Policy, non-employee directors will receive compensation in the form of equity and cash, as described below:

Cash Compensation

Each non-employee director is eligible to receive the following annual cash retainers for certain board and/or committee service:

 

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$40,000 per year for service as a board member;

 

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$20,000 per year additionally for service as chair of the audit committee;

 

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$10,500 per year additionally for service as chair of the compensation committee; and

 

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$7,500 per year additionally for service as chair of the nominating and corporate governance committee, if such committee is formed.

All cash payments to non-employee directors will be paid quarterly in arrears on a prorated basis. No additional cash compensation will be paid to an individual who serves as a member of a committee of the board.

Equity Compensation

Non-employee directors are eligible to receive all types of equity awards (except incentive stock options) under our 2016 Equity Incentive Plan, or the 2016 Plan, (or the applicable equity plan in place at the time of grant) including discretionary awards not covered under our Outside Director Compensation Policy. All grants of awards under our Outside Director Compensation Policy will be automatic and nondiscretionary.

Initial Award.     Upon joining our board, each newly-elected non-employee director will receive an initial equity award having a grant date value equal to $165,000 multiplied by a fraction, (1) the numerator of which is (x) 12 minus (y) the number of full months between the date of the last annual meeting of stockholders and the date the individual becomes a member of the board and (2) the denominator of which is 12, (rounded to the nearest whole share), or the Initial Award. The Initial Award will be comprised of stock options and restricted stock units, or RSUs, each having a grant date value of approximately 50% of the aggregate value of the Initial Award. The Initial Award will be granted on the date on which such person first becomes a non-employee director. Subject to the terms of the policy, the Initial Award will vest as to 100% of the shares subject thereto upon the earlier of the one year anniversary of the grant date or the day prior to our next annual meeting of stockholders, subject to the individual’s continued service through the applicable vesting date. A director who is an employee who ceases to be an employee director but who remains a director will not receive an Initial Award.

Annual Award.     On the date of each annual meeting of our stockholders beginning with the second annual meeting following the effective date of the registration statement for our initial public offering, each non-employee director automatically will be granted an equity award having a grant date value equal to $165,000, or the Annual Award. The Annual Award will be comprised of stock options and RSUs each having a grant date value of approximately 50% of the aggregate value of the Annual Award. Subject to the terms of the policy, each Annual Award will vest as to 100% of the shares subject thereto upon the earlier of the one year anniversary of the grant date or the day prior to our next annual meeting occurring after the grant date, subject to the individual’s continued service through the applicable vesting date.

The grant date value of all equity awards granted under our Outside Director Compensation Policy is determined in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.

Any award granted under our Outside Director Compensation Policy will fully vest in the event of a change in control, as defined in our 2016 Plan, provided that the individual remains a director through such change in control.

 

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The following table provides information regarding compensation of our non-employee directors for service as directors, for the year ended December 31, 2016. In the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016, non-employee directors affiliated with our Principal Stockholders did not receive compensation for their service as directors.

 

Name		Fees Earned or Paid in Cash				Option Awards (1)				All Other Compensation				Total
Jason Babcoke			—				—				—				—
John Brennan			—				—				—				—
William Griffith			—				—				—				—
Hollie Haynes			—				—				—				—
Graham Smith		$	50,000	(2)			—				—			$	50,000
Thomas Unterman		$	40,000	(3)			—				—			$	40,000

 

(1)	No options were granted to non-employee directors in fiscal year 2016.

(2)	The amount shown reflects an annual cash retainer for such director’s service as a member of our board of directors and chair of our audit committee.

(3)	The amount shown reflects an annual cash retainer for such director’s service as a member of our board of directors.

The following table lists all outstanding equity awards held by non-employee directors as of December 31, 2016:

 

Name		Date of Grant				Number of Shares Underlying Option Exercisable				Number of Shares Underlying Option Unexercisable				Option Exercise Price Per Share (1)($)				Option Expiration Date
Jason Babcoke			—				—				—				—				—
John Brennan			—				—				—				—				—
William Griffith			—				—				—				—				—
Hollie Haynes			—				—				—				—				—
Graham Smith(2)			5/20/2015				—				75,000				14.50				5/19/2025
Thomas Unterman(3)			3/3/2014				—				50,000				5.00				3/2/2024

 

(1)	The column represents the fair market value of our common stock on the date of grant as determined by the board of directors.

(2)	Twenty-five percent (25%) of the shares (rounded down to the nearest whole number of shares) vests on each of the first four anniversaries of the vesting commencement date (May 20, 2015), subject to continued service with us through each applicable vesting date.

(3)	Twenty-five percent (25%) of the shares (rounded down to the nearest whole number of shares) vests on each of the first four anniversaries of the vesting commencement date (March 3, 2014), subject to continued service with us through each applicable vesting date.

 

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EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION

The section below provides information regarding the fiscal 2016 compensation for our named executive officers, or NEOs, who consist of our principal executive officer and our two other most highly compensated executive officers who were serving as executive officers as of December 31, 2016.

Process and Procedure for Compensation Decisions

The decisions with respect to fiscal 2016 executive officer compensation, including the compensation of our NEOs, are made by our compensation committee, with input from our chief executive officer (except with respect to her own compensation) and Compensia, an independent compensation consultant within the meaning of the rules of the SEC and NASDAQ. Compensia was engaged by our compensation committee pursuant to the authority delegated under its charter, and serves at the discretion of the compensation committee.

Our compensation committee believes our chief executive officer has valuable insight into the day-to-day contributions of our executive officers, and solicits the advice and input from her with respect to performance objectives under our annual bonus plan and target compensation levels for our executive officers, including our NEOs. Our chief executive officer does not provide input on her own compensation, which is determined by our compensation committee, in its discretion. At the request of our compensation committee, Compensia provides an assessment of the competitiveness of our executive compensation program as compared with our competitors, and our compensation committee uses this assessment as one of several factors in approving target levels of compensation for each executive officer. Other factors our compensation committee considers in setting executive compensation include one or more of the following: individual performance and skills, management input, internal relative alignment of compensation levels, anticipated future contributions to our company, and the judgment and experience of the members of our compensation committee.

Our compensation committee makes the final decisions with respect to all executive officer compensation decisions.

Summary Compensation Table

The following table presents information concerning the total compensation of our NEOs for services rendered to us in all capacities during the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015:

 

Name and Principal Position		Year				Salary ($)				Bonus ($)				Option Awards($)(1)				Non-Equity Incentive Plan Compensation ($)(2)				All Other Compensation ($)				Total ($)
Therese Tucker Chief Executive Officer			2016				336,634				—				635,365				235,900				769				1,208,668
			2015				322,530				—				—				325,000				175				647,705
Karole Morgan-Prager Chief Legal and Administrative Officer			2016				318,118				—				1,429,571				91,664				10,994				1,850,347
			2015				179,101				50,000	(3)			1,424,000				70,000				9,898				1,732,999
Chris Murphy Chief Revenue Officer(4)			2016				320,248				—				317,682				235,900				10,868				884,698

 

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(1)

The amounts in these columns represent the aggregate grant date fair value of stock option awards as computed in accordance with Financial Accounting Standard Board Accounting Standards Codification Topic 718, or ASC 718. The assumptions used in calculating the grant date fair value of the awards reported in this column are set forth in Note 2 to our financial statements in this prospectus. As required by SEC rules, the amounts shown exclude the impact of estimated forfeitures related to service-based vesting conditions. With respect to Ms. Tucker’s performance-based option to purchase 482,800 shares of our common stock, or the Performance-Based Option, although the award has been legally granted, as of December 31, 2016, we could not determine that the achievement of the performance targets is probable. This is due to the fact that the vesting is based, in part, on the achievement of yearly cash flow targets through 2019 that have yet to be established. The cash flow targets for each year are determined by our board of directors concurrently with the annual budget process and because each yearly cash flow target has not yet been set, there is no grant date for accounting purposes and therefore no grant date fair value. If each yearly cash flow target is met through 2019, but the full cumulative annual recurring target through 2019 is not met, Ms. Tucker is still able to vest in the award if an additional cash flow target for 2020 and a cumulative annual recurring revenue target through 2020 are achieved. If the Performance-Based Option was valued as though the date of legal grant, October 17, 2016, was also the accounting grant date, assuming 100% achievement of all performance-based targets, the Performance-Based Option would have a grant date fair value of approximately $3.2 million. See “Fiscal 2016 CEO Equity Awards” below for additional details on the terms of this award.

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The amounts in these columns represent annual incentives earned for 2016 under our 2016 Annual Bonus Plan—Executive Officer Bonus Plan, or 2016 Bonus Plan, as described in additional detail below. For Ms. Morgan-Prager, the 2015 amount was pro-rated based on the number of full months she was employed with us in 2015.

(3)	Reflects amount paid for a one-time signing bonus.

(4)	Mr. Murphy was not a NEO for the year ended December 31, 2015.

Non-Equity Incentive Plan Compensation

Each of our NEOs participated in the 2016 Bonus Plan, which provided for cash incentives for certain company executives, including our NEOs, for 2016 performance. Target bonuses for the NEOs were based on a percentage of his or her 2016 annual base salary. The 2016 target bonus amounts under the 2016 Bonus Plan for the NEOs were: Ms. Tucker (100%), Ms. Morgan-Prager (40%), and Mr. Murphy (100%).

The 2016 Bonus Plan was designed to fund based on company performance, measured by gross annual recurring revenue bookings less churned (lost) annual recurring revenue, or Net New ARR, and free cash flow. The 2016 Bonus Plan provides that if the free cash flow threshold was achieved, then the 2016 Bonus Plan would fund as to: (a) 50%, if between 80% and 84.99% of the Net New ARR target was achieved, (b) 62.5%, if between 85% and 89.99% of the Net New ARR target was achieved, (c) 75%, if between 90% and 94.99% of the Net New ARR target was achieved, (d) 87.5%, if between 95% and 99.99% of the Net New ARR target was achieved, or (e) 100%, if 100% or above of the Net New ARR target was achieved. To the extent the Net New ARR achievement was between applicable percentages, the funding percentage would be funded based on a linear interpolation between those levels. Each NEO’s bonus payment under the 2016 Bonus Plan was based on the percentage at which the 2016 Bonus Plan funded as described above.

For 2016, our compensation committee established a Net New ARR target based on the targeted growth of Net New ARR from the end of the year 2015 to the end of the year 2016 and a free cash flow target based on cash flow from operations less capital expenditures for fiscal 2016. After the end of 2016, our compensation committee determined that we achieved the free cash flow threshold and 87% of our Net New ARR target for 2016, and therefore the 2016 Bonus Plan funded at 67.4% of target achievement. Each NEO received a bonus payment equal to 67.4% of his or her 2016 target bonus.

 

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Outstanding Equity Awards at Year-End

The following table presents information concerning all outstanding equity awards held by each of our named executive officers as of December 31, 2016:

 

Named Executive Officer		Grant Date (1)				Number of Securities Underlying Unexercised Options # Exercisable				Number of Securities Underlying Unexercised Options # Unexercisable				Number of Securities Underlying Unexercised Unearned Options				Option Exercise Price ($)				Option Expiration Date
Therese Tucker			10/17/2016	(2)			—								482,800				14.00				10/16/2026
			10/17/2016	(3)			—				96,560								14.00				10/16/2026
Karole Morgan-Prager			5/30/2015	(4)			50,000				150,000								14.50				5/29/2025
			10/17/2016	(5)			—				217,260								14.00				10/16/2026
Chris Murphy			3/3/2014	(6)			250,000				250,000								5.00				3/2/2024
			10/17/2016	(5)			—				48,280								14.00				10/16/2026

 

(1)	Each of the outstanding equity awards was granted pursuant to our 2014 Equity Incentive Plan, or 2014 Plan.

(2)

The shares vest based on achievement of certain performance metrics and Ms. Tucker’s continued service with us through the date on which achievement is determined by our board of directors or its authorized committee. See “Fiscal 2016 CEO Equity Awards” below for additional details on the terms of this award.

(3)	Twenty-five percent (25%) of the shares (rounded down to the nearest whole number of shares) vest on each of the first four anniversaries of the vesting commencement date (January 1, 2016), subject to continued service with us through each applicable vesting date.

(4)	Twenty-five percent (25%) of the shares (rounded down to the nearest whole number of shares) vest on each of the first four anniversaries of the vesting commencement date (May 30, 2015), subject to continued service with us through each applicable vesting date.

(5)	Twenty-five percent (25%) of the shares (rounded down to the nearest whole number of shares) vest on each of the first four anniversaries of the vesting commencement date (September 27, 2016), subject to continued service with us through each applicable vesting date.

(6)	Twenty-five percent (25%) of the shares (rounded down to the nearest whole number of shares) vest on each of the first four anniversaries of the vesting commencement date (March 3, 2014), subject to continued service with us through each applicable vesting date.

Fiscal 2016 CEO Equity Awards

Ms. Tucker received two stock option awards in fiscal 2016.

Performance-Based Option.    The first stock option award is the Performance-Based Option covering 482,800 shares of our common stock. The shares subject to the Performance-Based Option vest based on achievement of certain performance metrics and Ms. Tucker’s continued service with us through the date on which achievement is determined by our board of directors or its authorized committee. For the period beginning on January 1, 2016 and ending on December 31, 2019, or the Performance Period, if we achieve yearly cash flow targets as determined by our board of directors concurrently with the annual budget process for each of our fiscal years, or the Cash Flow Metric, then the Performance-Based Option vests based on the extent of our achievement of cumulative annual recurring revenue targets during the Performance Period. If our board of directors determines that the Cash Flow Metric was met during the Performance Period but we did not achieve the full cumulative annual recurring revenue targets during the Performance Period, then the portion of the Performance-Based Option that becomes eligible to vest and become exercisable but failed to vest during the Performance Period may be eligible to vest and becomes exercisable based on the extent of our achievement of an additional cash flow target for 2020 and a cumulative annual recurring revenue target during the period beginning on January 1, 2016 and ending on December 31, 2020.

 

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If, upon a “change of control” (as defined in Ms. Tucker’s employment agreement), the Performance-Based Option is not vested and exercisable and is not assumed or substituted for, then it is intended that, immediately prior to such change of control, the Performance-Based Option will vest as to 100% of the shares subject to the Performance-Based Option. If, upon a change of control, the Performance-Based Option is assumed and substituted for and cumulative annual recurring revenue thresholds are met (which are based on the year in which the change of control occurs), then, immediately prior to the change of control, the Performance-Based Option will vest and become exercisable as to the number of shares subject to the Performance-Based Option equal to 1/48^th of the number of shares subject to the Performance-Based Option multiplied by the total number of completed months between the date the Performance-Based Option is granted and the consummation of the change of control, rounded down to the nearest whole share, and the remaining shares will become vested and exercisable at a rate of 1/48^th of the number of shares subject to the Performance-Based Option per month through the four year anniversary of the date the Performance-Based Option is granted, subject to Ms. Tucker’s continued service with us through each such vesting date.

Time-Based Option.    The second stock option award is the Time-Based Option covering 96,560 shares of our common stock. 25% of the shares subject to the Time-Based Option (rounded down to the nearest whole number of shares) will vest on each of the first four anniversaries of the Time-Based Option’s vesting commencement date, subject to Ms. Tucker’s continued service with us through each such vesting date. If, upon a change of control, the Time-Based Option is not vested and exercisable and is not assumed or substituted for, then immediately prior to such change of control, the Time-Based Option will vest as to 100% of the shares subject to the Time-Based Option. If, upon a change of control, the Time-Based Option is assumed or substituted for and Ms. Tucker experiences a qualifying termination as described in her employment agreement, then the Time-Based Option will vest as to 100% of the shares subject to the Time-Based Option.

Both the Performance-Based Option and the Time-Based Option were granted subject to the terms and conditions of our 2014 Plan and the option agreements thereunder.

Executive Employment Arrangements

Therese Tucker.    On August 24, 2016, we entered into an employment agreement with Therese Tucker, our Chief Executive Officer. The employment agreement has an initial term of three years from January 1, 2016 and is expected to automatically renew on each year thereafter, unless we or Ms. Tucker provides the other party at least 30 days written notice. In the event of a “change in control” (as defined in Ms. Tucker’s agreement), the term will extend for an additional two years from the date of such change in control.

The employment agreement provides Ms. Tucker with an initial annual base salary of $350,000 and an on-target bonus equal to 100% of her base salary, based upon achievement of performance objectives to be determined by our compensation committee.

Ms. Tucker’s employment agreement also provides that if her employment is terminated by us without “cause” (excluding by death or disability), we decide to not renew Ms. Tucker’s agreement, or Ms. Tucker resigns for “good reason” (as such terms are defined in Ms. Tucker’s agreement), Ms. Tucker will receive (i) a lump sum payment equal to 18 months of Ms. Tucker’s base salary then in effect; (ii) a lump sum payment equal to the premium costs for Ms. Tucker and her eligible dependents to continue health insurance coverage under COBRA for 18 months; and (iii) a lump sum amount equal to the prorated portion of Ms. Tucker’s annual bonus for the year of termination that would have been paid to Ms. Tucker had Ms. Tucker been employed by us for the entire fiscal year of termination, based on actual performance for the year (and assuming any individual performance goals would have been met at target levels) and (iv) a lump sum amount equal to the earned but unpaid bonus for the prior fiscal year, if any.

 

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Ms. Tucker’s employment agreement also provides that if Ms. Tucker’s employment is terminated by us without “cause” (excluding by death or disability), we decide to not renew Ms. Tucker’s agreement, or Ms. Tucker resigns for “good reason” and such termination occurs in connection with, or within three months before or 24 months after a “change of control” (as such term is expected to be defined in Ms. Tucker’s agreement), Ms. Tucker will receive (i) a lump sum payment equal to 12 months of Ms. Tucker’s base salary then in effect, or, if greater, as in effect immediately prior to the change of control; (ii) a lump sum payment equal to the premium costs for Ms. Tucker and her eligible dependents to continue health insurance coverage under COBRA for 12 months; (iii) a lump sum amount equal to the earned but unpaid bonus for the prior fiscal year, if any; and (iv) 100% of the shares subject to Ms. Tucker’s outstanding Company equity awards will vest and, to the extent applicable, become exercisable.

Ms. Tucker’s employment agreement also provides that if her employment is terminated due to her death or disability, Ms. Tucker will receive (i) a lump sum amount equal to the earned but unpaid bonus for the prior fiscal year, if any and (ii) a lump sum amount equal to the Ms. Tucker’s target bonus, pro-rated to reflect time served in the year of termination.

Any receipt of severance benefits by Ms. Tucker will be contingent upon her execution and non-revocation of a separation agreement and release of claims against us. In the event any of the payments provided for under Ms. Tucker’s employment agreement or otherwise payable to Ms. Tucker would constitute “parachute payments” within the meaning of Section 280G of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, could be subject to the related excise tax under Section 4999 of the Code, she would be entitled to receive either full payment of benefits or such lesser amount which would result in no portion of the benefits being subject to the excise tax, whichever results in the greater amount of after-tax benefits to her. Ms. Tucker’s employment agreement does not require us to provide any tax gross-up payments.

Karole Morgan-Prager.    On May 4, 2015, we entered into an employment offer letter with Karole Morgan-Prager, our Chief Legal and Administrative Officer. This employment letter has no specific term and provides for at-will employment. This employment offer letter provides for an initial annual base salary, an initial annual on-target bonus opportunity, a signing bonus, relocation benefits, and a commitment to grant her an initial option to purchase shares of our common stock, the material terms of such option are described in the “Outstanding Equity Awards At Year-End” table above. This employment letter also provides for vesting acceleration and severance benefits.

On September 29, 2016, we entered into a confirmatory employment letter with Ms. Morgan-Prager. The confirmatory employment letter has no specific term and provides for at-will employment. The confirmatory employment letter supersedes Ms. Morgan-Prager’s original employment offer letter. The vesting acceleration and severance benefits have been replaced by the Policy as described in the “Change of Control and Severance Policy” below. Ms. Morgan-Prager’s current annual base salary is $340,000 and Ms. Morgan-Prager’s current annual on-target bonus is 40% of her annual base salary.

Chris Murphy.    On January 24, 2014, we entered into an employment offer letter with Chris Murphy, our Chief Revenue Officer. This employment letter has no specific term and provides for at-will employment. This employment offer letter provides for an initial base salary, an initial annual on-target bonus opportunity, and a commitment to grant him an initial option to purchase shares of our common stock, the material terms of such option are described in the “Outstanding Equity Awards At Year-End” table above. This employment letter also provides for vesting acceleration.

On September 29, 2016, we entered into a confirmatory employment letter with Mr. Murphy. This employment letter has no specific term and provides for at-will employment. The confirmatory employment letter supersedes Mr. Murphy’s original employment offer letter. The vesting acceleration

 

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has been replaced by the Policy described in the “Change of Control and Severance Policy” below. Mr. Murphy is also eligible to receive severance benefits as described in the “Change of Control and Severance Policy” below. Mr. Murphy’s current annual salary is $350,000 and Mr. Murphy’s current annual on-target bonus is 100% of his annual base salary.

Change of Control and Severance Policy

Our board of directors approved the following change of control and severance benefits for our executive officers (including Ms. Morgan-Prager and Mr. Murphy) and other key employees, other than Ms. Tucker, that are set forth in our Change of Control and Severance policy, or the Policy:

If we terminate an executive officer’s employment other than for “cause,” death or “disability” or such participant resigns for “good reason” during the period from the period beginning on a “change of control” (as such terms are defined in the Policy) and ending 12 months following a change of control (the “change of control period”), such executive officer will be eligible to receive the following severance benefits (less applicable tax withholdings):

 

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100% of the executive officer’s then-outstanding and unvested equity awards granted in connection with his or her hiring or promotion, as applicable, will become fully vested and exercisable and any applicable performance goals will be deemed achieved at 100% of target levels;

 

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A lump sum cash amount equal to six months of the executive officer’s base salary in effect immediately prior to the termination (or if the termination is due to a resignation for good reason based on a material reduction in base salary, then the executive officer’s annual base salary in effect immediately prior to such reduction) or the change of control, whichever is greater; and

 

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Payment or reimbursement of continued health coverage for the executive officer and the executive officer’s eligible dependents under COBRA for a period of up to six months or a taxable lump sum payment in lieu of payment or reimbursement, as applicable.

If we terminate an executive officer’s employment other than for “cause,” death, or “disability” outside of the change of control period, such executive officer will be eligible to receive the following severance benefits (less applicable tax withholdings):

 

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A lump sum cash amount equal to six months of the executive officer’s base salary in effect immediately prior to the termination; and

 

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Payment or reimbursement of continued health coverage for the executive officer and the executive officer’s eligible dependents under COBRA for a period of up to six months or a taxable lump sum payment in lieu of payment or reimbursement, as applicable.

To receive the severance benefits upon a qualifying termination, an executive officer must sign and not revoke our standard separation agreement and release of claims within the timeframe set forth in the Policy. If any of the payments provided for under the Policy or otherwise payable to an executive officer would constitute “parachute payments” within the meaning of Section 280G of the Code and would be subject to the related excise tax under Section 4999 of the Code, then the executive officer will be entitled to receive either full payment of benefits or such lesser amount which would result in no portion of the benefits being subject to the excise tax, whichever results in the greater amount of after-tax benefits to him or her. The Policy does not require us to provide any tax gross-up payments to any executive officer.

 

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Employee Benefit and Stock Plans

2016 Equity Incentive Plan

Our board of directors adopted and our stockholders approved, our 2016 Equity Incentive Plan, or the 2016 Plan. The 2016 Plan became effective on October 26, 2016. Our 2016 Plan provides for the grant of incentive stock options, within the meaning of Section 422 of the Code, to our employees and any of our parent and subsidiary corporations’ employees, and for the grant of nonstatutory stock options, restricted stock, restricted stock units, stock appreciation rights, performance units, performance shares and performance awards to our employees, directors and consultants and our parent and subsidiary corporations’ employees and consultants.

Shares Available For Issuance.    As of March 31, 2017, a total of 6,280,287 shares of our common stock were available for future issuance pursuant to the 2016 Plan. The shares reserved for issuance under our 2016 Plan may be increased by any shares subject to options or similar awards granted under our 2014 Plan that, after the termination of our 2014 Plan, expire or otherwise terminate without having been exercised or issued in full or are forfeited to us, tendered to or withheld by us for the payment of an exercise price or for tax withholding, or repurchased by us (provided that the maximum number of shares that may be added to the 2016 Plan from the 2014 Plan is 6,780,000 shares).

The number of shares available for issuance under the 2016 Plan also includes an annual increase on the first day of each fiscal year beginning with the 2017 fiscal year, equal to the least of:

 

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6,196,000 shares;

 

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5% of the outstanding shares of common stock as of the last day of our immediately preceding fiscal year; or

 

•

such other amount as our board of directors may determine.

On January 1, 2017, the number of shares of our common stock reserved for issuance under our 2016 Plan increased by 2,563,898 shares, which is equal to 5% of the outstanding shares of common stock as of December 31, 2016, pursuant to the above provision.

In addition, if an option or stock appreciation right granted under the 2016 Plan expires or becomes unexercisable without having been exercised in full or is surrendered under an award exchange program, then unissued shares subject to the award will become available for future issuance under the 2016 Plan.

Only shares actually issued pursuant to a stock appreciation right (i.e., the net shares issued) will cease to be available under the 2016 Plan; all remaining shares originally subject to the stock appreciation right will remain available for future issuance. Shares issued pursuant to awards of restricted stock, restricted stock units, performance shares, performance units, and stock-settled performance awards that are reacquired by us due to failure to vest or are forfeited to us will become available for future issuance under the 2016 Plan. Shares used to pay the exercise price of an award or to satisfy tax withholding obligations related to an award will become available for future issuance under the 2016 Plan. If any portion of an award granted under the 2016 Plan is paid in cash rather than shares, then that cash payment will not reduce the number of shares available for issuance under the 2016 Plan.

Plan Administration.    Our compensation committee administers our 2016 Plan. In the case of granting awards intended to qualify as “performance-based compensation” within the meaning of Section 162(m) of the Code, the 2016 plan will be administered by a committee that consists of two or more “outside directors” within the meaning of Section 162(m).

 

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Subject to the provisions of our 2016 Plan, the administrator has the authority, in its sole discretion, to make any determinations and perform any actions deemed necessary or advisable to administer the 2016 Plan including but not limited to, the power to determine the fair market value of our common stock, approve forms of award agreements for use under the 2016 Plan, select the service providers to whom awards may be granted and grant awards to such service providers, determine the number of shares covered by each award, determine the terms and conditions of awards (including, but not limited to, the exercise price, the times or times at which the awards may be exercised, any vesting acceleration or waiver or forfeiture restrictions, and any restriction or limitation regarding any award or the shares relating thereto), to prescribe, amend, and rescind rules relating to our 2016 Plan, including creating sub-plans, and to modify or amend each award, including but not limited to the discretionary authority to extend the post-termination exercisability period of awards (provided that no option or stock appreciation right will be extended past its original maximum term), to allow participants to satisfy tax withholding obligations as permitted under the 2016 Plan, to delegate ministerial duties to any of our employees, to authorize any person to take any steps and execute, on our behalf, any documents required for an award previously granted by the administrator to be effective, and to allow a participant to defer the receipt of payment of cash or the delivery of shares that would otherwise be due to such participant under an award. The administrator also has the authority to allow participants the opportunity to transfer outstanding awards to a financial institution or other person or entity selected by the administrator and to institute an exchange program by which outstanding awards may be surrendered or cancelled in exchange for awards of the same type which may have a higher or lower exercise price and different terms, awards of a different type and/or cash, or by which the exercise price of an outstanding award is increased or reduced. The administrator’s decisions, interpretations, and other actions are final and binding on all participants. The administrator also has the authority to allow participants the opportunity to participate in a program under which (i) outstanding awards are surrendered or cancelled in exchange for awards of the same type (which may have higher or lower exercise prices and different terms), awards of a different type and/or cash, participants would have the opportunity to transfer outstanding awards to a financial institution or other person or entity selected by the administrator and/or (iii) the exercise price of an outstanding award is increased or reduced.

Stock Options.    Stock options may be granted under our 2016 Plan. The exercise price of options granted under our 2016 Plan will be determined by the administrator, provided that the exercise price of incentive stock options granted under our 2016 Plan must at least be equal to the fair market value of our common stock on the date of grant. The term of an incentive stock option may not exceed 10 years, except that with respect to any participant who owns more than 10% of the voting power of all classes of our outstanding stock, the term must not exceed five years and the exercise price must equal at least 110% of the fair market value on the grant date. Subject to the provisions of our 2016 Plan, the administrator will determine the term of all other options. The administrator will determine the methods of payment of the exercise price of an option, which may include, to the extent permitted by applicable law, cash, shares, or other property acceptable to the administrator, as well as other types of consideration, subject to the provisions of our 2016 Plan.

After the termination of service of an employee, director or consultant, he or she may exercise his or her option or stock appreciation right for the period of time stated in his or her award agreement. Generally under the form of stock option agreement under the 2016 Plan, if termination is due to death or disability, the option or stock appreciation right will remain exercisable for six months. In all other cases, the option or stock appreciation right will generally remain exercisable for 60 days following the termination of service. However, in no event may an option be exercised later than the expiration of its term.

Stock Appreciation Rights.    Stock appreciation rights may be granted under our 2016 Plan. Stock appreciation rights allow the recipient to receive the appreciation in the fair market value of our

 

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common stock between the exercise date and the date of grant. Subject to the provisions of our 2016 Plan, the administrator will determine the terms of stock appreciation rights, including when such rights become exercisable and whether to pay any increased appreciation in cash or with shares of our common stock, or a combination thereof, except that the per share exercise price for the shares to be issued pursuant to the exercise of a stock appreciation right will be no less than 100% of the fair market value per share on the date of grant.

Restricted Stock.    Restricted stock may be granted under our 2016 Plan. Restricted stock awards are grants of shares of our common stock that vest in accordance with terms and conditions established by the administrator. The administrator will determine the number of shares of restricted stock granted and may impose whatever conditions to vesting it determines to be appropriate (for example, the administrator may set restrictions based on the achievement of specific performance goals or continued service to us). The administrator, in its sole discretion, may accelerate the time at which any restrictions will lapse or be removed. Shares of restricted stock that do not vest are subject to our right of repurchase or forfeiture.

Restricted Stock Units.      Restricted stock units may be granted under our 2016 Plan. Restricted stock units are bookkeeping entries representing an amount equal to the fair market value of one share of our common stock. The administrator will determine the terms and conditions of restricted stock units, including the number of units granted, the vesting criteria (which may include accomplishing specified performance criteria or continued service to us), and the form and timing of payment. The administrator, in its sole discretion, may accelerate the time at which any restrictions will lapse or be removed.

Performance Units and Performance Shares.    Performance units and performance shares may be granted under our 2016 Plan. Performance units and performance shares are awards that will result in a payment to a participant only if performance goals established by the administrator are achieved or the awards otherwise vest. The administrator will establish Company-wide, divisional, business unit, or individual performance goals in its discretion, which, depending on the extent to which they are met, will determine the number and/or the value of performance units and performance shares to be paid out to participants. After the grant of a performance unit or performance share, the administrator, in its sole discretion, may reduce or waive any performance objectives or other vesting provisions for such performance units or performance shares. Earned performance units or performance shares may be paid in the form of cash, in shares, or in some combination thereof as determined by the administrator.

Performance Awards.    Performance awards may be granted under our 2016 Plan. Performance awards are awards that may result in a payment to a participant based on to what extent performance goals established by the administrator are achieved or the awards otherwise vest. The administrator will establish Company-wide, divisional, business unit, or individual performance goals in its discretion, which, depending on the extent to which they are met, will determine the number and/or the value of the performance award to be paid out to participants. After the grant of a performance award, the administrator, in its sole discretion, may reduce or waive any performance objectives or other vesting provisions for such performance award. Earned performance awards may be paid in the form of cash, in shares, or in some combination thereof, as determined by the administrator.

Non-Employee Directors.    Our 2016 Plan provides that all non-employee directors will be eligible to receive all types of awards (except for incentive stock options) under the 2016 Plan. In order to provide a maximum limit on the awards that can be made to our non-employee directors, our 2016 Plan provides that in any given fiscal year, a non-employee director will not be granted awards under our 2016 Plan having a grant date fair value greater than $500,000, but that in the fiscal year that an outside director first joins our board of directors, he or she may be granted an award under our 2016

 

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Plan with a grant date fair value of up to $1,000,000. The grant date fair values will be determined according to GAAP. The maximum limits do not reflect the intended size of any potential grants or a commitment to make grants to our non-employee directors under our 2016 Plan in the future. See the section of this prospectus captioned “Management—Non-Employee Director Compensation.”

Non-Transferability of Awards.    Unless the administrator provides otherwise, our 2016 Plan generally does not allow for the transfer of awards, and only the recipient of an award may exercise an award during his or her lifetime.

Certain Adjustments.    In the event of certain changes in our capitalization as set forth in our 2016 Plan, to prevent diminution or enlargement of the benefits or potential benefits available under our 2016 Plan, the administrator will adjust the number and class of shares that may be delivered under our 2016 Plan and/or the number, class and price of shares covered by each outstanding award, and the numerical share limits set forth in our 2016 Plan.

Dissolution or Liquidation.    In the event of our proposed liquidation or dissolution, the administrator will notify participants as soon as practicable and all outstanding awards will terminate immediately prior to the consummation of such proposed transaction.

Merger or Change in Control.    Our 2016 Plan provides that in the event of a merger or change in control, as defined under our 2016 Plan, each outstanding award will be treated as the administrator determines. If the successor corporation does not continue an award (or some portion of an award), the participant will fully vest in (and have the right to exercise) 100% of the then-unvested shares subject to the participant’s outstanding options and stock appreciation rights will become vested and exercisable, all restrictions on 100% of the participant’s outstanding restricted stock and restricted stock units will lapse, and all performance goals or other vesting criteria with regard to performance units, shares, and awards will deemed to be achieved at 100% as of immediately prior to the transaction. With respect to awards granted to an outside director that are continued under the terms of our 2016 Plan, if the service of that outside director is terminated on or following a change in control, other than pursuant to a voluntary resignation, his or her stock options, RSUs, and stock appreciation rights, if any, will vest fully and become immediately exercisable, all restrictions on his or her restricted stock will lapse and all performance goals or other vesting requirements for his or her performance shares and units will be deemed achieved at 100% of target levels, and all other terms and conditions met.

Forfeiture and Clawback.    All awards granted under our 2016 Plan are subject to recoupment under any clawback policy that we are required to adopt under the listing standards of any national securities exchange or association on which our securities are listed or otherwise required by applicable law. In addition, the administrator may provide in an award agreement that the recipient’s rights, payments, and benefits with respect to such award shall be subject to reduction, cancellation, forfeiture, or recoupment upon the occurrence of specified events. In the event of any accounting restatement, the recipient of an award will be required to repay a portion of the proceeds received in connection with the settlement of an award earned or accrued under certain circumstances.

Amendment; Termination.    Our ability to grant incentive stock options under the 2016 Plan and the automatic increase in shares under the 2016 will expire in 2026. The administrator has the authority to amend, suspend, or terminate our 2016 Plan provided such action does not materially impair the existing rights of any participant, subject to certain exceptions in accordance with the terms of our 2016 Plan.

2014 Equity Incentive Plan

Our board of directors adopted and our stockholders approved our 2014 Plan in March 2014, and the 2014 Plan was most recently amended in December 2015. As of the effectiveness of our 2016

 

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Plan, the 2014 Plan terminated and we will not grant any additional awards under the 2014 Plan. However, the 2014 Plan will continue to govern the terms and conditions of the outstanding awards previously granted thereunder. As of March 31, 2017, options to purchase 6,375,399 shares of our common stock were outstanding under our 2014 Plan. Options granted under the 2014 Plan are subject to terms generally similar to those described above with respect to options under the 2016 Plan. Our 2014 Plan provides that in the event of a change in control (as defined in the 2014 Plan), unless otherwise provided in an individual award agreement, our board of directors may take one or more of the following actions: (i) arrange for the surviving or acquiring entity to assume, continue, or substitute for the award; (ii) accelerate the vesting, in whole or part, of the award, with such award terminating if not exercised prior to the effective time of the change in control; (iii) cancel the award in exchange for such cash consideration, if any, as our board may consider appropriate; or (iv) make a payment, in such form as may be determined by our board of directors, equal to the excess, if any, of (a) the value of the property the holder of the award would have received upon the exercise of the award over (b) any exercise price payable by such holder in connection with such exercise. Unless the board of directors provides otherwise, our 2014 Plan generally will not allow for the transfer of awards, and only the recipient of an award may exercise an award during his or her lifetime.

Employee Incentive Compensation Plan

Our compensation committee adopted an Employee Incentive Compensation Plan, which we refer to as our “Bonus Plan”. Our Bonus Plan allows our compensation committee (or other such committee as determined by our board of directors) to provide cash incentive awards to selected employees of our company or our affiliates, including our named executive officers, based upon performance goals established by our compensation committee. Pursuant to the Bonus Plan, our compensation committee, in its sole discretion, will establish a target award for each participant and a bonus pool, with actual awards payable from such bonus pool, with respect to the applicable performance period.

Under the Bonus Plan, our compensation committee, in its sole discretion, will determine the performance goals applicable to awards, which goals may include, without limitation: annualized recurring revenue, attainment of research and development milestones, bookings, business divestitures and acquisitions, cash flow, cash position, contract awards or backlog, customer renewals, customer retention rates, earnings (which may include earnings before interest and taxes, earnings before taxes, and net taxes), earnings per share, expenses, free cash flow, gross margin, growth in stockholder value relative to the moving average of the S&P 500 Index or another index, internal rate of return, market share, net income, net profit, net sales, new product development, new product invention or innovation, number of customers, operating cash flow, operating expenses, operating income, operating margin, overhead or other expense reduction, product defect measures, product release timelines, productivity, profit, retained earnings, return on assets, return on capital, return on equity, return on investment, return on sales, revenue, revenue growth, sales results, sales growth, stock price, time to market, total stockholder return, working capital and individual objectives such as peer reviews or other subjective or objective criteria. As determined by our compensation committee, performance goals that include our financial results may be determined in accordance with GAAP, or such financial results may consist of non-GAAP financial measures and any actual results may be adjusted by our compensation committee for one-time items or unbudgeted or unexpected items and/or payments when determining whether the performance goals have been met. The goals may be on the basis of any factors our compensation committee determines relevant, and may be on an individual, divisional, business unit or company-wide basis. The performance goals may differ from participant to participant and from award to award.

Our compensation committee may, in its sole discretion and at any time, increase, reduce or eliminate a participant’s actual award, or increase, reduce or eliminate the amount allocated to the

 

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bonus pool for a particular performance period. The actual award may be below, at or above a participant’s target award, in our compensation committee’s discretion. Our compensation committee may determine the amount of any reduction on the basis of such factors as it deems relevant, and it will not be required to establish any allocation or weighting with respect to the factors it considers.

Actual awards will be paid in cash (or its equivalent) in a single lump sum as soon as practicable after the end of the performance period during which they are earned and after they are approved by our compensation committee, but in no event later than the 15th day of the third month of the calendar year following the date the award has been earned. Unless otherwise determined by our compensation committee, to earn an actual award, a participant must be employed by us (or an affiliate of ours) through the date the bonus is paid.

Our board of directors and/or our compensation committee, in their sole discretion, may alter, suspend or terminate the Bonus Plan, provided such action does not, without the consent of the participant, alter or impair the rights or obligations under any award theretofore earned by such participant.

401(k) Plan

We maintain a tax-qualified retirement plan, or our 401(k) plan, that provides eligible employees with an opportunity to save for retirement on a tax-advantaged basis. Eligible employees are able to participate in the 401(k) plan as of the first day of the month following the date they meet the 401(k) plan’s eligibility requirements, and participants are able to defer up to 100% of their eligible compensation subject to applicable annual Code limits. All participants’ interests in their deferrals are 100% vested when contributed. The 401(k) plan permits us to make matching contributions and profit sharing contributions to eligible participants. In 2016, we paid discretionary matching contributions that vest over a 3-year period.

 

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CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

The following is a summary of transactions since January 1, 2014 to which we have been or will be a party, in which the amount involved exceeded or will exceed $120,000, and in which any of our executive officers, directors, promoters or beneficial holders of more than 5% of any class of our capital stock, or any immediate family member of, or person sharing the household with, any of these individuals or entities, had or will have a direct or indirect material interest, other than compensation arrangements which are described under the section of this prospectus titled “Executive Compensation.”

Stockholders’ Agreement

We are party to the Stockholders’ Agreement, which contains specific rights, obligations and agreements of our Principal Stockholders as owners of our common stock. In addition, the Stockholders’ Agreement contains provisions related to the composition of our board of directors and its committees, which are discussed under the section titled “Board of Directors and Corporate Governance—Composition of the Board.”

Voting Agreement.    Under the Stockholders’ Agreement, our Principal Stockholders have agreed to take all necessary action, including casting all votes to which such existing owners are entitled to cast at any annual or special meeting of stockholders, so as to ensure that the composition of our board of directors and its committees complies with (and includes all of the nominees in accordance with) the provisions of the Stockholders’ Agreement related to the composition of our board of directors and its committees, which are discussed under the section titled “Board of Directors and Corporate Governance—Composition of the Board.”

Silver Lake Sumeru Approvals.    Under the Stockholders’ Agreement and subject to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, and applicable law, for so long as the Principal Stockholders collectively own or hold of record, directly or indirectly, in the aggregate at least 40% of their collective “Post-IPO Shares” (as defined in the Stockholders’ Agreement), as adjusted for any reorganization, recapitalization, stock dividend, stock split, reverse stock split or similar changes in the Company’s capitalization, the following actions will require the approval of our board of directors, including the affirmative vote of at least two Silver Lake Sumeru directors:

 

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any voluntary liquidation, winding up or dissolution or any action relating to a voluntary bankruptcy, reorganization or recapitalization of the Company or its subsidiaries;

 

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certain dispositions of assets with a value in excess of $50 million or entry into joint ventures requiring a capital contribution in excess of $50 million, in each case, by the Company or its subsidiaries;

 

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fundamental changes in the Company’s or its subsidiaries’ existing lines of business or the entry into a new significant line of business;

 

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any amendments to the Company’s amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws;

 

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incurrence of indebtedness in excess of $150 million;

 

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appointment or termination of the Chief Executive Officer; and

 

•

change of control transactions.

Transfer Restrictions.    Under the Stockholders’ Agreement, each of Iconiq, Ms. Tucker and Mr. Spanicciati have agreed, subject to certain limited exceptions, not to transfer, sell, exchange,

 

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assign, pledge, hypothecate, convey or otherwise dispose of or encumber any shares of our common stock without the consent of Silver Lake Sumeru until the earlier of (i) two years following the completion our initial public offering, or November 2, 2018, and (ii) Silver Lake Sumeru’s reduction of its holdings of common stock following our initial public offering by 50%; provided, however, that Ms. Tucker and Mr. Spanicciati will each have the right to sell a number of shares equal to up to 1% of the total outstanding shares of our common stock annually pursuant to Rule 144 of the Securities Act.

Drag Along Right.    For so long as Silver Lake Sumeru holds greater than 10% of our common stock then outstanding, if Silver Lake Sumeru approves a change of control transaction, each of Iconiq, Ms. Tucker and Mr. Spanicciati will be required to vote in favor of and not oppose such transaction and, if structured as a sale of shares, sell its shares to a prospective buyer on the same terms that are applicable to Silver Lake Sumeru.

Registration Rights Agreement

We are party to an Amended and Restated Registration Rights Agreement with our Principal Stockholders, dated as of October 27, 2016, or the Registration Rights Agreement. Under the Registration Rights Agreement our Principal Stockholders are entitled to rights with respect to the registration of their shares under the Securities Act. We will pay the registration expenses (other than underwriting discounts and commissions and stock transfer taxes) of the holders of the shares registered pursuant to the registrations described below.

Silver Lake Sumeru will be entitled to certain S-1 and S-3 registration rights on one or more occasions. Beginning one year following the completion of our initial public offering, or November 2, 2017, Iconiq will be entitled to certain S-3 registration rights on one or more occasions. Beginning two years following the completion of our initial public offering, or November 2, 2018, Ms. Tucker and Mr. Spanicciati will also be entitled to certain S-3 registration rights on one or more occasions. In addition, if we or a Principal Stockholder proposes to register the offer and sale of our capital stock under the Securities Act, the other Principal Stockholders will be entitled to certain “piggyback” registration rights allowing the holders to include their shares in such registration, subject to certain marketing and other limitations set forth in the registration rights agreement.

The registration rights described above apply to (i) shares of our common stock held by our Principal Stockholders and their respective affiliates, and (ii) any of our capital stock (or that of our subsidiaries) issued or issuable with respect to the common stock described in clause (i) with respect to any dividend, distribution, recapitalization, reorganization, or certain other corporate transactions (“Registrable Securities”). These registration rights are also for the benefit of any subsequent holder of Registrable Securities; provided that any particular securities will cease to be Registrable Securities when they have been sold in a registered public offering, sold in compliance with Rule 144 of the Securities Act or repurchased by us or our subsidiaries. In addition, with the consent of the company and holders of a majority of Registrable Securities, any Registrable Securities held by a person other than Silver Lake Sumeru and its affiliates will cease to be Registrable Securities if they can be sold without limitation under Rule 144 of the Securities Act.

Stock Subscription Agreement

On October 21, 2014, we entered into a stock subscription agreement with Iconiq pursuant to which we issued 357,142 shares of our common stock to Iconiq at $14.00 per share, for aggregate gross cash proceeds of $5,000,000.

Legal Services Reimbursement

As of December 31, 2015, we accrued for costs of third party legal services incurred on behalf of Silver Lake Sumeru, Iconiq and Mr. Spanicciati relating to our initial public offering and other corporate

 

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related matters. Total amounts accrued at December 31, 2015 were $161,000, of which $84,000 were expensed during 2015 and $77,000 were included in other assets as deferred offering costs.

Employment Arrangement

Isaac Tucker, who is the son of Ms. Tucker, our Chief Executive Officer, has been employed by us since 2006 and currently serves as Vice President of Product Management. His 2014, 2015 and 2016 total compensation, which is comprised of a base salary, bonus, equity and commissions, as applicable, was $424,436, $282,920 and $243,408, respectively, and was in line with similar roles at the company. In October 2016, we granted to Mr. Tucker an option award covering 20,000 shares of our common stock at an exercise price of $14.00 per share.

Participation in our Initial Public Offering

Certain entities affiliated with Iconiq, a holder of more than 5% of our common stock and an affiliate of a member of our board of directors, purchased 825,000 shares of our common stock in our initial public offering at the initial public offering price. The underwriters received the same discount from the shares sold to such affiliates as they did from all other shares sold to the public in the offering.

Indemnification of Officers and Directors

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation contains provisions that eliminate, to the maximum extent permitted by the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware, the personal liability of our directors and executive officers for monetary damages for breach of their fiduciary duties as directors or officers. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws provide that we must indemnify our directors and executive officers and may indemnify our employees and other agents to the fullest extent permitted by the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware.

Section 145 of the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware provides that a corporation may indemnify any person made a party to an action by reason of the fact that he or she was a director, executive officer, employee or agent of the corporation or is or was serving at the request of a corporation against expenses (including attorneys’ fees), judgments, fines and amounts paid in settlement actually and reasonably incurred by him or her in connection with such action if he or she acted in good faith and in a manner he or she reasonably believed to be in, or not opposed to, the best interests of the corporation and, with respect to any criminal action or proceeding, had no reasonable cause to believe his or her conduct was unlawful, except that, in the case of an action by or in right of the corporation, no indemnification may generally be made in respect of any claim as to which such person is adjudged to be liable to the corporation.

We have entered into indemnification agreements with our directors and executive officers, in addition to the indemnification provided for in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, and intend to enter into indemnification agreements with any new directors and executive officers in the future.

We have purchased and intend to maintain insurance on behalf of each and any person who is or was one of our directors or officers against any loss arising from any claim asserted against him or her and incurred by him or her in any such capacity, subject to certain exclusions.

Certain Relationships

From time to time, we do business with other companies affiliated with Silver Lake Sumeru and Iconiq. We believe that all such arrangements have been entered into in the ordinary course of business and have been conducted on an arms-length basis.

 

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Policies and Procedures for Related Party Transactions

In connection with our initial public offering, our audit committee and our board of directors approved a Related Party Transactions Policy which provides that our audit committee is responsible for reviewing and approving any related party transaction, taking into account whether the transaction is on an arms-length basis, whether there are business reasons for the transaction, whether the transaction would impair a director’s independence and whether the related party transaction would present an improper conflict of interest. The Related Party Transaction Policy applies to any transaction, arrangement or relationship, or any series of similar transactions, arrangements or relationships, in which we are to be a participant, the amount involved exceeds $120,000 and a related person had or will have a direct or indirect material interest. Our full board of directors (with any interested director recusing him or herself) reviewed and approved our related party transactions prior to our initial public offering and following our initial public offering, our audit committee will approve all of our related party transactions.

We believe that we have executed all the transactions described above on terms no less favorable to us than we could have obtained from unaffiliated third parties. It is our intention to ensure that all future related party transactions are approved by our audit committee, and are on terms no less favorable to us than those that we could obtain from unaffiliated third parties.

 

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PRINCIPAL AND SELLING STOCKHOLDERS

The following table sets forth information regarding beneficial ownership of our common stock as of March 31, 2017, and as adjusted to reflect the shares of common stock to be sold in the offering assuming no exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares from the selling stockholders in the offering, by:

 

•

each person or group of affiliated persons known by us to be the beneficial owner of more than 5% of our common stock;

 

•

each of our named executive officers;

 

•

each of our directors;

 

•

all executive officers and directors as a group; and

 

•

each selling stockholder.

Applicable percentage ownership is based on 51,285,114 shares of our common stock outstanding at March 31, 2017. Shares of common stock subject to options currently exercisable or exercisable within 60 days of March 1, 2017 which are subject to vesting conditions expected to occur within 60 days of March 31, 2017 are deemed to be outstanding and beneficially owned by the person holding the options for the purpose of computing the percentage of beneficial ownership of that person and any group of which that person is a member, but are not deemed outstanding for the purpose of computing the percentage of beneficial ownership for any other person.

Unless otherwise indicated in the footnotes below, each stockholder named in the following table possesses sole voting and investment power over the shares listed. The information does not necessarily indicate beneficial ownership for any other purpose. Unless otherwise noted below, the address of each person listed on the table is c/o BlackLine, Inc., 21300 Victory Boulevard, 12^th Floor, Woodland Hills, CA 91367.

 

		Shares Beneficially Owned Prior to the Offering								Shares of Common Stock Being Offered				Shares Beneficially Owned After the Offering
Name and Address of Beneficial Owner		Shares				Percentage								Shares				Percentage
Greater than 5% Stockholders:
Funds Affiliated with Silver Lake Sumeru(1)			19,193,571				37.43	%
Funds Affiliated with ICONIQ(2)			10,253,570				19.99	%
Named Executive Officers and Directors:
Jason Babcoke(3)			—				—
John Brennan(4)			—				—
William Griffith(5)			—				—
Hollie Haynes(6)			—				—
Karole Morgan-Prager(7)			100,000				*
Chris Murphy(8)			375,000				*
Graham Smith(9)			50,000				*
Mario Spanicciati(10)			4,424,999				8.63	%
Therese Tucker(11)			6,396,140				12.47	%
Thomas Unterman(12)			175,000				*
All directors and executive officers as a group (11 people)(13)			11,801,227				22.64	%

 

(*)	Represents beneficial ownership of less than 1%.

 

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(1)

According to a Schedule 13G filed with the SEC on February 13, 2017, the shares includes (i) 19,023,689 shares held by Silver Lake Sumeru Fund, L.P. (“SLS”), a Delaware limited partnership, and (ii) 169,882 shares held by Silver Lake Technology Investors Sumeru, L.P. (“SLTI”), a Delaware limited partnership (collectively, the “Silver Lake Sumeru Shares”). Silver Lake Technology Associates Sumeru, L.P. (the “Lower GP”), a Delaware limited partnership, is the general partner of each of SLS and SLTI. SLTA Sumeru (GP), L.L.C. (the “Upper GP”), a Delaware limited liability company, is the general partner of the Lower GP. Silver Lake Group, L.L.C. (“SLG”), a Delaware limited liability company, and Ajay Shah are the managing members of the Upper GP. The managing members of SLG are Michael Bingle, James Davidson, Egon Durban, Kenneth Hao and Greg Mondre (collectively, the “Managing Members”). The address for Messrs. Bingle and Mondre is c/o Silver Lake, 9 West 57th Street, 32nd Floor, New York, NY 10019. The address for Messrs. Davidson, Durban, Hao and Shah, SLS, SLTI, the Lower GP, the Upper GP and SLG is c/o Silver Lake, 2775 Sand Hill Road, Suite 100, Menlo Park, CA 94025. For a description of the relationship between the Company and Silver Lake Sumeru, see the section titled “Certain Relationships and Related Party Transactions.”

(2)

According to a Schedule 13G filed with the SEC on February 13, 2017, the shares includes (i) 6,367,008 shares held by ICONIQ Strategic Partners, L.P. (“ICONIQ”), (ii) 1,597,991 shares held by ICONIQ Strategic Partners-B, L.P. (“ICONIQ B”), (iii) 2,000,000 shares held by ICONIQ Strategic Partners Co-Invest, L.P., BL Series (“ICONIQ BL”) and (iv) 288,571 shares held by ICONIQ Strategic Partners Co-Invest, L.P., BL 2 Series (“ICONIQ BL2”) (collectively, the “ICONIQ Shares”). Iconiq Strategic Partners GP, L.P. (the “ICONIQ GP”), is the general partner of each of ICONIQ, ICONIQ B, ICONIQ BL and ICONIQ BL2. ICONIQ Strategic Partners TT GP, Ltd. (the “ICONIQ Parent GP”) is the general partner of the ICONIQ GP. Divesh Makan and William Griffith (collectively, the “Managing Holders”) are the sole equity holders and directors of the ICONIQ Parent GP. The addresses of each of the entities and individuals listed in this footnote are c/o ICONIQ Strategic Partners, 394 Pacific Avenue, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111.

(3)	Mr. Babcoke, who is one of our directors, is a Principal of Silver Lake Sumeru. Mr. Babcoke has no voting or investment power over the Silver Lake Sumeru Shares. The address for Mr. Babcoke is c/o Silver Lake Sumeru, 2775 Sand Hill Road, Suite 100, Menlo Park, CA 94025.

(4)	Mr. Brennan, who is one of our directors, is a Managing Director of Silver Lake Sumeru. Mr. Brennan has no voting or investment power over the Silver Lake Sumeru Shares. The address for Mr. Brennan is c/o Silver Lake Sumeru, 2775 Sand Hill Road, Suite 100, Menlo Park, CA 94025.

(5)

Mr. Griffith, who is one of our directors, is an equity holder and director of ICONIQ Parent GP. Mr. Griffith has voting and investment power over the ICONIQ Shares as described above in note 2. The address for Mr. Griffith is c/o ICONIQ Strategic Partners, 394 Pacific Avenue, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111.

(6)	Ms. Haynes, who is one of our directors, is a Managing Director of Silver Lake Sumeru. Ms. Haynes has no voting or investment power over the Silver Lake Sumeru Shares. The address for Ms. Haynes is c/o Silver Lake Sumeru, 2775 Sand Hill Road, Suite 100, Menlo Park, CA 94025.

(7)	Includes 100,000 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of stock options exercisable within 60 days of March 31, 2017.

(8)	Includes 375,000 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of stock options exercisable within 60 days of March 31, 2017.

(9)	Includes (i) 25,000 shares of common stock held of record by Mr. Smith and (ii) 25,000 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of stock options exercisable within 60 days of March 31, 2017.

(10)	Includes (i) 3,576,071 shares of common stock held by the Spanicciati Family 2013 Irrevocable Trust and (ii) 848,928 shares of common stock held by the Spanicciati Family 2013 Dynasty Trust. Mr. Spanicciati is our Chief Marketing Officer and one of our directors.

(11)

Includes (i) 3,444,945 shares of common stock held by Ms. Tucker, our Chief Executive Officer and one of our directors, (ii) 1,200,000 shares of common stock held by the Tucker Legacy Trust, (iii) 637,200 shares of common stock held by the Isaac Tucker 2012 Irrevocable Trust, (iv) 637,200 shares of common stock held by the Roseanna Tucker 2012 Irrevocable Trust, (v) 377,303 shares of common stock held by the Safety Net GRAT dated 09/28/2015, (vi) 75,352 shares of common stock held by the CS 2015 GRAT dated 9/28/2015 and (vii) 24,140 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of stock options exercisable within 60 days of March 31, 2017.

(12)	Includes (i) 100,000 shares of common stock held by ETU Rustic Canyon Trust of which Mr. Unterman is the trustee (ii) 50,000 shares of common stock held by Mr. Unterman and (iii) 25,000 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of stock options exercisable within 60 days of March 31, 2017.

(13)	Includes 829,228 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of stock options exercisable within 60 days of March 31, 2017.

 

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DESCRIPTION OF CAPITAL STOCK

The following description summarizes the material terms of our capital stock. Because it is only a summary, it does not contain all the information that may be important to you. For a complete description of our capital stock, you should refer to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws, which are included as exhibits to the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, and to the provisions of applicable Delaware law.

Our authorized capital stock consists of 500,000,000 shares of common stock, $0.01 par value and 50,000,000 shares of preferred stock, $0.01 par value. As of March 31, 2017, there were 51,285,114 shares of our common stock issued and outstanding held of record by 129 stockholders.

Common Stock

Voting Rights

Each holder of our common stock is entitled to one vote for each share on all matters submitted to a vote of the stockholders, including the election of directors. Under our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and bylaws, our stockholders will not have cumulative voting rights. Because of this, the holders of a majority of the shares of common stock entitled to vote in any election of directors can elect all of the directors standing for election, if they should so choose.

Dividends

Holders of common stock are entitled to receive ratably those dividends, if any, as may be declared from time to time by the board of directors out of legally available funds.

Liquidation

In the event of our liquidation, dissolution or winding up, holders of common stock will be entitled to share ratably in the net assets legally available for distribution to stockholders after the payment of all of our debts and other liabilities.

Rights and Preferences

Holders of shares of common stock have no preemptive, conversion or subscription rights and there are no redemption or sinking fund provisions applicable to the common stock. The rights, preferences and privileges of the holders of shares of common stock are subject to, and may be adversely affected by, the rights of the holders of shares of any series of preferred stock that we may designate in the future.

Preferred Stock

No shares of our preferred stock are currently outstanding. Under our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, our board of directors, without further action by our stockholders, is authorized to issue shares of preferred stock in one or more classes or series. The board may fix or alter the rights, preferences and privileges of the preferred stock, along with any limitations or restrictions, including voting rights, dividend rights, conversion rights, redemption privileges and liquidation preferences of each class or series of preferred stock. The preferred stock could have voting or conversion rights that could adversely affect the voting power or other rights of holders of our common stock. The issuance of preferred stock could also have the effect, under certain circumstances, of delaying, deferring or preventing a change of control of our company. We currently have no plans to issue any shares of preferred stock.

 

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Anti-Takeover Effects of Delaware Law and Our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws contain certain provisions that could have the effect of delaying, deferring or discouraging another party from acquiring control of us. These provisions are also designed, in part, to encourage persons seeking to acquire control of us to negotiate first with our board of directors. We believe that the benefits of increased protection of our potential ability to negotiate more favorable terms with an unfriendly or unsolicited acquirer outweigh the disadvantages of discouraging a proposal to acquire us.

Classified Board

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that our board of directors is divided into three classes of directors, with the classes as nearly equal in number as possible, and with the directors serving three-year terms. As a result, approximately one-third of our board will be elected each year. The classification of directors will have the effect of making it more difficult for stockholders to change the composition of our board. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation also provides that, subject to any rights of holders of preferred stock to elect additional directors under specified circumstances and the Stockholders’ Agreement, the number of directors will be fixed exclusively pursuant to a resolution adopted by our board. Our board of directors is currently comprised of eight members.

Stockholder Action by Written Consent

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation precludes stockholder action by written consent at any time when the Principal Stockholders beneficially own, in the aggregate, less than 35% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding.

Special Meetings of Stockholders

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that, except as required by law, special meetings of our stockholders may be called at any time only by or at the direction of our board or the chairman of our board; provided, however, at any time when the Principal Stockholders own, in the aggregate, at least 35% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, special meetings of our stockholders will also be called by our board or the chairman of our board at the request of Silver Lake Sumeru or Ms. Tucker. Our amended and restated bylaws prohibit the conduct of any business at a special meeting other than as specified in the notice for such meeting. These provisions may have the effect of deferring, delaying or discouraging hostile takeovers, or changes in control or management of the company.

Advance Notice Procedures

Our amended and restated bylaws contain an advance notice procedure for stockholder proposals to be brought before an annual meeting of our stockholders, including proposed nominations of persons for election to our board; provided, however, such advance notice procedures will not apply to a Principal Stockholder at any time when such Principal Stockholder beneficially owns at least 10% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding. Stockholders at an annual meeting will only be able to consider proposals or nominations specified in the notice of meeting or brought before the meeting by or at the direction of our board or by a stockholder who was a stockholder of record on the record date for the meeting, who is entitled to vote at the meeting and who has given our secretary timely written notice, in proper form, of the stockholder’s intention to bring that business before the meeting. Although the amended and restated bylaws will not give our board the power to approve or disapprove stockholder nominations of candidates or proposals regarding other

 

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business to be conducted at a special or annual meeting, the bylaws may have the effect of precluding the conduct of certain business at a meeting if the proper procedures are not followed or may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect its own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of the company.

Removal of Directors; Vacancies

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that directors may be removed with or without cause upon the affirmative vote of a majority in voting power of all outstanding shares of stock entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class; provided, however, at any time when the Principal Stockholders beneficially own, in the aggregate, less than 40% of the voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, directors may only be removed for cause, and only by the affirmative vote of holders of at least 66 2/3% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class. In connection with votes for removal, the parties to the Stockholders’ Agreement will agree to vote their shares in accordance with the board composition requirements in such agreement and the wishes of the party which designated a director regarding removal of such director. Any newly created directorships that result in a vacancy on the board will be filled by Silver Lake Sumeru if Silver Lake Sumeru is entitled to fill the vacancy pursuant to the Stockholders’ Agreement. In the event that Silver Lake Sumeru is not entitled to, or chooses not to, fill the vacancy, then such vacancy may only be filled by a majority of the directors then in office, even if less than a quorum, or by a sole remaining director (and not by the stockholders). In addition, in the event that Ms. Tucker or Mr. Spanicciati ceases to be employed by the company for any reason and she or he beneficially owns less than 5% of the total number of shares of our common stock outstanding, (i) she or he will be required to immediately tender her or his resignation from the board of directors effective only upon acceptance by the board of directors and (ii) the board of directors may, in its sole discretion, accept or reject such resignation. If the board of directors rejects the resignation, Ms. Tucker or Mr. Spanicciati, as applicable, will continue to have the right to be designated for membership on the board of directors; provided that the board of directors will have the right, by unanimous vote of the other directors (excluding both Ms. Tucker and Mr. Spanicciati), to require such director’s resignation from the board of directors if the board of directors determines such resignation would be in the best interests of the company, regardless of the number of shares of common stock held by Ms. Tucker or Mr. Spanicciati.

Supermajority Approval Requirements

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws provide that our board of directors is expressly authorized to make, alter, amend and rescind, in whole or in part, our bylaws without a stockholder vote in any matter not inconsistent with the laws of the State of Delaware and our certificate of incorporation. For as long as the Principal Stockholders beneficially own, in the aggregate, at least 40% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, any amendment, alteration, rescission or repeal of our amended and restated bylaws by our stockholders will require the affirmative vote of 60% of the voting power of all the then outstanding shares of our stock entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class. At any time when the Principal Stockholders beneficially own, in the aggregate, less than 40% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, any amendment, alteration, rescission or repeal of our amended and restated bylaws by our stockholders will require the affirmative vote of the holders of at least 75% voting power of all the then outstanding shares of our stock entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class.

The DGCL provides generally that the affirmative vote of a majority of the outstanding shares entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class, is required to amend a corporation’s certificate of incorporation, unless the certificate of incorporation requires a greater percentage.

 

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Our certificate of incorporation provides that (i) at any time when the Principal Stockholders collectively beneficially own, in the aggregate, at least 40% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, the amended and restated certificate of incorporation may be amended, altered, repealed or rescinded only by the affirmative vote of the holders of at least 60% of the voting power of our stock entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class, and (ii) at any time when the Principal Stockholders beneficially own, in the aggregate, less than 40% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, the following provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation may be amended, altered, repealed or rescinded only by the affirmative vote of the holders of at least 75% of the voting power of all the then outstanding shares of our stock entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class:

 

•

the provisions providing for a classified board of directors (the election and term of our directors);

 

•

the provisions regarding resignation and removal of directors;

 

•

the provisions regarding competition and corporate opportunity;

 

•

the provisions regarding entering into business combinations with interested stockholders;

 

•

the provisions regarding stockholder action by written consent;

 

•

the provisions regarding calling special meetings of stockholders;

 

•

the provisions regarding filling vacancies on our board and newly created directorships;

 

•

the provisions eliminating monetary damages for breaches of fiduciary duty by a director; and

 

•

the amendment provision requiring that the above provisions be amended only with a 75% supermajority vote.

The combination of the classification of our board of directors, the lack of cumulative voting and the supermajority voting requirements will make it more difficult for our existing stockholders to replace our board of directors as well as for another party to obtain control of us by replacing our board. Because our board of directors has the power to retain and discharge our officers, these provisions could also make it more difficult for existing stockholders or another party to effect a change in management.

Authorized but Unissued Shares

Our authorized but unissued shares of common stock and preferred stock are available for future issuance without stockholder approval, subject to stock exchange rules. These additional shares may be utilized for a variety of corporate purposes, including future public offerings to raise additional capital, corporate acquisitions and employee benefit plans. One of the effects of the existence of authorized but unissued common stock or preferred stock may be to enable our board to issue shares to persons friendly to current management, which issuance could render more difficult or discourage an attempt to obtain control of the company by means of a merger, tender offer, proxy contest or otherwise, and thereby protect the continuity of our management and possibly deprive our stockholders of opportunities to sell their shares of common stock at prices higher than prevailing market prices.

Business Combinations

We are not subject to the provisions of Section 203 of the DGCL. In general, Section 203 prohibits a publicly held Delaware corporation from engaging in a “business combination” with an “interested stockholder” for a three-year period following the time that the person becomes an interested stockholder, unless the business combination is approved in a prescribed manner. A

 

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“business combination” includes, among other things, a merger, asset or stock sale or other transaction resulting in a financial benefit to the interested stockholder. An “interested stockholder” is a person who, together with affiliates and associates, owns, or did own within three years prior to the determination of interested stockholder status, 15% or more of the corporation’s voting stock.

Under Section 203, a business combination between a corporation and an interested stockholder is prohibited unless it satisfies one of the following conditions: (1) before the stockholder became an interested stockholder, the board of directors approved either the business combination or the transaction which resulted in the stockholder becoming an interested stockholder; (2) upon consummation of the transaction which resulted in the stockholder becoming an interested stockholder, the interested stockholder owned at least 85% of the voting stock of the corporation outstanding at the time the transaction commenced, excluding for purposes of determining the voting stock outstanding, shares owned by persons who are directors and also officers, and employee stock plans, in some instances; or (3) at or after the time the stockholder became an interested stockholder, the business combination was approved by the board of directors and authorized at an annual or special meeting of the stockholders by the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds of the outstanding voting stock which is not owned by the interested stockholder.

A Delaware corporation may “opt out” of these provisions with an express provision in its original certificate of incorporation or an express provision in its certificate of incorporation or bylaws resulting from a stockholders’ amendment approved by at least a majority of the outstanding voting shares.

We have opted out of Section 203; however, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation contains similar provisions providing that we may not engage in certain “business combinations” with any “interested stockholder” for a three-year period following the time that the stockholder became an interested stockholder, unless:

 

•

prior to such time, our board of directors approved either the business combination or the transaction which resulted in the stockholder becoming an interested stockholder;

 

•

upon consummation of the transaction that resulted in the stockholder becoming an interested stockholder, the interested stockholder owned at least 85% of our voting stock outstanding at the time the transaction commenced, excluding certain shares; or

 

•

at or subsequent to that time, the business combination is approved by our board of directors and by the affirmative vote of holders of at least 66 2/3% of our outstanding voting stock that is not owned by the interested stockholder.

Under certain circumstances, this provision will make it more difficult for a person who would be an “interested stockholder” to effect various business combinations with the company for a three-year period. This provision may encourage companies interested in acquiring the company to negotiate in advance with our board because the stockholder approval requirement would be avoided if our board approves either the business combination or the transaction which results in the stockholder becoming an interested stockholder. These provisions also may have the effect of preventing changes in our board and may make it more difficult to accomplish transactions which stockholders may otherwise deem to be in their best interests.

Our certificate of incorporation provides that Silver Lake Sumeru, Iconiq and Ms. Tucker, and certain transferees who, following the transfer, will beneficially own at least 15% of the total number of shares of our common stock then outstanding, and any of their respective affiliates or successors or any group as to which such persons are a party, do not constitute “interested stockholders” for purposes of this provision.

 

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Exclusive Forum

Our amended and restated bylaws provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the sole and exclusive forum for (1) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, (2) any action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our directors, officers or other employees to us or our stockholders, (3) any action asserting a claim against the company or any director or officer of the company arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL, or (4) any other action asserting a claim that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine shall be a state or federal court located within the State of Delaware, in all cases subject to the court’s having jurisdiction over indispensable parties named as defendants. Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in our shares of capital stock shall be deemed to have notice of and consented to this provision. Although we believe these provisions benefit us by providing increased consistency in the application of Delaware law for the specified types of actions and proceedings, the provisions may have the effect of discouraging lawsuits against us or our directors and officers.

Conflicts of Interest

Delaware law permits corporations to adopt provisions renouncing any interest or expectancy in certain opportunities that are presented to the corporation or its officers, directors or stockholders. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, to the maximum extent permitted from time to time by Delaware law, renounces any interest or expectancy that we have in, or right to be offered an opportunity to participate in, specified business opportunities that are from time to time presented to certain of our officers, directors or stockholders or their respective affiliates, other than those officers, directors, stockholders or affiliates who are our or our subsidiaries’ employees. Our certificate of incorporation provides that, to the fullest extent permitted by law, none of Silver Lake Sumeru or Iconiq, their respective affiliates or the directors they designate will have any duty to refrain from (1) engaging in a corporate or business opportunity or offer a prospective economic or competitive advantage in which we, or any of our affiliates, directly could have an interest of expectancy, (2) otherwise competing with us or our affiliates, (3) otherwise doing business with any potential or actual customer or supplier of ours or our affiliates or (4) otherwise employing or engaging any officer or employee or any of our affiliates. In addition, to the fullest extent permitted by law, in the event that Silver Lake Sumeru or Iconiq, their respective affiliates or the directors they designate acquires knowledge of a potential transaction or other business opportunity which may be a corporate opportunity for itself, herself or himself or its or his affiliates or for us or our affiliates, such person will have no duty to communicate or offer such transaction or business opportunity to us or any of our affiliates and they may take any such opportunity for themselves or offer it to another person or entity. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation does not renounce our interest in any business opportunity that is expressly offered to Silver Lake Sumeru, Iconiq, their respective affiliates or the directors they designate solely in his or her capacity as a director or officer of the company. To the fullest extent permitted by law, no business opportunity will be deemed to be a potential corporate opportunity for us unless we would be permitted to undertake the opportunity under our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, we have sufficient financial resources to undertake the opportunity, the opportunity would be in line with our business, and the opportunity is one in which we have an interest or reasonable expectancy.

Limitations on Liability and Indemnification of Officers and Directors

The DGCL authorizes corporations to limit or eliminate the personal liability of directors to corporations and their stockholders for monetary damages for breaches of directors’ fiduciary duties, subject to certain exceptions. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation includes a provision that eliminates the personal liability of directors for monetary damages for any breach of fiduciary duty as a director, except to the extent such exemption from liability or limitation thereof is not

 

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permitted under the DGCL. These provisions eliminate the rights of us and our stockholders, through stockholders’ derivative suits on our behalf, to recover monetary damages from a director for breach of fiduciary duty as a director, including breaches resulting from grossly negligent behavior. However, exculpation will not apply to any director if the director has acted in bad faith, knowingly or intentionally violated the law, authorized illegal dividends or redemptions or derived an improper benefit from his or her actions as a director.

Our amended and restated bylaws provide that we must indemnify and advance expenses to our directors and officers to the fullest extent authorized by the DGCL. We also are expressly authorized to carry directors’ and officers’ liability insurance providing indemnification for our directors, officers and certain employees for some liabilities. We believe that these indemnification and advancement provisions and insurance will be useful to attract and retain qualified directors and officers.

The limitation of liability, indemnification and advancement provisions included in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws may discourage stockholders from bringing a lawsuit against directors for breaches of their fiduciary duty. These provisions also may have the effect of reducing the likelihood of derivative litigation against directors and officers, even though such an action, if successful, might otherwise benefit us and our stockholders. In addition, your investment may be adversely affected to the extent we pay the costs of settlement and damage awards against directors and officers pursuant to these indemnification provisions.

There is currently no pending material litigation or proceeding involving any of our directors, officers or employees for which indemnification is sought.

Transfer Agent and Registrar

The transfer agent and registrar for our common stock is American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, LLC. The transfer agent and registrar’s address is 6201 15th Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11219, and its telephone number is (718) 921-8206.

Listing

Our common stock is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Stock Market under the trading symbol “BL”.

 

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SHARES ELIGIBLE FOR FUTURE SALE

Future sales of our common stock in the public market, or the availability of such shares for sale in the public market, could adversely affect market prices of our common stock prevailing from time to time. As described below, only a limited number of shares of our common stock will be available for sale shortly after this offering due to contractual and legal restrictions on resale. Nevertheless, sales of our common stock in the public market after such restrictions lapse, or the perception that those sales may occur, could adversely affect the prevailing market price at such time and our ability to raise equity capital in the future.

As of March 31, 2017, there were 51,285,114 shares of common stock issued and outstanding. All of the shares of our common stock sold in this offering by the selling stockholders pursuant to this prospectus will be freely tradable without restriction or further registration under the Securities Act unless such shares are purchased by “affiliates” as that term is defined in Rule 144 under the Securities Act. Upon completion of this offering, approximately     % of our outstanding common stock will be held by our Principal Stockholders. These shares will be “restricted securities” as that phrase is defined in Rule 144. Subject to certain contractual restrictions, including the lock-up agreements described below, holders of restricted shares will be entitled to sell those shares in the public market if they qualify for an exemption from registration under Rule 144 or any other applicable exemption under the Securities Act. Subject to the lock-up agreements described below and the provisions of Rules 144 and 701, additional shares will be available for sale as set forth below. Upon completion of this offering, investors holding an aggregate of                  shares of common stock have registration rights.

Lock-up Agreements

In connection with this offering, we and our directors, executive officers, Principal Stockholders and the selling stockholders have agreed, subject to certain exceptions, not to dispose of or hedge any of their common stock or securities convertible into or exchangeable for our common stock for 90 days after the date of this prospectus without the prior written consent of Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC on behalf of the underwriters.

Rule 144

In general, under Rule 144 as currently in effect, a person who is not our affiliate and has not been our affiliate at any time during the preceding three months will be entitled to sell any shares of our common stock that such person has beneficially owned for at least six months, including the holding period of any prior owner other than one of our affiliates, without regard to volume limitations. Sales of our common stock by any such person would be subject to the availability of current public information about us if the shares to be sold were beneficially owned by such person for less than one year.

In general, under Rule 144, as currently in effect, our affiliates or persons selling shares of our common stock on behalf of our affiliates are entitled to sell, within any three-month period, a number of shares that does not exceed the greater of:

 

•

1% of the number of shares of our common stock then outstanding, which will equal approximately 512,851 shares; or

 

•

the average weekly trading volume of our common stock during the four calendar weeks preceding the filing of a notice on Form 144 with respect to such sale.

Sales under Rule 144 by our affiliates or persons selling shares on behalf of our affiliates are also subject to certain manner of sale provisions and notice requirements and to the availability of current public information about us.

 

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Rule 701

Rule 701 generally allows a stockholder who purchased shares of our common stock pursuant to a written compensatory plan or contract and who is not deemed to have been an affiliate of our company during the immediately preceding 90 days to sell these shares in reliance upon Rule 144, but without being required to comply with the public information, holding period, volume limitation, or notice provisions of Rule 144. Rule 701 also permits affiliates of our company to sell their Rule 701 shares under Rule 144 without complying with the holding period requirements of Rule 144.

As of March 31, 2017, 795,832 shares of our outstanding common stock had been issued in reliance on Rule 701 as a result of exercises of stock options and stock awards.

Registration Rights

When this offering is complete, the holders of an aggregate of                  shares of our common stock, or their transferees, will be entitled to rights with respect to the registration of their shares under the Securities Act, subject to various conditions and limitations. Registration of these shares under the Securities Act would result in these shares becoming freely tradable without restriction under the Securities Act immediately upon the effectiveness of such registration. For a further description of these rights, see “Certain Relationships and Related Party Transactions—Registration Rights.”

Registration Statement

We filed a registration statement on Form S-8 under the Securities Act to register shares of our common stock subject to options outstanding, as well as reserved for future issuance, under our equity compensation plans. The registration statement on Form S-8 became effective immediately upon filing, and shares of our common stock covered by the registration statement are eligible for sale in the public market, subject to the Rule 144 limitations applicable to affiliates, vesting restrictions and any applicable market standoff agreements and lock-up agreements.

 

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MATERIAL U.S. FEDERAL INCOME TAX CONSEQUENCES

TO NON-U.S. HOLDERS OF OUR COMMON STOCK

The following is a summary of the material U.S. federal income tax consequences of the ownership and disposition of our common stock to non-U.S. holders issued pursuant to this offering, but does not purport to be a complete analysis of all the potential tax considerations relating thereto. This summary is based upon the provisions of the Code, Treasury Regulations promulgated thereunder, administrative rulings and judicial decisions, all as of the date hereof. These authorities may be changed, possibly retroactively, so as to result in U.S. federal income tax consequences different from those set forth below. We have not sought any ruling from the Internal Revenue Service, or the IRS, with respect to the statements made and the conclusions reached in the following summary, and there can be no assurance that the IRS will agree with such statements and conclusions. Potential tax reforms in the United States may result in significant changes in the rules governing U.S. federal income taxation. Such changes may affect the U.S. federal tax considerations of the ownership and disposition of our common stock discussed herein.

This summary also does not address the tax consequences arising under the laws of any non-U.S., state or local jurisdiction or other U.S. federal laws, including gift and estate tax laws. In addition, this discussion does not address tax consequences applicable to an investor’s particular circumstances or to investors that may be subject to special tax rules, including, without limitation:

 

•

banks, insurance companies or other financial institutions;

 

•

persons subject to the alternative minimum tax or the Medicare tax on net investment income;

 

•

tax-exempt organizations or governmental organizations;

 

•

controlled foreign corporations, passive foreign investment companies, and corporations that accumulate earnings to avoid U.S. federal income tax;

 

•

dealers in securities or currencies;

 

•

traders in securities that elect to use a mark-to-market method of accounting for their securities holdings;

 

•

persons that own, or are deemed to own, more than five percent of our common stock (except to the extent specifically set forth below);

 

•

certain former citizens or long-term residents of the United States;

 

•

persons who hold our common stock as a position in a hedging transaction, “straddle,” “conversion transaction” or other risk reduction transaction;

 

•

persons who hold or receive our common stock pursuant to the exercise of any employee stock option or otherwise as compensation;

 

•

persons who do not hold our stock as a capital asset within the meaning of Section 1221 of the Code; and

 

•

persons deemed to sell our common stock under the constructive sale provisions of the Code.

In addition, if a partnership or entity classified as a partnership for U.S. federal income tax purposes holds our common stock, the tax treatment of a partner generally will depend on the status of the partner, the activities of the partnership and certain determinations made at the partner level. Accordingly, partnerships that hold our common stock, and partners in such partnerships, should consult their tax advisors regarding the federal income tax consequences to them.

YOU ARE URGED TO CONSULT YOUR TAX ADVISOR WITH RESPECT TO THE APPLICATION OF THE U.S. FEDERAL INCOME TAX LAWS TO YOUR PARTICULAR SITUATION,

 

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AS WELL AS ANY TAX CONSEQUENCES OF THE PURCHASE, OWNERSHIP AND DISPOSITION OF OUR COMMON STOCK ARISING UNDER THE U.S. FEDERAL ESTATE OR GIFT TAX RULES OR UNDER THE LAWS OF ANY STATE, LOCAL, NON-U.S. OR OTHER TAXING JURISDICTION OR UNDER ANY APPLICABLE TAX TREATY.

Non-U.S. Holder Defined

For purposes of this discussion, you are a non-U.S. holder (other than a partnership) if you are a beneficial holder of our common stock that, for U.S. federal income tax purposes, is not a U.S. person. For purposes of this discussion, you are a U.S. person if you are:

 

•

an individual citizen or resident of the United States for U.S. tax purposes;

 

•

a corporation or other entity taxable as a corporation created or organized in the United States or under the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof or treated as such for U.S. federal income tax purposes;

 

•

an estate whose income is subject to U.S. federal income tax regardless of its source; or

 

•

a trust (x) whose administration is subject to the primary supervision of a U.S. court and which has one or more “United States persons” (within the meaning of Section 7701(a)(30)) who have the authority to control all substantial decisions of the trust or (y) which has made an election to be treated as a United States person for U.S. federal income tax purposes.

Distributions

We have not made any distributions on our common stock, and we do not plan to make any distributions for the foreseeable future. However, if we do make distributions on our common stock, those payments will constitute dividends for U.S. tax purposes to the extent paid from our current or accumulated earnings and profits, as determined under U.S. federal income tax principles. To the extent those distributions exceed both our current and our accumulated earnings and profits, they will constitute a return of capital and will first reduce your basis in our common stock, but not below zero, and any excess will be treated as gain from the sale of stock as described below under “—Gain on Disposition of Common Stock.”

Subject to the discussion below on effectively connected income, any dividend paid to you generally will be subject to U.S. withholding tax either at a rate of 30% of the gross amount of the dividend or such lower rate as may be specified by an applicable income tax treaty. In order to receive a reduced treaty rate, you must provide us with a valid IRS Form W-8BEN, IRS Form W-8BEN-E or other appropriate version of IRS Form W-8 certifying qualification for the reduced rate. A non-U.S. holder of shares of our common stock eligible for a reduced rate of U.S. withholding tax pursuant to an income tax treaty may obtain a refund of any excess amounts withheld by timely filing an appropriate claim for refund with the IRS. If the non-U.S. holder holds the stock through a financial institution or other agent acting on the non-U.S. holder’s behalf, the non-U.S. holder will be required to provide appropriate documentation to the agent, which then will be required to provide certification to us or our paying agent, either directly or through other intermediaries. You should consult your tax advisor regarding any applicable tax treaties that may provide for different rules.

Dividends received by you that are effectively connected with your conduct of a U.S. trade or business, and, if required by a tax treaty, are attributable to a permanent establishment that you maintain in the United States, are generally exempt from the withholding tax described above. In order to obtain this exemption, you must provide the applicable paying agent with a valid IRS Form W-8ECI or other appropriate IRS Form W-8 properly certifying such exemption. Such effectively connected

 

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dividends, although not subject to withholding tax, are taxed at the same graduated rates applicable to U.S. persons. In addition, if you are a corporate non-U.S. holder, dividends you receive that are effectively connected with your conduct of a U.S. trade or business may also be subject to a branch profits tax at a rate of 30% or such lower rate as may be specified by an applicable income tax treaty. You should consult your tax advisor regarding any applicable tax treaties that may provide for different rules.

For additional withholding rules that may apply to dividends paid to “foreign financial institutions” or to “non-financial foreign entities” (as specifically defined in the Code) that have substantial direct or indirect U.S. owners, see the discussion below under the heading “—Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).”

Gain on Disposition of Common Stock

Subject to discussions below regarding backup withholding and FATCA, you generally will not be required to pay U.S. federal income tax on any gain realized upon the sale or other disposition of our common stock unless:

 

•

the gain is effectively connected with your conduct of a U.S. trade or business, and, if required by a tax treaty, the gain is attributable to a permanent establishment that you maintain in the United States;

 

•

you are an individual non-resident alien who is present in the United States for a period or periods aggregating 183 days or more during the taxable year in which the sale or disposition occurs and certain other conditions are met; or

 

•

our common stock constitutes a U.S. real property interest, or USRPI, by reason of our status as a “United States real property holding corporation,” or USRPHC, for U.S. federal income tax purposes.

We believe that we are not currently and will not become a USRPHC. However, because the determination of whether we are a USRPHC depends on the fair market value of our USRPIs relative to the fair market value of our non-U.S. real property interests and other business assets, there can be no assurance that we are not a USRPHC or will not become a USRPHC in the future. Even if we are or were to become a USRPHC, however, as long as our common stock is “regularly traded” (as defined by applicable Treasury Regulations) on an established securities market, such common stock will be treated as USRPIs only if you actually or constructively hold more than five percent of such regularly traded common stock at any time during the shorter of the five-year period preceding your disposition of, or your holding period for, our common stock. You should consult any applicable tax treaties that may provide for different rules.

If you are a non-U.S. holder described in the first bullet above, you will be required to pay tax on the net gain derived from the sale at the same graduated rates applicable to U.S. persons, and corporate non-U.S. holders described in the first bullet above may be subject to the branch profits tax at a 30% rate or such lower rate as may be specified by an applicable income tax treaty. If you are an individual non-U.S. holder described in the second bullet above, you will be required to pay a flat 30% tax (or such lower rate specified by an applicable income tax treaty) on the gain derived from the sale, which gain may be offset by U.S. source capital losses (even though you are not considered a resident of the United States), provided you have timely filed U.S. federal income tax returns with respect to such losses. You should consult any applicable tax treaties that may provide for different rules.

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entities” (as specifically defined in the Code) that have substantial direct or indirect U.S. owners, see the discussion below under the heading “—Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).”

Backup Withholding and Information Reporting

Generally, we must report annually to the IRS the amount of dividends paid to you, your name and address, and the amount of tax withheld, if any. A similar report is sent to you. Pursuant to applicable income tax treaties or other agreements, the IRS may make these reports available to tax authorities in your country of residence.

Payments of dividends or of proceeds on the disposition of stock made to you may be subject to information reporting and backup withholding at a current rate of 28% unless you establish an exemption, for example by properly certifying your non-U.S. status on an IRS Form W-8BEN, IRS Form W-8BEN-E or another appropriate version of IRS Form W-8. Notwithstanding the foregoing, backup withholding and information reporting may apply if either we or our paying agent has actual knowledge, or reason to know, that you are a U.S. person.

Backup withholding is not an additional tax; rather, the U.S. federal income tax liability of persons subject to backup withholding will be reduced by the amount of tax withheld. If withholding results in an overpayment of taxes, a refund or credit may be obtained, provided that the required information is furnished to the IRS in a timely manner.

Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)

Under Sections 1471 to 1474 of the Code (such Sections commonly referred to as FATCA), a U.S. federal withholding tax of 30% may be imposed on dividends on and the gross proceeds from a disposition of our common stock to a “foreign financial institution” (as specifically defined in the Code) unless such institution enters into an agreement with the U.S. government to, among other things, withhold on certain payments and to collect and provide to the U.S. tax authorities substantial information regarding U.S. account holders of such institution (which includes certain equity and debt holders of such institution, as well as certain account holders that are foreign entities with U.S. owners) or otherwise establishes an exemption. A U.S. federal withholding tax of 30% under FATCA may be imposed on dividends on and the gross proceeds from a disposition of our stock to a “non-financial foreign entity” (as specifically defined under the Code) unless such entity provides the withholding agent with either a certification that it does not have any “substantial United States owners” (as defined in the Code) or provides information regarding each substantial United States owner of the entity or otherwise establishes an exception. The withholding provisions described above apply to payments of dividends on our stock and, under current transition rules, are expected to apply with respect to payments of gross proceeds from a sale or other disposition of such common stock on or after January 1, 2019. An intergovernmental agreement between the United States and an applicable foreign country may modify the requirements described in this paragraph. Under certain circumstances, a non-U.S. holder might be eligible for refunds or credits of such taxes. You should consult your tax advisors regarding these withholding provisions.

The preceding discussion of U.S. federal income tax consequences is for general information only. It is not tax advice. Each prospective investor should consult its own tax advisor regarding the particular U.S. federal, state and local and non-U.S. tax consequences of purchasing, holding and disposing of our common stock, including the consequences of any proposed change in applicable laws.

 

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UNDERWRITING

We, the selling stockholders and the underwriters named below have entered into an underwriting agreement with respect to the shares being offered. Subject to certain conditions, each underwriter has severally agreed to purchase from the selling stockholders, the number of shares indicated in the following table. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC are the representatives of the underwriters.

 

Underwriters		Number of Shares
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC
Pacific Crest Securities, a division of KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.
Raymond James & Associates, Inc.
William Blair & Company, L.L.C.
JMP Securities LLC
Total

The underwriters are committed to take and pay for all of the shares being offered, if any are taken, other than the shares covered by the option described below unless and until this option is exercised.

The underwriters have an option to buy up to an additional              shares from the selling stockholders to cover sales by the underwriters of a greater number of shares than the total number set forth in the table above. They may exercise that option for 30 days from the date of this prospectus. If any shares are purchased pursuant to this option, the underwriters will severally purchase shares in approximately the same proportion as set forth in the table above.

The following table shows the per share and total underwriting discounts and commissions to be paid to the underwriters by the selling stockholders. Such amounts are shown assuming both no exercise and full exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase              additional shares.

Paid by the Selling Stockholders

 

		No Exercise				Full Exercise
Per Share		$				$
Total		$				$

Shares sold by the underwriters to the public will initially be offered at the public offering price set forth on the cover of this prospectus. Any shares sold by the underwriters to securities dealers may be sold at a discount of up to $        per share from the public offering price. After the initial offering of the shares, the representatives may change the offering price and the other selling terms. The offering of the shares by the underwriters is subject to receipt and acceptance and subject to the underwriters’ right to reject any order in whole or in part.

The company and its officers, directors, Principal Stockholders and the selling stockholders have agreed with the underwriters, subject to certain exceptions, not to dispose of or hedge any of their common stock or securities convertible into or exchangeable for shares of common stock during the period from the date of this prospectus continuing through the date 90 days from the date of this prospectus, except with the prior written consent of the representatives. This agreement does not apply to any existing employee benefit plans. See “Shares Available for Future Sale” for a discussion of certain transfer restrictions.

 

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Our shares are listed on NASDAQ Global Select Stock Market under the symbol “BL”.

In connection with the offering, the underwriters may purchase and sell shares of common stock in the open market. These transactions may include short sales, stabilizing transactions and purchases to cover positions created by short sales. Short sales involve the sale by the underwriters of a greater number of shares than they are required to purchase in the offering, and a short position represents the amount of such sales that have not been covered by subsequent purchases. A “covered short position” is a short position that is not greater than the amount of additional shares for which the underwriters’ option described above may be exercised. The underwriters may cover any covered short position by either exercising their option to purchase additional shares or purchasing shares in the open market. In determining the source of shares to cover the covered short position, the underwriters will consider, among other things, the price of shares available for purchase in the open market as compared to the price at which they may purchase additional shares pursuant to the option described above. “Naked” short sales are any short sales that create a short position greater than the amount of additional shares for which the option described above may be exercised. The underwriters must cover any such naked short position by purchasing shares in the open market. A naked short position is more likely to be created if the underwriters are concerned that there may be downward pressure on the price of the common stock in the open market after pricing that could adversely affect investors who purchase in the offering. Stabilizing transactions consist of various bids for or purchases of common stock made by the underwriters in the open market prior to the completion of the offering.

The underwriters may also impose a penalty bid. This occurs when a particular underwriter repays to the underwriters a portion of the underwriting discount received by it because the representatives have repurchased shares sold by or for the account of such underwriter in stabilizing or short covering transactions.

Purchases to cover a short position and stabilizing transactions, as well as other purchases by the underwriters for their own accounts, may have the effect of preventing or retarding a decline in the market price of the company’s stock, and together with the imposition of the penalty bid, may stabilize, maintain or otherwise affect the market price of the common stock. As a result, the price of the common stock may be higher than the price that otherwise might exist in the open market. The underwriters are not required to engage in these activities and may end any of these activities at any time. These transactions may be effected on the NASDAQ Global Select Stock Market, in the over-the-counter market or otherwise.

European Economic Area

In relation to each Member State of the European Economic Area which has implemented the Prospectus Directive (each, a Relevant Member State), each underwriter has represented and agreed that with effect from and including the date on which the Prospectus Directive is implemented in that Relevant Member State (the Relevant Implementation Date) it has not made and will not make an offer of shares to the public in that Relevant Member State prior to the publication of a prospectus in relation to the shares which has been approved by the competent authority in that Relevant Member State or, where appropriate, approved in another Relevant Member State and notified to the competent authority in that Relevant Member State, all in accordance with the Prospectus Directive, except that it may, with effect from and including the Relevant Implementation Date, make an offer of shares to the public in that Relevant Member State at any time:

 

(a)

to legal entities which are authorised or regulated to operate in the financial markets or, if not so authorised or regulated, whose corporate purpose is solely to invest in securities;

 

(b)

to any legal entity which has two or more of (1) an average of at least 250 employees during the last financial year; (2) a total balance sheet of more than €43,000,000 and (3) an annual net turnover of more than €50,000,000, as shown in its last annual or consolidated accounts;

 

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(c)

to fewer than 100 natural or legal persons (other than qualified investors as defined in the Prospectus Directive) subject to obtaining the prior consent of the representatives for any such offer; or

 

(d)

in any other circumstances which do not require the publication by the Issuer of a prospectus pursuant to Article 3 of the Prospectus Directive.

For the purposes of this provision, the expression an “offer of shares to the public” in relation to any shares in any Relevant Member State means the communication in any form and by any means of sufficient information on the terms of the offer and the shares to be offered so as to enable an investor to decide to purchase or subscribe the shares, as the same may be varied in that Relevant Member State by any measure implementing the Prospectus Directive in that Relevant Member State and the expression Prospectus Directive means Directive 2003/71/EC and includes any relevant implementing measure in each Relevant Member State.

Each underwriter has represented and agreed that:

 

(a)

it has only communicated or caused to be communicated and will only communicate or cause to be communicated an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity (within the meaning of Section 21 of the FSMA) received by it in connection with the issue or sale of the shares in circumstances in which Section 21(1) of the FSMA would not, if the Issuer was not an authorised person, apply to the Issuer; and

 

(b)

it has complied and will comply with all applicable provisions of the FSMA with respect to anything done by it in relation to the shares in, from or otherwise involving the United Kingdom.

Hong Kong

The shares may not be offered or sold by means of any document other than (i) in circumstances which do not constitute an offer to the public within the meaning of the Companies Ordinance (Cap.32, Laws of Hong Kong), or (ii) to “professional investors” within the meaning of the Securities and Futures Ordinance (Cap.571, Laws of Hong Kong) and any rules made thereunder, or (iii) in other circumstances which do not result in the document being a “prospectus” within the meaning of the Companies Ordinance (Cap.32, Laws of Hong Kong), and no advertisement, invitation or document relating to the shares may be issued or may be in the possession of any person for the purpose of issue (in each case whether in Hong Kong or elsewhere), which is directed at, or the contents of which are likely to be accessed or read by, the public in Hong Kong (except if permitted to do so under the laws of Hong Kong) other than with respect to shares which are or are intended to be disposed of only to persons outside Hong Kong or only to “professional investors” within the meaning of the Securities and Futures Ordinance (Cap. 571, Laws of Hong Kong) and any rules made thereunder.

Singapore

This prospectus has not been registered as a prospectus with the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Accordingly, this prospectus and any other document or material in connection with the offer or sale, or invitation for subscription or purchase, of the shares may not be circulated or distributed, nor may the shares be offered or sold, or be made the subject of an invitation for subscription or purchase, whether directly or indirectly, to persons in Singapore other than (i) to an institutional investor under Section 274 of the Securities and Futures Act, Chapter 289 of Singapore (the “SFA”), (ii) to a relevant person, or any person pursuant to Section 275(1A), and in accordance with the conditions, specified in Section 275 of the SFA or (iii) otherwise pursuant to, and in accordance with the conditions of, any other applicable provision of the SFA.

 

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Where the shares are subscribed or purchased under Section 275 by a relevant person which is: (a) a corporation (which is not an accredited investor) the sole business of which is to hold investments and the entire share capital of which is owned by one or more individuals, each of whom is an accredited investor; or (b) a trust (where the trustee is not an accredited investor) whose sole purpose is to hold investments and each beneficiary is an accredited investor, shares, debentures and units of shares and debentures of that corporation or the beneficiaries’ rights and interest in that trust shall not be transferable for 6 months after that corporation or that trust has acquired the shares under Section 275 except: (1) to an institutional investor under Section 274 of the SFA or to a relevant person, or any person pursuant to Section 275(1A), and in accordance with the conditions, specified in Section 275 of the SFA; (2) where no consideration is given for the transfer; or (3) by operation of law.

Japan

The shares have not been and will not be registered under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law of Japan (the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law) and each underwriter has agreed that it will not offer or sell any shares, directly or indirectly, in Japan or to, or for the benefit of, any resident of Japan (which term as used herein means any person resident in Japan, including any corporation or other entity organized under the laws of Japan), or to others for re-offering or resale, directly or indirectly, in Japan or to a resident of Japan, except pursuant to an exemption from the registration requirements of, and otherwise in compliance with, the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law and any other applicable laws, regulations and ministerial guidelines of Japan.

Canada

The shares may be sold in Canada only to purchasers purchasing, or deemed to be purchasing, as principal that are accredited investors, as defined in National Instrument 45-106 Prospectus Exemptions or subsection 73.3(1) of the Securities Act (Ontario), and are permitted clients, as defined in National Instrument 31-103 Registration Requirements, Exemptions and Ongoing Registrant Obligations. Any resale of the shares must be made in accordance with an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the prospectus requirements of applicable securities laws.

Securities legislation in certain provinces or territories of Canada may provide a purchaser with remedies for rescission or damages if this prospectus (including any amendment thereto) contains a misrepresentation, provided that the remedies for rescission or damages are exercised by the purchaser within the time limit prescribed by the securities legislation of the purchaser’s province or territory. The purchaser should refer to any applicable provisions of the securities legislation of the purchaser’s province or territory for particulars of these rights or consult with a legal advisor.

Pursuant to section 3A.3 of National Instrument 33-105 Underwriting Conflicts (NI 33-105), the underwriters are not required to comply with the disclosure requirements of NI 33-105 regarding underwriter conflicts of interest in connection with this offering.

The underwriters do not expect sales to discretionary accounts to exceed five percent of the total number of shares offered.

The company estimates that its share of the total expenses of the offering, excluding underwriting discounts and commissions, will be approximately $        . We have agreed to reimburse the underwriters for the reasonable fees and disbursements of their counsel relating to clearance of this offering with FINRA, which we do not expect to exceed $        .

The company and the selling stockholders have agreed to indemnify the several underwriters against certain liabilities, including liabilities under the Securities Act of 1933.

 

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The underwriters and their respective affiliates are full service financial institutions engaged in various activities, which may include sales and trading, commercial and investment banking, advisory, investment management, investment research, principal investment, hedging, market making, brokerage and other financial and non-financial activities and services. Certain of the underwriters and their respective affiliates have provided, and may in the future provide, a variety of these services to the issuer and to persons and entities with relationships with the issuer, for which they received or will receive customary fees and expenses.

In the ordinary course of their various business activities, the underwriters and their respective affiliates, officers, directors and employees may purchase, sell or hold a broad array of investments and actively trade securities, derivatives, loans, commodities, currencies, credit default swaps and other financial instruments for their own account and for the accounts of their customers, and such investment and trading activities may involve or relate to assets, securities and/or instruments of the issuer (directly, as collateral securing other obligations or otherwise) and/or persons and entities with relationships with the issuer. The underwriters and their respective affiliates may also communicate independent investment recommendations, market color or trading ideas and/or publish or express independent research views in respect of such assets, securities or instruments and may at any time hold, or recommend to clients that they should acquire, long and/or short positions in such assets, securities and instruments.

 

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LEGAL MATTERS

The validity of the shares of common stock offered hereby will be passed upon for us by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C., Palo Alto, California, and for the underwriters by Latham & Watkins LLP, Los Angeles, California. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. and certain of its members are associated with WS Investment Company, LLC (2007A), which is an investor in certain investment funds affiliated with Silver Lake Sumeru. Upon the consummation of the offering, WS Investment Company (2007A) will directly or indirectly own less than 0.1% of the outstanding shares of our common stock.

EXPERTS

The financial statements of BlackLine, Inc. as of December 31, 2016 and 2015 and for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2016 included in this prospectus have been so included in reliance on the report of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, given on the authority of said firm as experts in auditing and accounting.

 

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WHERE YOU CAN FIND MORE INFORMATION

We have filed with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-1 under the Securities Act with respect to the shares of common stock offered by this prospectus. This prospectus, which constitutes a part of the registration statement, does not contain all of the information set forth in the registration statement, some of which is contained in exhibits to the registration statement as permitted by the rules and regulations of the SEC. For further information with respect to us and our common stock, we refer you to the registration statement, including the exhibits filed as a part of the registration statement. Statements contained in this prospectus concerning the contents of any contract or any other document are not necessarily complete. If a contract or document has been filed as an exhibit to the registration statement, please see the copy of the contract or document that has been filed. A copy of the registration statement and the exhibits filed therewith may be inspected without charge at the public reference room maintained by the SEC, located at 100 F Street, N.E., Room 1580, Washington, D.C. 20549, and copies of all or any part of the registration statement may be obtained from that office at prescribed rates. You may obtain information on the operation of the SEC’s public reference room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC also maintains an Internet website that contains reports, proxy statements and other information about issuers that file electronically with the SEC. The address of that website is www.sec.gov.

We are subject to the information and periodic reporting requirements of the Exchange Act and, in accordance therewith, file periodic reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. These periodic reports, proxy statements and other information will be available for inspection and copying at the SEC’s public reference room and accessible through the SEC’s Internet website referenced above. We also maintain an Internet website at www.blackline.com, at which you may access these materials free of charge as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. Information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website does not constitute a part of this prospectus or the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, and is not incorporated by reference herein. We have included our website address in this prospectus solely for informational purposes and you should not consider any information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website as part of this prospectus or in deciding whether to purchase shares of our common stock.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

INDEX TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Index to Audited Consolidated Financial Statements of BlackLine, Inc. as of December 31, 2016 and 2015 and for each of the Three Years in the Period Ended December 31, 2016

 

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm			F-2
Consolidated Balance Sheets as of December 31, 2016 and 2015			F-3
Consolidated Statements of Operations for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014			F-4
Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Loss for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014			F-5
Consolidated Statements of Stockholders’ Equity for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014			F-6
Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014			F-7
Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements			F-9

Index to Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of BlackLine, Inc. as of March 31, 2017 and for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2017 and 2016

 

Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets as of March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016			F-38
Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2017 and 2016			F-39
Condensed Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Loss for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2017 and 2016			F-40
Condensed Consolidated Statement of Stockholders’ Equity for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2017			F-41
Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2017 and 2016			F-42
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements			F-44

 

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Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

To the Board of Directors and Stockholders of BlackLine, Inc.:

In our opinion, the accompanying consolidated balance sheets and the related consolidated statements of operations, comprehensive loss, stockholders’ equity and cash flows present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of BlackLine, Inc. and its subsidiaries (the “Company”) at December 31, 2016 and 2015, and the results of their operations and their cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2016 in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial statements based on our audits. We conducted our audits of these financial statements in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States). Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement. An audit includes 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. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

/s/ PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Los Angeles, California

March 10, 2017

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(in thousands, except shares and par values)

 

		December 31, 2016				December 31, 2015
ASSETS
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents		$	22,118			$	15,205
Marketable securities			83,130				—
Accounts receivable, net of allowances for doubtful accounts of $223 and $168 as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively			42,294				24,235
Deferred sales commissions			9,667				6,246
Prepaid expenses and other current assets			6,614				2,801
Total current assets			163,823				48,487
Capitalized software development costs, net			4,591				2,967
Property and equipment, net			11,318				12,419
Intangible assets, net			54,118				56,828
Goodwill			185,138				163,154
Other assets			1,449				2,895
Total assets		$	420,437			$	286,750
LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable		$	7,165			$	4,648
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities			18,931				15,012
Deferred revenue			80,360				52,750
Short-term portion of contingent consideration			2,008				2,008
Total current liabilities			108,464				74,418
Term loan, net			—				28,267
Common stock warrant liability			11,380				5,500
Contingent consideration			3,230				2,859
Deferred tax liabilities, net			1,262				5,907
Deferred revenue, noncurrent			2,373				—
Other long-term liabilities			2,318				3,631
Total liabilities			129,027				120,582
Commitments and contingencies (Note 10)
Stockholders’ equity:
Preferred stock, $0.01 par value, 50,000,000 shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2016 and 2015			—				—
Common stock, $0.01 par value, 500,000,000 shares authorized, 51,277,964 issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2016 and 40,720,327 issued and 40,673,327 outstanding as of December 31, 2015			513				407
Treasury stock, 0 shares and 47,000 shares at cost at December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively			—				(254	)
Additional paid-in capital			378,272				214,171
Accumulated other comprehensive income			(41	)			—
Accumulated deficit			(87,334	)			(48,156	)
Total stockholders’ equity			291,410				166,168
Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity		$	420,437			$	286,750

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

(in thousands, except per share data)

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
Revenues
Subscription and support		$	117,524			$	80,080			$	49,029
Professional services			5,599				3,527				2,648
Total revenues			123,123				83,607				51,677
Cost of revenues
Subscription and support			25,900				19,773				14,380
Professional services			4,311				2,956				2,218
Total cost of revenues			30,211				22,729				16,598
Gross profit			92,912				60,878				35,079
Operating expenses
Sales and marketing			77,810				56,546				31,837
Research and development			21,125				18,216				9,705
General and administrative			27,911				20,928				11,716
Total operating expenses			126,846				95,690				53,258
Loss from operations			(33,934	)			(34,812	)			(18,179	)
Other expense
Interest expense, net			(5,932	)			(3,215	)			(3,047	)
Change in fair value of the common stock warrant liability			(5,880	)			(420	)			(3,700	)
Other expense, net			(11,812	)			(3,635	)			(6,747	)
Loss before income taxes			(45,746	)			(38,447	)			(24,926	)
Benefit from income taxes			(6,587	)			(13,713	)			(8,174	)
Net loss		$	(39,159	)		$	(24,734	)		$	(16,752	)
Net loss per share, basic and diluted		$	(0.92	)		$	(0.61	)		$	(0.42	)
Weighted average common shares outstanding, basic and diluted			42,497				40,579				40,089

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE LOSS

(In thousands)

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
Net loss		$	(39,159	)		$	(24,734	)		$	(16,752	)
Other comprehensive loss:
Net change in unrealized losses on marketable securities, net of tax of $0 for the year ended December 31, 2016			(41	)			—				—
Other comprehensive loss			(41	)			—				—
Comprehensive loss		$	(39,200	)		$	(24,734	)		$	(16,752	)

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY

(in thousands, except shares)

 

		Common Stock								Treasury Stock, at cost				Additional Paid-in Capital				Accumulated Other Comprehensive Loss				Accumulated Deficit				Total
		Shares Outstanding				Amount
Balance at December 31, 2013			40,080,000			$	401			$	—			$	200,121			$	—			$	(6,670	)		$	193,852
Common stock issuance			357,142				4				—				4,996				—				—				5,000
Stock repurchases			(45,000	)			—				(225	)			—				—				—				(225	)
Stock-based compensation			—				—				—				2,072				—				—				2,072
Net loss			—				—				—				—				—				(16,752	)			(16,752	)
Balance at December 31, 2014			40,392,142				405				(225	)			207,189				—				(23,422	)			183,947
Stock option exercises			283,185				2				—				1,418				—				—				1,420
Stock repurchases			(2,000	)			—				(29	)			—				—				—				(29	)
Stock-based compensation			—				—				—				5,564				—				—				5,564
Net loss			—				—				—				—				—				(24,734	)			(24,734	)
Balance at December 31, 2015			40,673,327				407				(254	)			214,171				—				(48,156	)			166,168
Stock option exercises			522,450				5				—				2,855				—				—				2,860
Common stock issuance			192,187				2				—				3,073				—				—				3,075
Issuance of common stock in connection with initial public offering, net of offering costs			9,890,000				99				—				151,780				—				—				151,879
Retirement of treasury stock			—				—				254				(235	)			—				(19	)			—
Stock-based compensation			—				—				—				6,628				—				—				6,628
Other comprehensive loss			—				—				—				—				(41	)			—				(41	)
Net loss			—				—				—				—				—				(39,159	)			(39,159	)
Balance at December 31, 2016			51,277,964			$	513			$	—			$	378,272			$	(41	)		$	(87,334	)		$	291,410

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

(in thousands)

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
Cash flows from operating activities
Net loss		$	(39,159	)		$	(24,734	)		$	(16,752	)
Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash provided by (used in) operating activities:
Depreciation and amortization			17,424				14,739				13,455
Accretion of debt discount and accrual of paid in kind interest			4,557				2,594				2,541
Payment of paid in kind interest			(6,418	)			—				—
Change in fair value of common stock warrant liability			5,880				420				3,700
Change in fair value of contingent consideration			371				41				(781	)
Stock-based compensation			6,526				5,497				2,017
Deferred income taxes			(7,432	)			(13,941	)			(8,283	)
Changes in operating assets and liabilities, net of effects of the acquisition:
Accounts receivable			(15,541	)			(6,195	)			(6,821	)
Deferred sales commissions			(3,421	)			(4,343	)			(1,254	)
Prepaid expenses and other current assets			(3,095	)			(507	)			(1,116	)
Other assets			(201	)			(571	)			(98	)
Accounts payable			3,544				1,073				810
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities			3,864				6,753				3,241
Deferred revenue			29,482				18,176				17,246
Other long-term liabilities			(1,189	)			2,004				1,038
Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities			(4,808	)			1,006				8,943
Cash flows from investing activities
Acquisition, net of cash acquired			(31,488	)			—				—
Investments in marketable securities			(83,192	)			—				—
Capitalized software development costs			(3,270	)			(2,273	)			(1,437	)
Purchases of property and equipment			(1,724	)			(10,094	)			(1,429	)
Net cash used in investing activities			(119,674	)			(12,367	)			(2,866	)
Cash flows from financing activities
Proceeds from term loan, net of issuance costs			34,300				—				—
Principal payments on term loan and prepayment penalties			(60,706	)			—				—
Principal payments on capital lease obligations			(124	)			(532	)			—
Proceeds from issuance of common stock			3,075				—				5,000
Payments of initial public offering costs			(4,372	)			—				—
Proceeds from initial public offering, net of underwriting discounts and commissions			156,362				—				—
Repurchases of common stock			—				(29	)			(225	)
Proceeds from exercises of stock options			2,860				1,420				—
Net cash provided by financing activities			131,395				859				4,775
Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents			6,913				(10,502	)			10,852
Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period			15,205				25,707				14,855
Cash and cash equivalents, end of period		$	22,118			$	15,205			$	25,707

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

SUPPLEMENTAL CASH FLOW DISCLOSURE

(in thousands)

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
Supplemental disclosures of cash flow information
Cash paid for interest		$	8,646			$	634			$	506
Cash paid for income taxes		$	176			$	6			$	10
Non-cash financing and investing activities
Capitalized software development costs included in accounts payable and accrued expenses and other current liabilities		$	153			$	—			$	80
Purchases of property and equipment included in accounts payable and accrued expenses and other current liabilities		$	63			$	172			$	996
Stock-based compensation capitalized for software development		$	102			$	67			$	55
Property and equipment acquired under capital leases		$	—			$	1,648			$	—
Deferred offering costs included in accounts payable and accrued expenses and other current liabilities		$	110			$	1,647			$	—

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Note 1—The Company

BlackLine, Inc. and its subsidiaries (the “Company” or “BlackLine”) provide financial accounting close solutions delivered primarily as Software as a Service (“SaaS”). The Company’s solutions enable its customers to address various aspects of their financial close process, including account reconciliations, variance analysis of account balances, journal entry capabilities, and certain types of data matching capabilities.

The Company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California and has offices in Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Vancouver, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Sydney, Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, Netherlands, and Singapore.

Note 2—Significant accounting policies

Principles of consolidation and basis of presentation

The Company’s consolidated financial statements are presented in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”) and include the operating results of its wholly-owned subsidiaries. All intercompany accounts and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation.

Reverse stock split

On October 12, 2016, the Company effected a 1-for-5 reverse stock split of its outstanding common stock. All share and per share amounts for all periods presented in these consolidated financial statements and notes thereto have been adjusted retrospectively, where applicable, to reflect this reverse stock split.

Use of estimates

The preparation of consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the dates of the consolidated financial statements, and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period.

On an ongoing basis, management evaluates its estimates, primarily those related to determining the best estimate of selling price (“BESP”) for separate deliverables in the Company’s subscription revenue arrangements, vendor-specific objective evidence (“VSOE”) for separate deliverables in the Company’s licensed revenue arrangements, allowance for doubtful accounts, fair value of assets and liabilities assumed in a business combination, recoverability of goodwill and long-lived assets, useful lives associated with long-lived assets, contingencies, fair value of contingent consideration, and the valuation and assumptions underlying stock-based compensation and common stock warrants. These estimates are based on historical data and experience, as well as various other factors that management believes to be reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results could differ from those estimates.

Segments

Management has determined that the Company has one operating segment. The Company’s chief executive officer, who is the Company’s chief operating decision maker, reviews financial

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

information on a consolidated and aggregate basis, together with certain operating metrics principally to make decisions about how to allocate resources and to measure the Company’s performance.

Cash and cash equivalents

The Company considers all highly liquid investments with an original or remaining maturity of three months or less at the date of purchase to be cash equivalents. Cash includes cash held in checking and savings accounts. Cash equivalents are comprised of investments in money market mutual funds. The carrying value of cash and cash equivalents approximates fair value.

Restricted cash

Included in non-current other assets at December 31, 2016 and 2015 was cash of $ 0.4 million required to be restricted as to use by the Company’s office leaseholder to collateralize a standby letter of credit.

Investments in Marketable Securities

Our marketable securities consist of commercial paper, corporate bonds, U.S. treasury bonds, and asset-backed securities. The Company classifies its marketable securities as available-for-sale at the time of purchase, and the Company reevaluates such classification as of each balance sheet date. All marketable securities are recorded at their estimated fair value, with any unrealized gains and losses reported as a component of stockholders’ equity until realized or until a determination is made that an other-than-temporary decline in market value has occurred. Impairments are considered to be other than temporary if they are related to deterioration in credit risk or if it is likely the Company will sell the securities before the recovery of their cost basis. Realized gains and losses and declines in value deemed to be other than temporary are determined based on the specific identification method and are reported in other income (expense), net in the consolidated statements of operations.

The Company classifies its investments in marketable securities in current assets as the investments are available for use, if needed, in current operations.

Investments in marketable securities presented within current assets on the consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2016 consisted of the following:

 

		Amortized Cost				Gross Unrealized Gains				Gross Unrealized Losses				Fair Value
		(in thousands)
Marketable securities
U.S. Treasury bonds		$	29,742			$	—			$	(17	)		$	29,725
Corporate Bonds			25,522				—				(21	)			25,501
Commercial paper			15,554				—				—				15,554
Asset-backed securities			12,353				—				(3	)			12,350
		$	83,171			$	—			$	(41	)		$	83,130

Gross realized gains and losses on marketable securities and net gains and losses reclassified from accumulated other comprehensive income to earnings were not material for the year ended December 31, 2016.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

The Company’s marketable securities have a contractual maturity of less than 4 years. The amortized cost and fair values of marketable securities, by remaining contractual maturity, were as follows:

 

		December 31, 2016
		Amortized Cost				Fair Value
		(in thousands)
Due in 1 year or less		$	49,371			$	49,363
Due after 1 year through 4 years			33,800				33,767
		$	83,171			$	83,130

The Company held no marketable securities during the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014.

Accounts receivable and allowance for doubtful accounts

Accounts receivable are recorded at the invoiced amount, do not require collateral and do not bear interest. The Company estimates its allowance for doubtful accounts by evaluating specific accounts where information indicates the Company’s customers may have an inability to meet financial obligations, such as bankruptcy and significantly aged receivables outstanding.

Concentration of credit risk and significant customers

Financial instruments that potentially subject the Company to a significant concentration of credit risk consist of cash and cash equivalents, investments in marketable securities and accounts receivable.

The Company maintains the majority of its cash balances with one major commercial bank in non-interest bearing accounts, which exceeds the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, federally insured limits.

The Company invests its excess cash in money market mutual funds, commercial paper, corporate bonds, U.S. treasury bonds, and asset-backed securities. To date, the Company has not experienced any impairment losses on its investments.

For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, no single customer comprised 10% or more of the Company’s total revenues. No single customer had an accounts receivable balance of 10% or greater of total accounts receivable at December 31, 2016 and 2015.

Property and equipment

Property and equipment is stated at cost less accumulated depreciation. Expenditures for repairs and maintenance are expensed as incurred, while renewals and betterments are capitalized. Depreciation expense is charged to operations on a straight-line basis over the estimated useful lives of the assets.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

The estimated useful lives of the Company’s property and equipment are as follows:

 

		Useful Lives
Machinery and equipment		3-5 years
Purchased software		3-5 years
Furniture and fixtures		5 years
Leasehold improvements		Lesser of 7 years or lease term

Assets acquired under capital leases are capitalized at the present value of the related lease payments and are amortized over the shorter of the lease term or useful life of the asset.

Capitalized internal-use software costs

The Company accounts for the costs of computer software obtained or developed for internal use in accordance with ASC 350, Intangibles—Goodwill and Other (“ASC 350”). The Company capitalizes certain costs in the development of its SaaS subscription solution when (i) the preliminary project stage is completed, (ii) management has authorized further funding for the completion of the project and (iii) it is probable that the project will be completed and performed as intended. These capitalized costs include personnel and related expenses for employees and costs of third-party contractors who are directly associated with and who devote time to internal-use software projects and, when material, interest costs incurred during the development. Capitalization of these costs ceases once the project is substantially complete and the software is ready for its intended purpose. Costs incurred for significant upgrades and enhancements to the Company’s SaaS software solutions are also capitalized. Costs incurred for training, maintenance and minor modifications or enhancements are expensed as incurred. Capitalized software development costs are amortized using the straight-line method over an estimated useful life of three years.

During the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, the Company amortized $1.8 million, $0.9 million and $0.3 million, respectively, of internal-use software development costs to subscription and support cost of revenue. As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, the accumulated amortization of internal-use software development costs was $2.9 million and $1.2 million, respectively.

Business combinations

The results of businesses acquired in a business combination are included in the Company’s consolidated financial statements from the date of the acquisition. Purchase accounting results in assets and liabilities of an acquired business generally being recorded at their estimated fair values on the acquisition date. Any excess consideration over the fair value of assets acquired and liabilities assumed is recognized as goodwill.

Transaction costs associated with business combinations are expensed as incurred and are included in general and administrative expenses in the consolidated statements of operations.

The Company performs valuations of assets acquired and liabilities assumed and allocates the purchase price to its respective assets and liabilities. Determining the fair value of assets acquired and liabilities assumed requires management to use significant judgment and estimates, including the selection of valuation methodologies, estimates of future revenue, costs and cash flows, discount rates, and selection of comparable companies. The Company engages the assistance of valuation specialists in concluding on fair value measurements in connection with determining fair values of assets acquired and liabilities assumed in a business combination.

 

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Intangible assets

Intangible assets primarily consist of acquired developed technology, customer relationships, trade names and non-compete agreements, which were acquired as part of the Company’s acquisitions of BlackLine Systems, Inc. in September 2013 and Runbook Company B.V. (“Runbook”) in August 2016. The Company determines the appropriate useful life of its intangible assets by performing an analysis of expected cash flows of the acquired assets. Intangible assets are amortized over their estimated useful lives using the straight-line method, which approximates the pattern in which the economic benefits are consumed. The estimated useful lives of the Company’s finite-lived intangible assets are as follows:

 

		Useful Lives
Trade name		1-10 years
Developed technology		6-8 years
Non-compete agreements		2-5 years
Customer relationships		8-10 years

Impairment of long-lived assets

Management evaluates the recoverability of the Company’s property and equipment, finite-lived intangible assets and capitalized internal-software costs when events or changes in circumstances indicate a potential impairment exists. Events and changes in circumstances considered by the Company in determining whether the carrying value of long-lived assets may not be recoverable include, but are not limited to, significant changes in performance relative to expected operating results, significant changes in the use of the assets, significant negative industry or economic trends, and changes in the Company’s business strategy. Impairment testing is performed at an asset level that represents the lowest level for which identifiable cash flows are largely independent of the cash flows of other assets and liabilities (an “asset group”). In determining if impairment exists, the Company estimates the undiscounted cash flows to be generated from the use and ultimate disposition of the asset group. If impairment is indicated based on a comparison of the assets’ carrying values and the undiscounted cash flows, the impairment loss is measured as the amount by which the carrying amount of the assets exceeds the fair value of the assets. The Company determined that there were no events or changes in circumstances that potentially indicated that the Company’s long-lived assets were impaired during the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014.

Goodwill

Goodwill represents the excess of the purchase price over the fair value of net assets acquired in a business combination. The Company tests goodwill for impairment in accordance with the provisions of Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) 350, Intangibles—Goodwill and Other. Goodwill is tested for impairment at least annually at the reporting unit level or whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that goodwill might be impaired. Events or changes in circumstances which could trigger an impairment review include a significant adverse change in legal factors or in the business climate, unanticipated competition, loss of key personnel, significant changes in the use of the acquired assets or the Company’s strategy, significant negative industry or economic trends, or significant underperformance relative to expected historical or projected future results of operations.

ASC 350 provides that an entity has the option to first assess qualitative factors to determine whether the existence of events or circumstances leads to a determination that it is more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount. If, after assessing the totality of

 

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events or circumstances, an entity determines it is not more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount, then additional impairment testing is not required. However, if an entity concludes otherwise, then it is required to perform the first of a two-step impairment test.

The first step involves comparing the estimated fair value of a reporting unit with its book value, including goodwill. If the estimated fair value exceeds book value, goodwill is considered not to be impaired and no additional steps are necessary. If, however, the fair value of the reporting unit is less than book value, then, under the second step, the carrying amount of the goodwill is compared with its implied fair value. The estimate of implied fair value of goodwill may require valuations of certain internally-generated and unrecognized intangible assets. If the carrying amount of goodwill exceeds the implied fair value of that goodwill, an impairment loss is recognized in an amount equal to the excess.

The Company has one reporting unit and it tests for goodwill impairment annually during the fourth quarter of the calendar year. At December 31, 2016, the fair value of the Company significantly exceeded the carrying value of its net assets and accordingly goodwill was not impaired.

Deferred rent

Rent expense is recorded on a straight-line basis over the term of the lease. The difference between rent expense and the cash paid under the lease agreement is recorded as deferred rent. Lease incentives, including tenant improvement allowances, are also recorded as deferred rent and amortized on a straight-line basis over the lease term.

Debt issued with warrants to purchase common stock

The Company issued warrants to purchase common stock in connection with its former credit facility. These warrants are a liability classified under ASC 815-40, Contracts in Entity’s Own Equity, as they contain down-round protection such that, in the event of subsequent issuances of shares at-market by the Company below the exercise price of the warrant, then the warrant’s exercise price is reduced. The warrants are measured at fair value each period with changes in fair value recorded in other income (expense), net in the consolidated statements of operations. The warrants will continue to be measured at fair value each period until the earlier of exercise or termination.

The initial carrying value of the debt was reduced by the fair value of the warrants. The resulting debt discount was amortized to interest expense over the life of the debt on a straight-line basis, which approximates the effective interest method. In November 2016, the Company repaid all outstanding debt and expensed the then-remaining unamortized debt discount to interest expense in the consolidated statements of operations.

Fair value of financial instruments

ASC 820, Fair Value Measurements requires entities to disclose the fair value of financial instruments, both assets and liabilities recognized and not recognized on the balance sheet, for which it is practicable to estimate fair value. Fair value is defined as the exchange price that would be received for an asset or paid to transfer a liability (an exit price) in the principal or most advantageous market for the asset or liability in an orderly transaction between market participants on the measurement date.

 

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NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

Valuation techniques used to measure fair value must maximize the use of observable inputs and minimize the use of unobservable inputs. ASC 820 describes a fair value hierarchy based on three levels of inputs, of which the first two are considered observable and the last unobservable, that may be used to measure fair value, which are the following:

 

As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, the carrying values of cash equivalents, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and accrued expenses, approximate fair values due to the short-term nature of such instruments.

The following table summarizes the Company’s financial assets and liabilities measured at fair value on a recurring basis as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, by level, within the fair value hierarchy. Financial assets and financial liabilities are classified in their entirety based on the lowest level of input that is significant to the fair value measurement (in thousands):

 

		December 31, 2016
		Level 1				Level 2				Level 3				Total
Cash equivalents
Money market funds		$	18,936			$	—			$	—			$	18,936
Marketable securities
U.S. Treasury bonds			29,725				—				—				29,725
Corporate bonds			—				25,501				—				25,501
Commercial paper			—				15,554				—				15,554
Asset-backed securities			—				12,350				—				12,350
Total assets		$	48,661			$	53,405			$	—			$	102,066
Liabilities
Common stock warrant liability		$	—			$	—			$	11,380			$	11,380
Contingent consideration			—				—				5,238				5,238
Total liabilities		$	—			$	—			$	16,618			$	16,618
		December 31, 2015
		Level 1				Level 2				Level 3				Total
Cash equivalents
Money market funds		$	15,990			$	—			$	—			$	15,990
Total assets			15,990			$	—			$	—			$	15,990
Liabilities
Common stock warrant liability		$	—			$	—			$	5,500			$	5,500
Contingent consideration			—				—				4,867				4,867
Total liabilities		$	—			$	—			$	10,367			$	10,367

 

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Contingent consideration relating to our 2013 Acquisition (Refer to Note 9) is recorded as a liability and is measured at fair value each period, based on significant inputs not observable in the market, which represents a Level 3 measurement within the fair value hierarchy. The valuation of contingent consideration uses assumptions management believes would be made by a market participant. Management assesses these estimates on an ongoing basis as additional data impacting the assumptions becomes available. Changes in the fair value of contingent consideration related to updated assumptions and estimates are recognized within general and administrative expenses in the consolidated statements of operations. The Company determined the fair value of the contingent consideration by discounting estimated future taxable income. The significant inputs used in the fair value measurement of contingent consideration are the timing and amount of taxable income in any given period and determining an appropriate discount rate, which considers the risk associated with the forecasted taxable income. Significant changes in the estimated future taxable income and the periods in which they are generated would significantly impact the fair value of the contingent consideration liability.

Warrants to purchase common stock are liability classified and are measured at fair value each period. The fair value is determined using a binomial lattice valuation model. The fair value includes significant inputs not observable in the market, which represents a Level 3 measurement within the fair value hierarchy. The valuation of common stock warrants uses assumptions management believes would be made by a market participant. Management assesses these estimates on an ongoing basis as additional data impacting the assumptions becomes available. Changes in the fair value of the common stock warrant liability related to updated assumptions and estimates are recognized within other income (expense), net in the consolidated statements of operations. The significant inputs used in the fair value measurement of the common stock warrants are the estimated fair value of the Company’s common stock and, to a lesser extent, the expected stock volatility, the probability of a change in control and future stock issuances, which impact the term of the warrants. Significant increases or decreases in the estimated fair value of the Company’s common stock would significantly impact the fair value of the warrant liability.

The following table summarizes the changes in the common stock warrant liability and contingent consideration liability (in thousands):

 

		Contingent Consideration				Common Stock Warrant Liability
Fair value as of December 31, 2013		$	5,607			$	1,380
Change in fair value			(781	)			3,700
Fair value as of December 31, 2014			4,826				5,080
Change in fair value			41				420
Fair value as of December 31, 2015			4,867				5,500
Change in fair value			371				5,880
Fair value as of December 31, 2016		$	5,238			$	11,380

Certain assets, including goodwill and long-lived assets, are also subject to measurement at fair value on a non-recurring basis if they are deemed to be impaired a result of an impairment review. For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, no impairments were identified on those assets required to be measured at fair value on a non-recurring basis.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

Revenue recognition

The Company derives its revenue from the following sources:

Subscription and support revenue—Customers pay subscription fees for access to the Company’s SaaS platform generally for a one-year period. In more limited cases, customers may pay for up to three years in advance. Fees are based on a number of factors, including the solutions subscribed for by the customer and the number of users having access to the solutions. The first year subscription fees are typically payable within 30 days after the execution of the arrangement, and thereafter upon renewal. The Company initially records the subscription fees as deferred revenue and recognizes revenue on a straight-line basis over the term of the agreement. At any time during the subscription period, customers may increase the number of their users or subscribe for additional products. Additional user fees and additional product subscriptions are payable for the remainder of the initial or extended contract term. Subscription and support revenue also includes software revenue related to maintenance and support fees on legacy BlackLine solutions and software license and maintenance revenue on Runbook software sales as described below.

Professional services—The Company offers its customers assistance in implementing its SaaS solutions and optimizing their use. Professional services include consulting and training. These services are billed on either a fixed fee or time-and-material basis. Revenues from time-and-material arrangements are recognized as services are performed and revenues from fixed fee arrangements are initially recorded as deferred revenue and recognized on a proportional performance basis as the services are performed.

The Company recognizes subscription and professional services revenues when (i) persuasive evidence of an arrangement for the sale of the Company’s solutions or consulting services exists, (ii) the solutions have been made available or delivered, or services have been performed, (iii) the sales price is fixed or determinable, and (iv) collectability is reasonably assured. The timing and amount the Company recognizes as revenue is determined based on the facts and circumstances of each customer’s arrangement. Evidence of an arrangement consists of a signed customer agreement. The Company considers that delivery of a solution has commenced once it provides the customer with log-in information to access and use the solution. Fees are fixed based on stated rates specified in the customer agreement. The Company assesses collectability based on a number of factors, including the creditworthiness of the customer, review of their financial information or transaction history. If collectability is not considered reasonably assured, revenue is deferred until the fees are collected.

The majority of customer arrangements include multiple deliverables, such as subscriptions to the Company’s SaaS solutions and professional services. The Company recognizes revenue in accordance with the guidance for arrangements with multiple deliverables under Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) 2009-13, Revenue Recognition (Topic 605)—Multiple-Deliverable Revenue Arrangements—a Consensus of the Emerging Issues Task Force. For subscription agreements, as customers do not have the right to the software code underlying the Company’s solutions, subscription revenue arrangements are outside the scope of software revenue recognition guidance as defined by ASC 985-605, Software. The Company’s agreements do not contain any refund provisions other than in the event of the Company’s non-performance or breach.

For multiple-deliverable revenue arrangements, the Company first assesses whether each deliverable has value to the customer on a standalone basis. The Company has determined that the SaaS products have standalone value because, once access is given to the customer, the solutions

 

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NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

are fully functional and do not require any additional development, modification or customization. Professional services have standalone value because third-party partners and customers themselves can perform these services without the Company’s involvement. The performance of these professional services generally does not require highly specialized or technologically skilled individuals and the professional services are not essential to the functionality of the solutions.

The Company allocates revenue among the separate non-contingent deliverables in an arrangement under the relative selling price method using the selling price hierarchy established in ASU 2009-13. This hierarchy requires the selling price of each deliverable in a multiple deliverable arrangement to be based on, in descending order, (i) vendor-specific objective evidence of fair value (“VSOE”), (ii) third-party evidence of fair value (“TPE”) or (iii) management’s best estimate of selling price (“BESP”).

The Company is not able to determine VSOE or TPE for its deliverables because the deliverables are typically bundled and infrequently sold separately within a consistent price range. Additionally, management has determined that there are no third-party offerings reasonably comparable to the Company’s solutions. Therefore, the selling prices of subscriptions to the SaaS solutions and professional services are based on BESP. The determination of BESP requires the Company to make significant estimates and judgments. The Company considers numerous factors, including the nature of the deliverables themselves, geography, customer size and number of users, and discounting practices. The determination of BESP is made through consultation with senior management. The Company updates its estimates of BESP on an ongoing basis as events and circumstances may require. As the Company’s marketing strategies evolve, the Company may modify its pricing practices in the future, which could result in changes in relative selling prices and BESP.

The Company uses business process outsourcers (“BPOs”) and resellers to complement its direct sales and marketing efforts. The BPOs and resellers place orders with the Company after receiving an order from an end customer. The BPOs and resellers receive business terms of sale similar to those received by the Company’s direct customers, and payment to the Company is not contingent on the receipt of payment from the end customer. The BPOs and resellers negotiate pricing with the end customer and are responsible for implementation services, if any, and for certain support levels directly with the end customer. The Company recognizes revenue over the term of the arrangement for the contractual amount charged to the BPO or reseller once access to the Company’s solution has been provided to the end customer provided that the other revenue recognition criteria noted above have been met.

Subscription and support revenues also include revenues associated with sales of software licenses and related support. Prior to the development of the Company’s SaaS solutions, the Company sold software licenses and post contract support related to its legacy software in accordance with ASC 985-605. The Company continues to provide post contract support for this legacy software to a limited number of customers that have not yet migrated to the SaaS solution. The Company no longer develops any new applications or functionality for the legacy software licensed to customers.

On August 31, 2016, the Company acquired Runbook, a Netherlands-based provider of licensed financial close automation software and integration for SAP customers. The Company plans to migrate Runbook’s licensed products to a cloud-based platform, but the Company continues to sell Runbook’s on-premise software to existing Runbook customers and provide post-contract support and implementation services.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

Revenues recognized from sales of software licenses, support and implementation services related to software arrangements comprised approximately 1%, 1% and 3% of total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.

Taxes collected from customers are accounted for on a net basis and are excluded from revenue.

Cost of revenues

Cost of revenues primarily consists of costs related to hosting the Company’s cloud-based application suite, salaries and benefits of operations and support personnel, including stock-based compensation, and amortization of capitalized internal-use software costs. The Company allocates a portion of overhead, such as rent, IT costs and depreciation and amortization to cost of revenues. Costs associated with providing professional services are expensed as incurred when the services are performed. In addition, subscription and support cost of revenues includes amortization of acquired developed technology.

Sales and marketing

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of compensation and employee benefits, including stock-based compensation, of sales and marketing personnel and related sales support teams, sales and partner commissions, marketing events, advertising costs, travel, trade shows, other marketing materials, and allocated overhead. Sales and marketing expenses also include amortization of customer relationship intangible assets. Advertising costs are expensed as incurred and totaled $4.2 million, $3.0 million and $1.5 million for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.

Deferred sales commissions

Deferred sales commissions are the incremental costs that are directly associated with non-cancelable subscription contracts with customers and consist of sales commissions paid to the Company’s direct sales force and third-party partners. The commissions are deferred and amortized over the non-cancelable terms of the related customer contracts, which are typically one year in duration. The commission payments are paid in full the month after the customer’s service commences. The deferred commission amounts are recoverable through the future revenue streams under the non-cancelable customer contracts. The Company believes this is the preferable method of accounting as the sales commission charges are so closely related to the revenue from the non-cancelable customer contracts and accordingly, should be recorded as an asset and charged to expense over the same period that the subscription revenue is recognized. Amortization of deferred sales commissions is included in sales and marketing in the accompanying consolidated statements of operations. As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, deferred commission costs, net of accumulated amortization were $9.7 million and $6.2 million, respectively. Amortization of commission costs was $13.2 million, $7.3 million and $2.5 million for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.

Research and development

Research and development expenses are comprised primarily of salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation associated with the Company’s engineering, product and quality assurance personnel. Research and development expenses also include third-party contractors and supplies and allocated overhead. Other than software development costs that qualify for capitalization, as discussed above, research and development costs are expensed as incurred.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

General and administrative

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel costs associated with the Company’s executive, finance, legal, human resources, compliance, and other administrative personnel, as well as accounting and legal professional services fees, other corporate-related expenses and allocated overhead. General and administrative expenses also include amortization of covenant not to compete and tradename intangible assets, the change in value of the contingent consideration and acquisition-related costs of business combinations.

Stock-based compensation

The Company accounts for stock-based compensation awards granted to employees and directors based on the awards’ estimated grant date fair value. The Company estimates the fair value of its stock options using the Black-Scholes option-pricing model. For awards that vest solely based on continued service (“service-only vesting conditions”), the resulting fair value, net of estimated forfeitures, is recognized on a straight-line basis over the period during which an employee is required to provide service in exchange for the award, usually the vesting period, which is generally four years. The Company recognizes the fair value of stock options which contain performance conditions based upon the probability of the performance conditions being met, net of estimated forfeitures, using the graded vesting method. Estimated forfeitures are based upon the Company’s historical experience and the Company revises its estimates, if necessary, in subsequent periods if actual forfeitures differ from initial estimates.

Determining the grant date fair value of options using the Black-Scholes option-pricing model requires management to make assumptions and judgments. These estimates involve inherent uncertainties and, if different assumptions had been used, stock-based compensation expense could have been materially different from the amounts recorded.

The assumptions and estimates are as follows:

Value per share of the Company’s common stock. Prior to the Company’s initial public offering in October 2016, because there was no public market for the Company’s common stock, the Company’s management, with the assistance of a third-party valuation specialist, determined the fair value of the Company’s common stock at the time of the grant of stock options by considering a number of objective and subjective factors, including the Company’s actual operating and financial performance, market conditions and performance of comparable publicly-traded companies, developments and milestones in the Company, the likelihood of achieving a liquidity event and transactions involving the Company’s common stock, among other factors. The fair value of the underlying common stock was determined by the Company’s board of directors through the date of the initial public offering. The fair value of the Company’s common stock was determined in accordance with applicable elements of the practice aid issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Valuation of Privately Held Company Equity Securities Issued as Compensation. For awards granted subsequent to the Company’s initial public offering, the fair value of common stock is based on the closing price of the Company’s common stock, as reported on the NASDAQ, on the date of grant.

Expected volatility. The Company determines the expected volatility based on historical average volatilities of similar publicly-traded companies corresponding to the expected term of the awards.

Expected term. The Company determines the expected term of awards which contain service-only vesting conditions using the simplified approach, in which the expected term of an award is

 

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NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

presumed to be the mid-point between the vesting date and the expiration date of the award, as the Company does not have sufficient historical data relating to stock option exercises. For awards granted which contain performance conditions, the Company estimates the expected term based on estimates of post-vesting employment termination behavior taking into account the life of the award.

Risk-free interest rate. The risk-free interest rate is based on the United States Treasury yield curve in effect during the period the options were granted corresponding to the expected term of the awards.

Estimated dividend yield. The estimated dividend yield is zero, as the Company does not currently intend to declare dividends in the foreseeable future.

The following information represents the weighted average of the assumptions used in Black-Scholes option-pricing model:

 

		Year ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
Expected term (years)			6.3				6.3				6.2
Expected volatility			47.5	%			49.6	%			54.0	%
Risk free interest rate			1.4	%			1.7	%			1.9	%
Expected dividends			—				—				—

Income taxes

The Company accounts for income taxes in accordance with ASC 740, Income Taxes. ASC 740 requires the recognition of deferred tax assets and liabilities for the expected future tax consequences of temporary differences between the carrying amounts and the tax bases of assets and liabilities. Deferred income tax assets and liabilities are measured using enacted tax rates expected to apply to taxable income in the years in which those temporary differences are expected to be recovered or settled. The effect of a change in tax rates on deferred tax assets and liabilities is recognized in the consolidated statements of operations in the period that includes the enactment date. A valuation allowance is recorded when it is more likely than not that some of the deferred tax assets will not be realized.

The Company recognizes the tax benefit from an uncertain tax position only if it is more likely than not that the tax position will be sustained on examination by the taxing authorities, based on the technical merits of the position. The tax benefits recognized in the consolidated financial statements from such positions are then measured based on the largest benefit that has a greater than 50% likelihood of being realized. The Company recognizes interest and penalties accrued with respect to uncertain tax positions, if any, in the provision for income taxes in the consolidated statements of operations.

Net loss per share

Basic and diluted loss per share is calculated by dividing net loss by the weighted average number of shares of common stock outstanding. As the Company has net losses for the periods presented, all potentially dilutive common stock, which are comprised of stock options and warrants, are anti-dilutive.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, the following potentially dilutive shares have been excluded from the calculation of diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders because they are anti-dilutive:

 

		December 31,
		2016				2015
Options to purchase common stock			6,556,986				5,904,376
Common stock warrants			499,999				499,999
Total shares excluded from net loss per share			7,056,985				6,404,375

Foreign currency

The Company’s foreign subsidiaries’ functional currency is the U.S. Dollar. The foreign exchange impacts of remeasuring the foreign subsidiaries’ local currency to the U.S. Dollar functional currency is recorded in general and administrative expenses, net in the Company’s consolidated statements of operations. Monetary assets and liabilities of foreign operations are remeasured at balance sheet date exchange rates, non-monetary assets and liabilities and equity are remeasured at the historical exchange rates, while results of operations are remeasured at average exchange rates in effect for the period. Foreign currency transaction gains or losses were immaterial for each period presented.

Recently issued accounting standards

Under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, or the JOBS Act, the Company meets the definition of an emerging growth company. The Company has irrevocably elected to opt out of the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards pursuant to Section 107(b) of the JOBS Act.

In May 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued guidance related to revenue from contracts with customers. Under this guidance, revenue is recognized when promised goods or services are transferred to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration that is expected to be received for those goods or services. The updated standard will replace all existing revenue recognition guidance under GAAP when it becomes effective and permits the use of either the retrospective or cumulative effect transition method. In July 2015, the FASB voted to defer the effective date to January 1, 2018, with early adoption beginning January 1, 2017. In March, April, May, and December 2016, the FASB issued amendments to the new guidance relating to reporting revenue on a gross versus net basis, identifying performance obligations and licensing arrangements and other narrow scope improvements. The Company will adopt the new revenue guidance in the first quarter of 2018 though has not yet determined whether to adopt using a full retrospective or modified retrospective approach. The Company is currently assessing the impact of the new revenue guidance on its arrangements. The Company currently believes that the new guidance will impact the amount and timing of incremental costs of obtaining a contract, such as sales commissions. The Company generally does not pay sales commissions upon contract renewal and therefore, under the new revenue guidance, the sales commissions will be recognized over an estimated customer life rather than over the non-cancelable term under current guidance. The new guidance is also expected to impact the Company’s arrangements subject to current software revenue recognition guidance and also require incremental disclosures of the Company’s revenue arrangements. The Company has not yet quantified the impact of these changes. Adoption of this standard will also require changes to the Company’s business processes, systems and controls to support the new revenue recognition guidance. The Company is in the process of identifying such changes.

 

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NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

In February 2016, the FASB issued new guidance which significantly changes the accounting for leases. The new guidance requires a lessee recognize in the balance sheet a liability to make lease payments (the lease liability) and a right-of-use asset representing its right to use the underlying asset for the lease term. For leases with a term of 12 months or less, a lessee is permitted to make an accounting policy election by class of underlying asset not to recognize lease assets and lease liabilities. If a lessee makes this election, it should recognize lease expense for such leases generally on a straight-line basis over the lease term. For income statement purposes, the new guidance retained a dual model, requiring leases to be classified as either operating or financing. Operating leases will result in straight-line expense while finance leases will result in a front-loaded expense pattern similar to existing capital lease guidance. For statement of cash flow purposes, the new guidance also retained the existing dual method, where cash payments for operating leases are reflected in cash flows from operating activities and principal and interest payments for finance leases are reflected in cash flows from financing activities and cash flows from operating activities, respectively. The new guidance is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018 and interim periods within those fiscal years. The new guidance requires the recognition and measurement of leases at the beginning of the earliest period presented using a modified retrospective approach. The use of the modified retrospective approach allows an entity to use a number of practical expedients in the application of this new guidance. Although the Company is evaluating the impact of adopting this guidance on its consolidated financial statements, the Company expects that most of its operating lease commitments will be recognized as operating lease liabilities and right-of-use assets upon adoption of the new guidance.

In March 2016, the FASB issued new guidance to simplify various aspects relating to accounting for stock-based compensation and related tax impacts, the classification of excess tax benefits on the statement of cash flows, statutory tax withholding requirements and other stock-based compensation classification matters. The guidance is effective for annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2016 and interim periods within those annual periods. Early adoption was permitted in any interim or annual period. All of the amendments in the new guidance must be adopted in the same period. The Company is required to adopt this guidance during the first quarter ending March 31, 2017. The Company expects to adopt a policy to account for forfeitures when they occur rather than estimate a forfeiture rate. The impact of this change in policy will be recorded as an adjustment to the January 1, 2017 accumulated deficit and additional paid-in capital balances, which the Company does not expect to be material. The new standard also requires the Company to record, on a prospective basis, the income tax effects of stock-based compensation awards in the income statement as discrete items in the reporting period in which they occur, which will increase volatility in the Company’s income tax provision in the future. In addition, any previously unrecognized tax benefits will be recorded as an adjustment to accumulated deficit, subject to assessment for the need for a valuation allowance, as of January 1, 2017. The Company had $36.7 million of net operating losses related to tax benefits for stock-based compensation awards as of December 31, 2016 which were not recorded as deferred tax assets. As the Company has a full valuation allowance against its deferred tax assets, the Company does not expect this new guidance relating to recording unrecognized tax benefits on the balance sheet will have a material impact on the Company’s balance sheet upon adoption.

In June 2016, the FASB issued guidance which requires that financial assets measured at amortized costs be presented at the net amount expected to be collected. This guidance amends the accounting for credit losses for available-for-sale securities and purchased financial assets with credit deterioration. This guidance is effective for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2019, and interim periods within those annual periods. Early adoption is permitted for any interim or annual period

 

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NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

after December 15, 2018. The Company has not determined the impact of this guidance on its consolidated financial statements.

In August 2016, the FASB issued cash flow guidance which addresses eight specific cash flow issues with the objective of reducing the existing diversity in practice, including presentation of cash flows relating to contingent consideration payments, debt prepayment and debt extinguishment costs, among other matters. This guidance is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017 and interim periods within those fiscal years. Early adoption is permitted, including adoption in an interim period. If adopted in an interim period, any adjustments should be reflected as of the beginning of the fiscal year that includes the interim period. The adoption of this guidance should be applied using a retrospective transition method to each period presented, unless impracticable to do so. The Company early adopted this during the fourth quarter of 2016 and, as a result, classified debt prepayment costs of $0.7 million incurred in November 2016 upon repayment in full of its credit facility as a financing cash outflow. The adoption of this guidance had no impact on amounts previously reported in prior years or the first three quarters within 2016.

In November 2016, the FASB issued guidance which requires that restricted cash and restricted cash equivalents be included with cash and cash equivalents when reconciling the beginning and ending total amounts shown on the statement of cash flows. This guidance is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017, and interim periods within those years, and should be applied using a retrospective transition method to each period presented. Early adoption is permitted, including adoption in an interim period. If an entity early adopts the amendments in an interim period, any adjustments should be reflected as of the beginning of the fiscal year that includes that interim period. The Company’s restricted cash as of December 31, 2016 and 2015 was $0.4 million and therefore, the adoption of this guidance is not expected to have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated statements of cash flows.

In February 2017, the FASB issued guidance which simplifies the subsequent measurement of goodwill by no longer requiring an entity to determine goodwill impairment by calculating the implied fair value of goodwill by assigning the fair value of a reporting unit to all of its assets and liabilities as if that reporting unit had been acquired in a business combination. Under this new guidance, an entity would perform its goodwill impairment test by comparing the fair value of a reporting unit with its carrying amount and would recognize an impairment charge for the amount by which the carrying amount exceeds the reporting unit’s fair value; however, the loss recognized would not exceed the total amount of goodwill allocated to that reporting unit. Additionally, an entity would consider income tax effects from any tax deductible goodwill on the carrying amount of the reporting unit when measuring the goodwill impairment loss, if applicable. Under the new guidance, an entity continues to have the option to perform the qualitative assessment for a reporting unit to determine if the quantitative impairment test is necessary. This guidance is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019 and interim periods within those years. Early adoption is permitted for interim or annual goodwill impairment tests performed on testing dates after January 1, 2017. The adoption of this guidance is not expected to have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated financial statements.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

Note 3—Property and equipment

Property and equipment consisted of the following at December 31, 2016 and 2015 (in thousands):

 

		December 31,
		2016				2015
Computers and equipment		$	3,287			$	2,173
Purchased software			3,829				2,501
Furniture and fixtures			1,725				1,852
Leasehold improvements			6,888				7,670
Construction in progress			523				1,274
			16,252				15,470
Less: accumulated depreciation			(4,934	)			(3,051	)
		$	11,318			$	12,419

Depreciation expense was $3.1 million, $1.8 million and $1.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.

Software and construction in progress includes assets held under capital lease of $1.6 million as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, reduced by related accumulated amortization thereon of $0.4 million and $0.1 million, respectively.

Note 4—Business combination

On August 31, 2016, the Company acquired all the issued and outstanding capital stock of Runbook, a Netherlands-based provider of financial close automation software and integration solutions for SAP. The purpose of the acquisition was to enhance the Company’s position as a leading provider of software solutions to automate the financial close process for SAP customers and supports the Company’s European expansion strategy. The acquisition has been accounted for as a business combination under GAAP.

The total purchase consideration was approximately $34.1 million, subject to a final working capital adjustment, which was paid in cash. Upon the finalization of the working capital adjustment, the amount of the purchase price allocated to goodwill may change. A portion of the purchase price totaling $3.1 million, was paid into escrow for indemnification obligations relating to potential breach of representations and warranties of the sellers and any amounts remaining in escrow after satisfaction of any resolved claims, will be released from escrow on the one-year anniversary of the acquisition. Acquisition-related costs incurred by the Company of approximately $1.6 million were expensed as incurred and are included in general and administrative expenses in the consolidated statements of operations.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

The following table summarizes the estimated fair values of the assets acquired and liabilities assumed as of the date of the acquisition (in thousands):

 

Total cash consideration to selling shareholders		$	34,052
Assets acquired and liabilities assumed
Cash and cash equivalents			2,564
Accounts receivable			2,518
Prepaid expenses and other current assets			718
Property and equipment			427
Intangible assets			9,790
Accounts payable			(285	)
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities			(376	)
Deferred revenue			(501	)
Net deferred income tax liabilities			(2,787	)
Net assets			12,068
Goodwill		$	21,984

The Company believes the amount of goodwill resulting from the acquisition is primarily attributable to expected synergies from assembled workforce, an increase in development capabilities, increased offerings to customers, and enhanced opportunities for growth and innovation. The goodwill resulting from the acquisition is not tax deductible.

To determine the estimated fair value of intangible assets acquired, the Company engaged a third-party valuation specialist to assist management. The fair value measurements of the intangible assets were based primarily on significant unobservable inputs and thus represent a Level 3 measurement as defined in ASC 820. The acquired intangible asset categories, fair value and amortization periods, were as follows:

 

		Amortization Period				Fair Value (in thousands)
Trade name			1 year			$	20
Developed technology			8 years				5,710
Non-compete agreements			2 years				180
Customer relationships			10 years				3,880
						$	9,790

The weighted average lives of intangible assets at the acquisition date was 8.7 years.

Unaudited Pro forma information

The following table presents the Company’s unaudited pro forma information for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 as if the acquisition occurred on January 1, 2015 (in thousands):

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2016				2015
Pro forma total revenues		$	128,196			$	88,303
Pro forma net loss			(39,000	)			(28,161	)
Pro forma net loss per share, basic and diluted			(0.92	)			(0.69	)

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

The pro forma results reflect certain adjustments for the depreciation and amortization of the fair values of the intangible assets acquired, adjustments to revenue resulting from the fair value adjustment to deferred revenue, acquisition-related costs, and related tax adjustments. Such pro forma amounts are not necessarily indicative of the results that actually would have occurred had the acquisition been completed on the date indicated, nor is it indicative of the future operating results of the Company.

The total amount of Runbook revenue and net loss included in the Company’s consolidated results of operations from the date of acquisition to December 31, 2016 was $0.8 million and $1.7 million, respectively.

Note 5—Intangible assets and Goodwill

The carrying value of intangible assets as of December 31, 2016 and 2015 was as follows (in thousands):

 

		December 31, 2016
		Gross Carrying Amount				Accumulated Amortization				Net Carrying Amount
Trade name		$	15,977			$	(5,361	)		$	10,616
Developed technology			42,558				(20,694	)			21,864
Non-compete agreements			4,520				(2,924	)			1,596
Customer relationships			31,783				(11,741	)			20,042
		$	94,838			$	(40,720	)		$	54,118
		December 31, 2015
		Gross Carrying Amount				Accumulated Amortization				Net Carrying Amount
Trade name		$	15,964			$	(3,727	)		$	12,237
Developed technology			36,844				(14,326	)			22,518
Non-compete agreements			4,341				(2,026	)			2,315
Customer relationships			27,894				(8,136	)			19,758
		$	85,043			$	(28,215	)		$	56,828

Amortization expense is included in the following functional statement of operations expense categories. Amortization expense was as follows (in thousands):

 

		Year ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
Cost of revenue		$	6,368			$	6,139			$	6,139
Sales and marketing			3,605				3,487				3,487
General and administrative			2,532				2,466				2,466
		$	12,505			$	12,092			$	12,092

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

The following table presents the Company’s estimate of remaining amortization expense for each of the five succeeding fiscal years and thereafter for finite-lived intangible assets at December 31, 2016 (in thousands):

 

2017		$	13,285
2018			12,966
2019			10,280
2020			6,187
2021			5,024
Thereafter			6,376
		$	54,118

The change in the carrying amount of goodwill is as follows (in thousands):

 

Goodwill as of December 31, 2014		$	163,154
Activity during fiscal 2015			—
Goodwill as of December 31, 2015			163,154
Acquisition of Runbook			21,984
Goodwill as of December 31, 2016		$	185,138

Note 6—Accrued expenses and other current liabilities

At December 31, 2016 and 2015, accrued expenses and other current liabilities were comprised of the following (in thousands):

 

		December 31,
		2016				2015
Accrued salary and employee benefits		$	11,589			$	9,716
Accrued income and other taxes payable			1,553				1,047
Short-term portion of capital lease			992				558
Accrued commissions to third party partners			2,081				2,305
Accrued initial public offering costs			110				419
Accrued professional services costs			454				16
Other accrued expenses			2,152				951
		$	18,931			$	15,012

Note 7—Term loan

In September 2013, the Company entered into a $25 million term loan agreement (the “Term Loan”). The Term Loan had a term of five years and expired and was repayable on September 25, 2018. The Term Loan bore interest at (i) the greater of LIBOR or 1.5% plus (ii) 8%. In March 2016 and August 2016, the Company amended its credit facility to add an additional $5.0 million term loan (the “2016 Incremental Term Loan”) and to add an additional $30 million term loan (the “2016 Acquisition Term Loan”), respectively. Both the 2016 Incremental Term Loan and the 2016 Acquisition Term Loan had similar terms and conditions to the original Term Loan, and both were subject to prepayment penalties if the Company elected to repay the loans before the expiration date. The term loans bore

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

interest at a rate of 9.5% per annum. Under the provisions of each term loan, the Company had the option to pay interest in varying amounts in cash or in payment in kind. For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, interest of $1.8 million, $2.1 million and $2.0 million, respectively, was paid in kind, thereby increasing the outstanding principal. Interest paid in kind was due and payable at maturity of each term loan. In November 2016, the Company repaid in full all outstanding debt under the Company’s credit facility and terminated the agreement, as amended. In connection with the termination of the agreement, the Company paid a total of approximately $67.7 million, which included principal, accrued interest, paid in kind interest, and prepayment penalties. Prepayment penalties of $0.7 million were expensed to interest expense in November 2016 upon repayment and termination of the credit facility. Upon the termination of the credit facility, accumulated paid in kind interest of $6.4 million was repaid and has been classified in cash flows from operating activities.

The Company incurred $1.1 million, $0.2 million and $0.5 million in transaction costs and fees payable to the lender related to the issuance of the Term Loan, the 2016 Incremental Term Loan, and the 2016 Acquisition Term Loan, respectively. These amounts, net of amortization, had been presented as a discount against the carrying amount of the term loans. In November 2016, in connection with the repayment of the Company’s term loans and termination of its credit facility, the Company expensed the remaining unamortized debt issuance costs of $1.1 million to interest expense in the accompanying consolidated statements of operations.

In conjunction with Term Loan, the Company issued warrants to purchase 499,999 shares of common stock at an exercise price per share of $5.00. The warrants are exercisable at any time by the holder and expire upon the earlier of ten years from the issuance date or the sale of the Company. At December 31, 2016, the warrants remain outstanding. The carrying value of the Term Loan was reduced by the fair value of the warrants at issuance of $1.4 million. The resulting debt discount was being amortized over the term of the debt on a straight-line basis which approximates the effective interest method. The amortization of the debt discount was recorded in interest expense in the consolidated statements of operations. In November 2016, in connection with the repayment of the Company’s term loans and termination of its credit facility, the Company expensed the remaining unamortized debt issuance costs associated with the issuance of the warrants of $0.5 million to interest expense in the consolidated statements of operations.

Note 8—Income taxes

The components of income (loss) before income taxes for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 were as follows (in thousands):

 

		Year ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
United States		$	(45,123	)		$	(39,350	)		$	(25,387	)
International			(623	)			903				461
		$	(45,746	)		$	(38,447	)		$	(24,926	)

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

The components of the total benefit from income taxes for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 were as follows (in thousands):

 

		Year ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
Current
Federal		$	—			$	—			$	—
State			5				7				1
International			840				221				108
Total current tax expense			845				228				109
Deferred
Federal			(6,086	)			(12,468	)			(7,111	)
State			(202	)			(1,473	)			(1,172	)
International			(1,144	)			—				—
Total deferred tax benefit			(7,432	)			(13,941	)			(8,283	)
Total benefit from income taxes		$	(6,587	)		$	(13,713	)		$	(8,174	)

A reconciliation of the statutory U.S. federal income tax rate to the Company’s effective tax rate for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 was as follows:

 

		Year ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
Federal statutory income tax rate			34.0	%			34.0	%			34.0	%
State tax, net of federal benefit			3.0	%			4.0	%			3.1	%
Federal tax credits			1.2	%			1.1	%			0.6	%
Change in valuation allowance			(16.5	%)			(2.3	%)			—
Common stock warrants			(4.4	%)			(0.4	%)			(5.0	%)
Other			(2.9	%)			(0.7	%)			0.1	%
			14.4	%			35.7	%			32.8	%

Significant components of the Company’s deferred tax assets and liabilities at December 31, 2016 and 2015 were as follows (in thousands):

 

		Year ended December 31,
		2016				2015
Deferred tax assets
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities		$	1,065			$	1,147
Business credits			2,913				1,962
Stock-based compensation			4,393				2,488
Net operating loss carryover			21,151				13,586
Other			1,253				358
Total deferred tax assets			30,775				19,541
Less: valuation allowance			(8,489	)			(887	)
Deferred tax assets, net of valuation allowance			22,286				18,654

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

		Year ended December 31,
		2016				2015
Deferred tax liabilities
Property and equipment		$	(1,250	)		$	(1,473	)
Common stock warrants			—				(63	)
Intangible assets			(20,439	)			(21,800	)
Prepaid expenses			(1,859	)			(1,225	)
Total deferred tax liabilities			(23,548	)			(24,561	)
Net deferred taxes		$	(1,262	)		$	(5,907	)

ASC 740 requires that the tax benefit of net operating losses, temporary differences and credit carryforwards be recorded as an asset to the extent that management assesses that realization is “more likely than not.” A valuation allowance is recorded when it is more likely than not that some of the deferred tax assets will not be realized. Realization of future tax benefits is dependent on the Company’s ability to generate sufficient taxable income within the carryforward period. For financial reporting purposes, the Company has incurred losses for each of the past three years. Based on available objective evidence, including the company’s history of losses, management believes it is more likely than not that the net deferred tax assets will not be fully realizable. Accordingly, the Company provided a valuation allowance against its federal and state deferred tax assets. The Company’s foreign tax jurisdictions were in a net deferred tax liability position as of December 31, 2016.

The change in the valuation allowance for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 was as follows (in thousands). There was no valuation allowance for the year ended December 31, 2014.

 

		December 31, 2016
		2016				2015
Valuation allowance, at beginning of year		$	887			$	—
Increase in valuation allowance			7,602				887
Valuation allowance, at end of year		$	8,489			$	887

The Company did not provide for United States income taxes on the undistributed earnings and other outside temporary differences of foreign subsidiaries as they are considered indefinitely reinvested outside the United States. As of December 31, 2016 and 2015 the amount of temporary differences related to undistributed earnings and other outside temporary differences upon which United States income taxes have not been provided is immaterial to these consolidated financial statements.

As of December 31, 2016, the Company had consolidated federal and state net operating loss carryforwards available to offset future taxable income of approximately $94.7 million and $90.9 million, respectively. The federal losses will begin to expire in 2033, and the state losses will begin to expire between 2023 and 2033, depending on the jurisdiction. The Company has federal research and development credits and foreign tax credits of $1.1 million and $0.6 million, respectively, which begin to expire on 2033 and 2023, respectively. The Company has state research and development credits and enterprise zone credits of $1.8 million and $0.6 million, respectively, which are indefinite in expiration and begin to expire by 2023, respectively. Pursuant to Internal Revenue Code Section 382, use of the

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

Company’s net operating loss carryforwards may be limited if the Company experiences a cumulative change in ownership of more than 50% over a three-year period.

At December 31, 2016, $36.7 million of net operating losses related to tax benefits for stock-based compensation resulting from gains that certain individual option holders experienced from the exercise are not included in the deferred tax assets.

The following is a roll forward of the Company’s total gross unrecognized tax benefits (in thousands):

 

Total Gross unrecognized tax benefits, December 31, 2013		$	153
Increase related to positions taken in the year ended December 31, 2014			35
Total gross unrecognized tax benefits, December 31, 2014			188
Increase related to positions taken in the year ended December 31, 2015			90
Total gross unrecognized tax benefits, December 31, 2015			278
Increase related to positions taken in the year ended December 31, 2016			104
Total gross unrecognized tax benefits, December 31, 2016		$	382

As of December 31, 2016, the realization of unrecognized tax benefits are not expected to impact the effective rate due to a full valuation on federal and state deferred taxes. The Company has not recorded any interest or penalties in its benefit from income taxes for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 and no such amounts have been accrued as of December 31, 2016 and 2015.

The Company files U.S. federal, various state and foreign income tax returns. In the normal course of business, the Company is subject to examination by taxing authorities. The tax years 2013, 2014, and 2015 remain subject to examination for federal purposes. Generally, state and foreign tax authorities may examine the Company’s tax returns for four years and five years, respectively, from the date an income tax return is filed. However, the taxing authorities may continue to adjust the Company’s federal and state net operating loss carryforwards until the statute of limitations closes on the tax years in which the federal and state net operating losses are utilized.

The consolidated federal tax filings are under examination by the Internal Revenue Service for the 2014 tax year. The Company does not anticipate any material adjustments as a result of the examination. While it is often difficult to predict the outcome or the timing or resolution of any particular tax position, the Company believes no reserves for income taxes are necessary as a result of this audit.

The Company does not anticipate either material changes in the total amount or composition of its unrecognized tax benefits within 12 months of the reporting date.

Note 9—Contingent consideration

On September 3, 2013, the Company acquired BlackLine Systems, Inc. Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, BlackLine Systems, Inc.’s option holders were allowed to cancel their stock option rights and receive a cash payment equal to the amount of calculated gain (less applicable expense and other items) had they exercised their stock options and then sold their common shares as part of the acquisition. As a condition of the acquisition, the Company is required to pay additional cash

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

consideration to certain equity holders if the Company realizes a tax benefit from the use of net operating losses generated from the stock option exercises concurrent with the acquisition. The maximum contingent cash consideration to be distributed is $8.0 million. The fair value of the contingent consideration was $5.2 million and $4.9 million as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. See Note 2-Significant accounting policies-Fair value of financial instruments for additional information regarding the valuation of the contingent consideration.

Note 10—Commitments and contingencies

Operating leases—The Company has various non-cancelable operating leases for its corporate and international offices. These leases expire at various times through 2023. Certain lease agreements contain renewal options, rent abatement and escalation clauses. The Company recognizes rent expense on a straight-line basis over the lease term, commencing when the Company takes possession of the property. Certain of the Company’s office leases entitle the Company to receive a tenant allowance from the landlord. The Company records tenant allowances as a deferred rent credit, which the Company amortizes on a straight-line basis, as a reduction of rent expense, over the term of the underlying lease. Total rent expense under the operating leases was approximately $2.9 million, $2.5 million and $1.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.

Future minimum lease payments under non-cancelable operating leases are as follows for the years ended December 31 (in thousands):

 

2017		$	3,830
2018			2,616
2019			2,232
2020			1,963
2021			1,831
Thereafter			2,122
		$	14,594

Capital leases—The Company leases computer software from various parties under capital lease agreements. Outstanding principal payments under capital lease obligations were $1.0 million as of December 31, 2016, which is payable in full in 2017.

Litigation—From time to time, the Company may become subject to legal proceedings, claims and litigation arising in the ordinary course of business. The Company is not currently a party to any legal proceedings, nor is it aware of any pending or threatened litigation, that would have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, operating results, cash flows, or financial condition should such litigation be resolved unfavorably.

Indemnification—In the ordinary course of business, the Company may provide indemnification of varying scope and terms to customers, vendors, investors, directors, and officers with respect to certain matters, including, but not limited to, losses arising out of our breach of such agreements, services to be provided by the Company, or from intellectual property infringement claims made by third parties. These indemnification provisions may survive termination of the underlying agreement and the maximum potential amount of future payments the Company could be required to make under these indemnification provisions may not be subject to maximum loss clauses. The maximum potential amount of future payments the Company could be required to make under these indemnification

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

provisions is indeterminable. The Company has never paid a material claim, nor has it been sued in connection with these indemnification arrangements. As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, the Company has not accrued a liability for these indemnification arrangements because the likelihood of incurring a payment obligation, if any, in connection with these indemnification arrangements was not probable or reasonably estimable.

Note 11—Capitalization

As of December 31, 2016, the authorized capital stock of the Company consisted of 500 million shares of common stock and 50 million shares of preferred stock. No shares of preferred stock are issued and outstanding at December 31, 2016. The board of directors can determine the voting rights, dividend rights, conversion rights, redemption privileges and liquidation preferences of the preferred stock.

As of December 31, 2016, the Company had reserved for issuance 7.1 million shares of common stock from its available but unissued authorized shares, consisting of 5.9 million shares issuable upon the exercise of stock options under the Company’s 2014 and 2016 Equity Incentive plans, 0.7 million shares issuable upon the exercise of performance-based stock options, and warrants to purchase 0.5 million shares of common stock.

On January 14, 2016, the board of directors approved the retirement of 47,000 shares of treasury stock.

In September 2016, the Company raised gross proceeds of $3.1 million from the sale of 192,187 shares of common stock to former Runbook employees.

On November 2, 2016, the Company completed its initial public offering in which it issued and sold 9,890,000 shares of its common stock, which included the exercise in full of the underwriters’ option to purchase an additional 1,290,000 shares at an initial offering price of $17.00 per share. The Company received proceeds from the offering of approximately $151.9 million after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses.

Note 12—Stock options

2014 and 2016 Plans

On March 3, 2014, the Company adopted the 2014 Stock Incentive Plan (the “2014 Plan”). In November 2016, upon the completion of the Company’s initial public offering, the Company adopted the 2016 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2016 Plan”) and determined that it will no longer grant any additional awards under the 2014 Plan. However, the 2014 Plan continues to govern the terms and conditions of the outstanding awards previously granted under the 2014 plan. Upon the adoption of the 2016 Plan, the maximum number of shares issuable was 6.2 million, plus a number of shares equal to the number of shares subject to outstanding awards granted under the 2014 Plan after the date the 2014 Plan is terminated without having been exercised in full. The Company’s board of directors may grant stock options to employees, directors and consultants under the 2016 Plan. The aggregate number of shares available under the 2016 Plan and the number of shares subject to outstanding options automatically adjusts for any changes in the Company’s outstanding common stock by reason of any recapitalization, spin-off, reorganization, reclassification, stock dividend, stock split, reverse stock split, or similar transaction. Stock options generally vest over four years and have contractual terms of ten years.

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

As of December 31, 2016, 6,188,425 shares were available for issuance under the 2016 Plan.

Stock options with service-only vesting conditions

A summary of the Company’s stock option activity and related information for the year ended December 31, 2016 for awards that contain service-only vesting conditions was as follows:

 

		Shares				Weighted Average Exercise Price				Weighted Average Remaining Contractual Term (Years)				Aggregate Intrinsic Value (in thousands)
Outstanding at December 31, 2015			5,904,376			$	8.62				8.6			$	37,788
Granted			1,072,920				14.65
Exercised			(522,450	)			5.84
Forfeited			(580,660	)			7.47
Outstanding at December 31, 2016			5,874,186			$	10.09				8.0			$	103,038
Exercisable at December 31, 2016			1,925,687			$	7.79				7.5			$	38,212
Vested and expected to vest at December 31, 2016			5,506,193			$	10.05				8.0			$	96,799

The weighted average grant date fair value per share of options granted during the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 that contain service only vesting conditions were $6.78 and $7.04, respectively. The aggregate intrinsic value of options exercised that contain service only vesting conditions during the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 were $4.8 million and $2.6 million, respectively.

Unrecognized compensation expense relating to stock options that contain service only vesting conditions was $15.8 million at December 31, 2016, which is expected to be recognized over a weighted-average period of 2.6 years.

Stock options with performance conditions

In October 2016, the Company granted options to purchase 682,800 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $14.00 per share to two executive officers that vest upon meeting certain performance conditions and continued service. The performance conditions include meeting yearly cash flow targets and cumulative annual recurring revenue targets through 2019. If each yearly cash flow target is met through 2019, but the full cumulative annual recurring target through 2019 is not met, the executive officers are still able to vest in the award if an additional cash flow target for 2020 and a cumulative annual recurring revenue target through 2020 are achieved. The cash flow performance targets for each year are determined concurrently with the annual budget process and because each yearly target has not yet been set, no grant date for the options has been established. As of December 31, 2016, the Company has determined that the achievement of the performance targets is not probable and, accordingly, no stock-based compensation expense has been recorded for these awards. To the extent that the awards become probable of vesting prior to the grant date, the amount of compensation cost to be recognized will be based on the then fair value of the options. The fair value of the options will be remeasured each period until a grant date has been established. Accordingly, stock-based compensation cost, if any, to be recognized will depend on the value of the stock options when all performance conditions have been set and whether the performance conditions

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

are probable of being achieved. Based on the Company’s stock price as of December 31, 2016, the cumulative unrecognized stock compensation cost relating to these awards is approximately $12 million.

Stock-based compensation expense

Stock-based compensation expense for stock option awards for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 was as follows (in thousands):

 

		Year ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
Cost of revenues		$	715			$	466			$	249
Sales and marketing			2,490				2,418				1,059
Research and development			809				588				229
General and administrative			2,512				2,025				480
		$	6,526			$	5,497			$	2,017

Note 13—Defined contribution plan

The Company sponsors a defined contribution retirement plan (the “Plan”) that covers substantially all domestic employees. The Company makes matching contributions of 100% of each $1 of the employee’s contribution up to the first 3% of the employee’s bi-weekly compensation and 50% of each $1 of the employee’s contribution up to the next 2% of the employee’s bi-weekly compensation. Matching contributions to the Plan totaled $2.3 million, $1.7 million and $0.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively.

Note 14—Related party transactions

As of December 31, 2015, the Company accrued for costs of third party legal services incurred on behalf of Silver Lake Sumeru, ICONIQ Capital Group, L.P., another significant shareholder, and the Company’s Chief Marketing Officer relating to the Company’s initial public offering and other corporate related matters. Total amounts accrued at December 31, 2015 were $0.2 million, of which $0.1 million were expensed during 2015 and $0.1 million were included in other assets as deferred offering costs. The Company had no material related party transactions for the year ended December 31, 2016.

Note 15—Geographic information

Revenue by region is classified based on the country of the customer’s contracting office. The following table sets forth the Company’s revenue by geographic region (in thousands):

 

		Year ended December 31,
		2016				2015				2014
United States		$	102,896			$	71,832			$	45,039
International			20,227				11,775				6,638
		$	123,123			$	83,607			$	51,677

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

The following table sets forth the Company’s property and equipment, net by geographic region (in thousands):

 

		December 31,
		2016				2015
United States		$	10,602			$	12,108
International			716				311
		$	11,318			$	12,419

No countries outside the United States represented greater than 10% of total revenues. Substantially all of the Company’s property and equipment is located in the United States.

Note 16—Unaudited quarterly data

The following table sets forth unaudited quarterly consolidated statements of operations data for each of the eight quarters in the period ended December 31, 2016. The Company has prepared the unaudited quarterly consolidated statements of operations data on a basis consistent with the audited annual consolidated financial statements. In the opinion of management, the financial information in this table reflects all adjustments, consisting of normal and recurring adjustments, necessary for the fair statement of this data.

 

		Quarter Ended
		2016																2015
		December 31,				September 30,				June 30,				March 31,				December 31,				September 30,				June 30,				March 31,
		(in thousands, except per share data)
Revenues		$	35,340			$	32,196			$	29,026			$	26,561			$	24,474			$	21,661			$	19,425			$	18,047
Gross profit			26,673				24,655				21,963				19,621				18,127				15,718				13,939				13,094
Net loss		$	(15,664	)		$	(6,619	)		$	(7,541	)		$	(9,335	)		$	(7,207	)		$	(6,735	)		$	(6,538	)		$	(4,254	)
Net loss per share, basic and diluted		$	(0.33	)		$	(0.16	)		$	(0.19	)		$	(0.23	)		$	(0.18	)		$	(0.17	)		$	(0.16	)		$	(0.11	)

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (UNAUDITED)

(in thousands)

 

		March 31, 2017				December 31, 2016
ASSETS
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents		$	23,448			$	22,118
Marketable securities			77,868				83,130
Accounts receivable, net			43,889				42,294
Deferred sales commissions			9,533				9,667
Prepaid expenses and other current assets			7,777				6,614
Total current assets			162,515				163,823
Capitalized software development costs, net			5,049				4,591
Property and equipment, net			11,274				11,318
Intangible assets, net			50,788				54,118
Goodwill			185,138				185,138
Other assets			1,471				1,449
Total assets		$	416,235			$	420,437
LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable		$	4,269			$	7,165
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities			15,719				18,931
Deferred revenue			88,347				80,360
Short-term portion of contingent consideration			2,008				2,008
Total current liabilities			110,343				108,464
Common stock warrant liability			12,380				11,380
Contingent consideration			3,323				3,230
Deferred tax liabilities, net			1,100				1,262
Deferred revenue, noncurrent			2,400				2,373
Other long-term liabilities			2,343				2,318
Total liabilities			131,889				129,027
Commitments and contingencies (Note 6)
Stockholders’ equity:
Common stock			513				513
Additional paid-in capital			380,288				378,272
Accumulated other comprehensive loss			(39	)			(41	)
Accumulated deficit			(96,416	)			(87,334	)
Total stockholders’ equity			284,346				291,410
Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity		$	416,235			$	420,437

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (UNAUDITED)

(in thousands, except per share data)

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
Revenues
Subscription and support		$	37,051			$	25,328
Professional services			1,583				1,233
Total revenues			38,634				26,561
Cost of revenues
Subscription and support			7,777				5,961
Professional services			1,455				979
Total cost of revenues			9,232				6,940
Gross profit			29,402				19,621
Operating expenses
Sales and marketing			23,496				18,169
Research and development			5,948				5,272
General and administrative			8,253				5,979
Total operating expenses			37,697				29,420
Loss from operations			(8,295	)			(9,799	)
Other income (expense)
Interest income			224				4
Interest expense			(4	)			(865	)
Change in fair value of the common stock warrant liability			(1,000	)			—
Other expense, net			(780	)			(861	)
Loss before income taxes			(9,075	)			(10,660	)
Benefit from income taxes			(65	)			(1,325	)
Net loss		$	(9,010	)		$	(9,335	)
Net loss per share, basic and diluted		$	(0.18	)		$	(0.23	)
Weighted average common shares outstanding, basic and diluted			51,282				40,689

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE LOSS (UNAUDITED)

(in thousands)

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
Net loss		$	(9,010	)		$	(9,335	)
Other comprehensive income
Net change in unrealized gain on marketable securities, net of tax of $0			2				—
Other comprehensive income			2				—
Comprehensive loss		$	(9,008	)		$	(9,335	)

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY (UNAUDITED)

(in thousands, except shares)

 

		Common Stock				Amount				Additional Paid-in Capital				Accumulated Other Comprehensive Loss				Accumulated Deficit				Total
		Shares Outstanding
Balance at December 31, 2016			51,277,964			$	513			$	378,272			$	(41	)		$	(87,334	)		$	291,410
Adjustment for change in accounting policy for stock option forfeitures			—				—				72				—				(72	)			—
Balance at January 1, 2017			51,277,964				513				378,344				(41	)			(87,406	)			291,410
Stock option exercises			7,150				—				65				—				—				65
Stock-based compensation			—				—				1,879				—				—				1,879
Other comprehensive income			—				—				—				2				—				2
Net loss			—				—				—				—				(9,010	)			(9,010	)
Balance at March 31, 2017			51,285,114			$	513			$	380,288			$	(39	)		$	(96,416	)		$	284,346

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (UNAUDITED)

(in thousands)

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
Cash flows from operating activities
Net loss		$	(9,010	)		$	(9,335	)
Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash used in operating activities:
Depreciation and amortization			4,791				4,111
Accretion of debt discount and accrual of paid in kind interest			—				481
Change in fair value of common stock warrant liability			1,000				—
Change in fair value of contingent consideration			93				62
Stock-based compensation			1,849				1,625
(Accretion)/amortization of purchase discounts/premiums on marketable securities, net			63				—
Deferred income taxes			(162	)			(1,402	)
Changes in operating assets and liabilities:
Accounts receivable			(1,595	)			(1,499	)
Deferred sales commissions			134				242
Prepaid expenses and other current assets			(1,163	)			(1,017	)
Other assets			(22	)			(757	)
Accounts payable			(3,253	)			1,421
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities			(2,469	)			(2,031	)
Deferred revenue			8,014				3,800
Other long-term liabilities			25				(352	)
Net cash used in operating activities			(1,705	)			(4,651	)
Cash flows from investing activities
Proceeds from maturities of marketable securities			5,200				—
Capitalized software development costs			(1,083	)			(807	)
Purchases of property and equipment			(488	)			(409	)
Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities			3,629				(1,216	)
Cash flows from financing activities
Proceeds from term loan, net of issuance costs			—				4,840
Principal payments on capital lease obligations			(549	)			(124	)
Payments of initial public offering costs			(110	)			(725	)
Proceeds from exercises of stock options			65				135
Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities			(594	)			4,126
Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents			1,330				(1,741	)
Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period			22,118				15,205
Cash and cash equivalents, end of period		$	23,448			$	13,464

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements

 

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BLACKLINE, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (UNAUDITED)

SUPPLEMENTAL CASH FLOW DISCLOSURE

(in thousands)

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
Non-cash financing and investing activities
Capitalized software development costs included in accounts payable and accrued expenses and other current liabilities		$	45			$	35
Purchases of property and equipment included in accounts payable and accrued expenses and other current liabilities		$	445			$	236
Stock-based compensation capitalized for software development		$	30			$	22
Deferred offering costs included in accounts payable and accrued expenses and other current liabilities		$	—			$	1,617
Term loan issuance costs		$	—			$	80

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements

 

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BlackLine, Inc.

Notes to Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements

Note 1—Company overview

BlackLine, Inc. and its subsidiaries (the “Company” or “BlackLine”) provide financial accounting close solutions delivered primarily as Software as a Service (“SaaS”). The Company’s solutions enable its customers to address various aspects of their financial close process including account reconciliations, variance analysis of account balances, journal entry capabilities, and certain types of data matching capabilities.

The Company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California and has offices in Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Vancouver, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Sydney, Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, and South Africa.

Note 2—Basis of presentation, significant accounting policies and recently-issued accounting pronouncements

The accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements were prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”) for interim financial information. Certain information and disclosures normally included in consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP have been condensed or omitted. Accordingly, these condensed consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes included in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 filed with the SEC on March 10, 2017. The condensed consolidated financial statements are unaudited and have been prepared on a basis consistent with that used to prepare the audited annual consolidated financial statements and include, in the opinion of management, all adjustments, consisting of normal and recurring items, necessary for the fair statement of the condensed consolidated financial statements. The condensed consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2016 was derived from audited financial statements, but does not include all disclosures required by GAAP. The operating results for the three months ended March 31, 2017 are not necessarily indicative of the results expected for the full year ending December 31, 2017.

Use of estimates

The preparation of consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the dates of the consolidated financial statements, and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Actual amounts could differ from those estimates.

Significant Accounting Policies

There have been no material changes in the accounting policies from those disclosed in the audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes included in the Annual Report on Form 10-K. During the three months ended March 31, 2017, the Company adopted the new stock compensation guidance and changed its policy to account for forfeitures when they occur and record income tax benefits related to stock awards in the statement of operations, subject to the need for a deferred tax asset valuation allowance—See Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements.

Recently-issued accounting standards

In May 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued guidance related to revenue from contracts with customers. Under this guidance, revenue is recognized when promised

 

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goods or services are transferred to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration that is expected to be received for those goods or services. The updated standard will replace all existing revenue recognition guidance under GAAP when it becomes effective and permits the use of either the retrospective or cumulative effect transition method. In July 2015, the FASB voted to defer the effective date to January 1, 2018, with early adoption beginning January 1, 2017. In March, April, May, and December 2016, the FASB issued amendments to the new guidance relating to reporting revenue on a gross versus net basis, identifying performance obligations and licensing arrangements and other narrow scope improvements. The Company will adopt the new revenue guidance in the first quarter of 2018 though has not yet determined whether to adopt using a full retrospective or modified retrospective approach. The Company is currently assessing the impact of the new revenue guidance on its arrangements. The Company currently believes that the new guidance will impact the amount and timing of incremental costs of obtaining a contract, such as sales commissions. The Company generally does not pay sales commissions upon contract renewal and therefore, under the new revenue guidance, the sales commissions will be recognized over an estimated customer life rather than over the non-cancelable term under current guidance. The new guidance is also expected to impact the Company’s arrangements subject to current software revenue recognition guidance and also require incremental disclosures of the Company’s revenue arrangements. The Company has not yet quantified the impact of these changes. Adoption of this standard will also require changes to the Company’s business processes, systems and controls to support the new revenue recognition guidance. The Company is in the process of identifying such changes.

In February 2016, the FASB issued new guidance which significantly changes the accounting for leases. The new guidance requires a lessee recognize in the balance sheet a liability to make lease payments (the lease liability) and a right-of-use asset representing its right to use the underlying asset for the lease term. For leases with a term of 12 months or less, a lessee is permitted to make an accounting policy election by class of underlying asset not to recognize lease assets and lease liabilities. If a lessee makes this election, it should recognize lease expense for such leases generally on a straight-line basis over the lease term. For income statement purposes, the new guidance retained a dual model, requiring leases to be classified as either operating or financing. Operating leases will result in straight-line expense while finance leases will result in a front-loaded expense pattern similar to existing capital lease guidance. For statement of cash flow purposes, the new guidance also retained the existing dual method, where cash payments for operating leases are reflected in cash flows from operating activities and principal and interest payments for finance leases are reflected in cash flows from financing activities and cash flows from operating activities, respectively. The new guidance is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018 and interim periods within those fiscal years. The new guidance requires the recognition and measurement of leases at the beginning of the earliest period presented using a modified retrospective approach. The use of the modified retrospective approach allows an entity to use a number of practical expedients in the application of this new guidance. Although the Company is evaluating the impact of adopting this guidance on its consolidated financial statements, the Company expects that most of its operating lease commitments will be recognized as operating lease liabilities and right-of-use assets upon adoption of the new guidance.

In March 2016, the FASB issued new guidance to simplify various aspects relating to accounting for stock-based compensation and related tax impacts, the classification of excess tax benefits on the statement of cash flows, statutory tax withholding requirements, and other stock-based compensation classification matters. The guidance was effective for annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2016 and interim periods within those annual periods. The Company adopted this guidance during the first quarter ended March 31, 2017. Upon adoption, the Company changed an accounting policy to account for forfeitures when they occur rather than estimate a forfeiture rate. The impact of this change in policy increased the Company’s accumulated deficit and additional paid-in capital by $0.1 million as of January 1, 2017. The new guidance also requires the Company to record,

 

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on a prospective basis, the income tax effects of stock-based compensation awards in the income statement as discrete items, subject to deferred tax asset valuation allowance considerations, in the reporting period in which they occur, which will increase volatility in the Company’s income tax provision in the future to the extent that the Company is able to realize the tax benefits. In addition, upon adoption previously unrecognized tax benefits were recorded as an adjustment to accumulated deficit, subject to assessment for the need for a deferred tax asset valuation allowance, as of January 1, 2017. The Company had $36.7 million of net operating losses related to tax benefits for stock-based compensation awards as of December 31, 2016 which were not recorded as deferred tax assets. As the Company has a full valuation allowance against its deferred tax assets, the adoption of this guidance did not have a material impact on the Company’s financial statements.

In June 2016, the FASB issued guidance which requires that financial assets measured at amortized costs be presented at the net amount expected to be collected. This guidance amends the accounting for credit losses for available-for-sale securities and purchased financial assets with credit deterioration. This guidance is effective for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2019, and interim periods within those annual periods. Early adoption is permitted for any interim or annual period after December 15, 2018. The Company has not determined the impact of this guidance on its consolidated financial statements.

In November 2016, the FASB issued guidance which requires that restricted cash and restricted cash equivalents be included with cash and cash equivalents when reconciling the beginning and ending total amounts shown on the statement of cash flows. This guidance is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017, and interim periods within those years, and should be applied using a retrospective transition method to each period presented. Early adoption is permitted, including adoption in an interim period. If an entity early adopts the amendments in an interim period, any adjustments should be reflected as of the beginning of the fiscal year that includes that interim period. The Company’s restricted cash as of March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016 was $0.4 million and therefore, the adoption of this guidance is not expected to have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated statements of cash flows.

In February 2017, the FASB issued guidance which simplifies the subsequent measurement of goodwill by no longer requiring an entity to determine goodwill impairment by calculating the implied fair value of goodwill by assigning the fair value of a reporting unit to all of its assets and liabilities as if that reporting unit had been acquired in a business combination. Under this new guidance, an entity would perform its goodwill impairment test by comparing the fair value of a reporting unit with its carrying amount and would recognize an impairment charge for the amount by which the carrying amount exceeds the reporting unit’s fair value; however, the loss recognized would not exceed the total amount of goodwill allocated to that reporting unit. Additionally, an entity would consider income tax effects from any tax deductible goodwill on the carrying amount of the reporting unit when measuring the goodwill impairment loss, if applicable. Under the new guidance, an entity continues to have the option to perform the qualitative assessment for a reporting unit to determine if the quantitative impairment test is necessary. This guidance is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019 and interim periods within those years. Early adoption is permitted for interim or annual goodwill impairment tests performed on testing dates after January 1, 2017. The adoption of this guidance is not expected to have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated financial statements.

In March 2017, the FASB issued guidance which shortens the amortization period for certain purchased callable debt securities held at a premium. Under this new guidance, an entity would shorten the amortization period of the premium to the earliest call date. This guidance is effective for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2018, and interim periods within those annual periods. Early adoption is permitted, including adoption in an interim period. The Company has not determined the impact of this guidance on its consolidated financial statements.

 

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Note 3—Investments in Marketable Securities

Investments in marketable securities presented within current assets on the consolidated balance sheet consisted of the following:

 

		March 31, 2017
		Amortized Cost				Gross Unrealized Gains				Gross Unrealized Losses				Fair Value
		(in thousands)
Marketable securities
U.S. Treasury bonds		$	29,718			$	—			$	(9	)		$	29,709
Corporate Bonds			25,504				2				(18	)			25,488
Commercial paper			10,387				—				—				10,387
Asset-backed securities			12,298				—				(14	)			12,284
		$	77,907			$	2			$	(41	)		$	77,868

 

		December 31, 2016
		Amortized Cost				Gross Unrealized Gains				Gross Unrealized Losses				Fair Value
		(in thousands)
Marketable securities
U.S. Treasury bonds		$	29,742			$	—			$	(17	)		$	29,725
Corporate Bonds			25,522				—				(21	)			25,501
Commercial paper			15,554				—				—				15,554
Asset-backed securities			12,353				—				(3	)			12,350
		$	83,171			$	—			$	(41	)		$	83,130

Gross realized gains and losses on marketable securities and net gains and losses reclassified from accumulated other comprehensive loss to earnings were not material for the three months ended March 31, 2017.

The Company’s marketable securities have a contractual maturity of less than four years. The amortized cost and fair values of marketable securities, by remaining contractual maturity, were as follows:

 

		March 31, 2017
		Amortized Cost				Fair Value
		(in thousands)
Due in 1 year or less		$	61,372			$	61,356
Due after 1 year through 4 years			16,535				16,512
		$	77,907			$	77,868

 

		December 31, 2016
		Amortized Cost				Fair Value
		(in thousands)
Due in 1 year or less		$	49,371			$	49,363
Due after 1 year through 4 years			33,800				33,767
		$	83,171			$	83,130

 

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Note 4—Accrued expenses and other current liabilities

Accrued expenses and other current liabilities consisted of the following (in thousands):

 

		March 31, 2017				December 31, 2016
Accrued salaries and employee benefits		$	7,402			$	11,589
Accrued income and other taxes payable			1,275				1,553
Short-term portion of capital lease			442				992
Accrued commissions to third-party partners			2,123				2,081
Accrued initial public offering costs			—				110
Accrued professional services costs			913				454
Short-term tenant improvement allowance			341				341
Other accrued expenses			3,223				1,811
		$	15,719			$	18,931

Note 5—Fair value measurements

As of March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016, the carrying values of cash equivalents, accounts receivable, accounts payable and accrued expenses, approximate fair values due to the short-term nature of such instruments.

The following table summarizes the Company’s financial assets and liabilities measured at fair value on a recurring basis as of March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016 by level within the fair value hierarchy. Financial assets and financial liabilities are classified in their entirety based on the lowest level of input that is significant to the fair value measurement (in thousands):

 

		March 31, 2017
		Level 1				Level 2				Level 3				Total
Cash equivalents
Money market funds		$	12,215			$	—			$	—			$	12,215
Commercial paper			—				5,196				—				5,196
Marketable securities
U.S. Treasury bonds			29,709				—				—				29,709
Corporate bonds			—				25,488				—				25,488
Commercial paper			—				10,387				—				10,387
Asset-backed securities			—				12,284				—				12,284
Total assets		$	41,924			$	53,355			$	—			$	95,279
Liabilities
Common stock warrant liability		$	—			$	—			$	12,380			$	12,380
Contingent consideration			—				—				5,331				5,331
Total liabilities		$	—			$	—			$	17,711			$	17,711

 

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		December 31, 2016
		Level 1				Level 2				Level 3				Total
Cash equivalents
Money market funds		$	18,936			$	—			$	—			$	18,936
Marketable securities
U.S. Treasury bonds			29,725				—				—				29,725
Corporate bonds			—				25,501				—				25,501
Commercial paper			—				15,554				—				15,554
Asset-backed securities			—				12,349				—				12,349
Total assets		$	48,661			$	53,404			$	—			$	102,065
Liabilities
Common stock warrant liability		$	—			$	—			$	11,380			$	11,380
Contingent consideration			—				—				5,238				5,238
Total liabilities		$	—			$	—			$	16,618			$	16,618

There were no changes to the valuation techniques used to measure asset and liability fair values on a recurring basis during the three months ended March 31, 2017.

The following table summarizes the changes in the common stock warrant liability and contingent consideration liability (in thousands) for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016:

 

		Contingent Consideration				Common Stock Warrant Liability
Fair value as of December 31, 2016		$	5,238			$	11,380
Change in fair value			93				1,000
Fair value as of March 31, 2017		$	5,331			$	12,380
		Contingent Consideration				Common Stock Warrant Liability
Fair value as of December 31, 2015		$	4,867			$	5,500
Change in fair value			62				—
Fair value as of March 31, 2016		$	4,929			$	5,500

Note 6—Commitments and contingencies

Operating Leases – The Company has various non-cancelable operating leases for its corporate and international offices. These leases expire at various times through 2023. Certain lease agreements contain renewal options, rent abatement, and escalation clauses and entitle the Company to receive a tenant allowance from the landlord. The Company records tenant allowances as a deferred rent credit, which the Company amortizes on a straight-line basis, as a reduction of rent expense, over the term of the underlying lease.

Contingent Consideration – On September 3, 2013, BlackLine Systems, Inc. was acquired by BlackLine, Inc. (the “2013 Acquisition”). In conjunction with the 2013 Acquisition, option holders of BlackLine Systems, Inc. were allowed to cancel their stock option rights and receive a cash payment equal to the amount of calculated gain (less applicable expense and other items) had they exercised their stock options and then sold their common shares as part of the 2013 Acquisition. As a condition of the 2013 Acquisition, the Company is required to pay additional cash consideration to certain equity holders if the Company realizes a tax benefit from the use of net operating losses generated from the stock option exercises concurrent with the 2013 Acquisition. The maximum contingent cash

 

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consideration to be distributed is $8.0 million. The fair value of the contingent consideration was $5.3 million and $5.2 million as of March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively.

Litigation – From time to time, the Company may become subject to legal proceedings, claims and litigation arising in the ordinary course of business. The Company is not currently a party to any legal proceedings, nor is it aware of any pending or threatened litigation, that would have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operations, cash flows or financial condition should such litigation be resolved unfavorably.

Indemnification – In the ordinary course of business, the Company may provide indemnification of varying scope and terms to customers, vendors, investors, directors and officers with respect to certain matters, including, but not limited to, losses arising out of our breach of such agreements, services to be provided by the Company, or from intellectual property infringement claims made by third parties. These indemnification provisions may survive termination of the underlying agreement and the maximum potential amount of future payments the Company could be required to make under these indemnification provisions may not be subject to maximum loss clauses. The maximum potential amount of future payments the Company could be required to make under these indemnification provisions is indeterminable. The Company has never paid a material claim, nor has it been sued in connection with these indemnification arrangements. As of March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016, the Company has not accrued a liability for these indemnification arrangements because the likelihood of incurring a payment obligation, if any, in connection with these indemnification arrangements is not probable or reasonably estimable.

Note 7—Stock options

Stock-based compensation expense for stock option awards was as follows (in thousands):

 

		Three Months Ended March 31,
		2017				2016
Cost of revenues		$	250			$	141
Sales and marketing			660				672
Research and development			83				161
General and administrative			856				651
		$	1,849			$	1,625

Note 8—Income taxes

The Company used an effective tax rate approach for calculating its tax benefit for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016. The effective tax rate for the three months ended March 31, 2017 of 0.7% differed from the U.S. federal statutory rate of 34% primarily because of state taxes, net of federal benefit, the valuation allowance for U.S. federal and state income taxes, and foreign taxes. The effective tax rate for the three months ended March 31, 2016 of 12.4% differed from the U.S. federal statutory rate of 34% primarily as a result of state taxes, net of federal benefit, foreign taxes and a valuation allowance on State of California net deferred tax assets. The income tax benefit for the 2016 period was a result of the absorption of deferred tax liabilities recorded as a result of the 2013 Acquisition.

Taxes for international operations were not material for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016.

Note 9—Net loss per share

Basic and diluted loss per share is calculated by dividing net loss by the weighted average number of shares of common stock outstanding. As the Company has net losses for the periods presented all potentially dilutive common stock, which are comprised of stock options and warrants, are anti-dilutive.

 

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As of March 31, 2017 and 2016, the following potentially dilutive shares have been excluded from the calculation of diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders because they are anti-dilutive:

 

		March 31
		2017				2016
Options to purchase common stock			6,553,074				5,974,836
Common stock warrants			499,999				499,999
Total shares excluded from net loss per share			7,053,073				6,474,835

Note 10—Business combinations

On August 31, 2016, the Company acquired Runbook Company B.V., a Netherlands-based provider of licensed financial close automation software and integration for SAP customers, or Runbook, which the Company refers to as the “Runbook Acquisition.” The primary purpose of the Runbook Acquisition was to enhance our position as a leading provider of software solutions to automate the financial close process for SAP customers and secondarily it supports our European expansion strategy.

The following table presents the Company’s unaudited pro forma information for the three months ended March 31, 2016 as if the acquisition occurred on January 1, 2015 (in thousands):

 

		Three Months Ended March 31, 2016
Pro forma total revenues		$	28,291
Pro forma net loss			(9,800	)
Pro forma net loss per share, basic and diluted			(0.24	)

The pro forma results reflect certain adjustments for the depreciation and amortization of the fair value of the intangible assets acquired and related tax adjustments. Such pro forma amounts are not necessarily indicative of the results that actually would have occurred had the acquisition been completed on the date indicated, nor is it indicative of the future operating results of the Company.

 

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                 Shares

BlackLine, Inc.

Common Stock

$             per share

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROSPECTUS

            , 2017

 

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC				J.P. Morgan

Pacific Crest Securities		Raymond James		William Blair		JMP Securities
a division of KeyBanc Capital Markets

 

 

 

 

 

 

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PART II

INFORMATION NOT REQUIRED IN THE PROSPECTUS

Item 13. Other Expenses of Issuance and Distribution.

Estimated costs and expenses, other than underwriting discounts and commissions, payable by us in connection with the sale of the common stock being registered under this registration statement are as follows:

 

			Amount to be Paid
SEC registration fee		$		*
FINRA filing fee				*
Exchange listing fee				*
Printing and engraving				*
Legal fees and expenses				*
Accounting fees and expenses				*
Transfer agent and registrar fees				*
Miscellaneous fees and expenses				*
Total		$		*

 

*	To be completed by amendment.

Item 14. Indemnification of Directors and Officers.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation contains provisions that eliminate, to the maximum extent permitted by the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware, the personal liability of our directors and executive officers for monetary damages for breach of their fiduciary duties as directors or officers. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws provide that we must indemnify our directors and executive officers and may indemnify our employees and other agents to the fullest extent permitted by the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware.

Section 145 of the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware provides that a corporation may indemnify any person made a party to an action by reason of the fact that he or she was a director, executive officer, employee or agent of the corporation or is or was serving at the request of a corporation against expenses (including attorneys’ fees), judgments, fines and amounts paid in settlement actually and reasonably incurred by him or her in connection with such action if he or she acted in good faith and in a manner he or she reasonably believed to be in, or not opposed to, the best interests of the corporation and, with respect to any criminal action or proceeding, had no reasonable cause to believe his or her conduct was unlawful, except that, in the case of an action by or in right of the corporation, no indemnification may generally be made in respect of any claim as to which such person is adjudged to be liable to the corporation.

We have entered into indemnification agreements with our directors and executive officers, in addition to the indemnification provided for in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, and intend to enter into indemnification agreements with any new directors and executive officers in the future.

We have purchased and intend to maintain insurance on behalf of each and any person who is or was one of our directors or officers against any loss arising from any claim asserted against him or her and incurred by him or her in any such capacity, subject to certain exclusions.

 

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The Underwriting Agreement (Exhibit 1.1 hereto) provides for indemnification by the underwriters of us and our executive officers and directors for certain liabilities, including liabilities arising under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act.

See also the undertakings set out in response to Item 17 herein.

Item 15. Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities.

From January 1, 2014 through May 11, 2017, we have made the following sales of unregistered securities:

 

1.	Common Stock Issuances

On October 21, 2014, we issued 357,142 shares of our common stock to one investor at $14.00 per share, for aggregate gross cash proceeds of $5,000,000.

In September 2016, we issued 192,187 shares of our common stock to Runbook employees at $16.00 per share, for aggregate gross cash proceeds of $3,075,000.

 

2.	Option Plan Grants and Exercises

Since January 1, 2014 through the filing of our Registration Statement on Form S-8 on October 28, 2016, we granted to our officers, directors, employees, consultants, and other service providers options to purchase an aggregate of 8,396,621 shares of common stock under our 2014 Equity Incentive Plan at exercise prices ranging from $5.00 to $16.00 per share. Of the options granted, options to purchase 200,000 shares of common stock were granted to two non-employee directors at exercise prices of $5.00 and $14.50 per share, options to purchase 2,153,356 shares of common stock were granted to four executives at exercise prices ranging from $5.00 to $14.50 per share and options to purchase 6,043,265 shares of common stock were granted to 674 other employees and consultants at exercise prices ranging from $5.00 to $16.00 per share.

Since January 1, 2014 through the filing of our Registration Statement on Form S-8 on October 28, 2016, we issued and sold to 96 employees and consultants and other service providers an aggregate of 795,832 shares of common stock upon exercise of options under our 2014 Equity Incentive Plan at a weighted average exercise price of $5.57 per share.

None of the foregoing transactions involved any underwriters, underwriting discounts or commissions, or any public offering.

The offers, sales and issuances of the securities described in this Item 15 were deemed to be exempt from registration under the Securities Act under either (1) Rule 701 promulgated under the Securities Act as offers and sales of securities pursuant to certain compensatory benefit plans and contracts relating to compensation in compliance with Rule 701 or (2) Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act as transactions by an issuer not involving any public offering. The recipients of securities in each of these transactions represented their intention to acquire the securities for investment only and not with a view to or for sale in connection with any distribution thereof and appropriate legends were affixed to the stock certificates and instruments issued in such transactions. All recipients had adequate access, through their relationships with us, to information about us.

 

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ITEM 16. EXHIBITS AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT SCHEDULES.

 

(a)

Exhibits.

See the Exhibit Index immediately following the signature page hereto for a list of exhibits filed as part of this registration statement on Form S-1, which Exhibit Index is incorporated herein by reference.

 

(b)	Financial Statement Schedules.

Financial Statement Schedules have been omitted as information required is inapplicable or the information is presented in the consolidated financial statements and the related notes.

ITEM 17. UNDERTAKINGS.

The undersigned registrant hereby undertakes to provide to the underwriters at the closing specified in the underwriting agreement, certificates in such denominations and registered in such names as required by the underwriters to permit prompt delivery to each purchaser.

Insofar as indemnification for liabilities arising under the Securities Act may be permitted to directors, officers and controlling persons of the registrant pursuant to the foregoing provisions, or otherwise, the registrant has been advised that in the opinion of the Securities and Exchange Commission such indemnification is against public policy as expressed in the Securities Act and is, therefore, unenforceable. In the event that a claim for indemnification against such liabilities (other than the payment by the registrant of expenses incurred or paid by a director, officer or controlling person of the registrant in the successful defense of any action, suit or proceeding) is asserted by such director, officer or controlling person in connection with the securities being registered, the registrant will, unless in the opinion of its counsel the matter has been settled by controlling precedent, submit to a court of appropriate jurisdiction the question whether such indemnification by it is against public policy as expressed in the Securities Act and will be governed by the final adjudication of such issue. The undersigned registrant hereby undertakes that:

(1) For purposes of determining any liability under the Securities Act, the information omitted from the form of prospectus filed as part of this registration statement in reliance upon Rule 430A and contained in a form of prospectus filed by the registrant pursuant to Rule 424(b)(1) or (4) or 497(h) under the Securities Act shall be deemed to be part of this registration statement as of the time it was declared effective.

(2) For the purpose of determining any liability under the Securities Act, each post-effective amendment that contains a form of prospectus shall be deemed to be a new registration statement relating to the securities offered therein, and the offering of such securities at that time shall be deemed to be the initial bona fide offering thereof.

 

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SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, the registrant has duly caused this registration statement to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized, in the City of Woodland Hills, State of California, on May 12, 2017.

 

POWER OF ATTORNEY

Each person whose signature appears below hereby constitutes and appoints Therese Tucker and Mark Partin, jointly and severally, as such person’s true and lawful attorneys-in-fact and agents, with full power of substitution and resubstitution, and full power to act without the other, for such person and in such person’s name, place and stead and to execute in the name and on behalf of such person, individually and in each capacity stated below, and to file this Registration Statement on Form S-1 of BlackLine, Inc. and any or all amendments (including post-effective amendments) thereto, and any registration statement relating to the same offering as this Registration Statement that is to be effective upon filing pursuant to Rule 462(b) under the Securities Act and to file the same, with all 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 or necessary to be done in and about the premises hereby ratifying and confirming all that said attorneys-in-fact and agents, or any of them or their substitute or substitutes, may lawfully do or cause to be done by virtue thereof.

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, this registration statement has been signed by the following persons in the capacities and on the dates indicated below:

 

Signature		Title		Date
/s/ Therese Tucker Therese Tucker		Director and Chief Executive Officer (Principal Executive Officer)		May 12, 2017
/s/ Mark Partin		Chief Financial Officer
Mark Partin		(Principal Financial Officer)		May 12, 2017
/s/ Patrick Villanova Patrick Villanova		Controller (Principal Accounting Officer)		May 12, 2017
/s/ Jason Babcoke
Jason Babcoke		Director		May 12, 2017
/s/ John Brennan
John Brennan		Director		May 12, 2017

 

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Signature		Title		Date
/s/ William Griffith
William Griffith		Director		May 12, 2017
/s/ Hollie Haynes
Hollie Haynes		Director		May 12, 2017
/s/ Graham Smith
Graham Smith		Director		May 12, 2017
/s/ Mario Spanicciati
Mario Spanicciati		Director		May 12, 2017
/s/ Thomas Unterman
Thomas Unterman		Director		May 12, 2017

 

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Exhibit Index

 

				Incorporated by Reference
Exhibit Number		Description		Form		File No.		Exhibit		Filing Date
1.1**		Form of Underwriting Agreement.
2.1		Agreement and Plan of Merger, by and among SLS Breeze Holdings, Inc., SLS Breeze Intermediate Holdings, Inc., SLS Breeze Merger Sub, Inc. and BlackLine Systems, Inc., dated as of August 9, 2013		S-1		333-213899		2.1		September 30, 2016
3.1		Certificate of Amendment to the Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation of the Registrant, effecting a one-for-five reverse stock split.		S-1/A		333-213899		3.2		October 17, 2016
3.2		Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation of the Registrant.		10-Q		001-37924		3.2		December 12, 2016
3.3		Amended and Restated Bylaws of the Registrant.		10-Q		001-37924		3.3		December 12, 2016
4.1		Specimen Common Stock Certificate of the Company.		S-1		333-213899		4.1		September 30, 2016
4.2		Amended and Restated Stockholders’ Agreement, by and among the Registrant, Silver Lake Sumeru, Iconiq, Therese Tucker and Mario Spanicciati.		10-Q		001-37924		4.2		December 12, 2016
4.3		Amended and Restated Registration Rights Agreement, by and among the Registrant, Silver Lake Sumeru, Iconiq, Therese Tucker and Mario Spanicciati.		10-Q		001-37924		4.3		December 12, 2016
4.4		Warrant to Purchase Stock held by Special Value Continuation Partners, LP, dated as of September 25, 2013.		S-1		333-213899		4.2		September 30, 2016
4.5		Warrant to Purchase Stock held by Tennenbaum Opportunities Fund VI, LLC, dated as of September 25, 2013.		S-1		333-213899		4.3		September 30, 2016
4.6		Warrant to Purchase Stock held by Tennenbaum Senior Loan Fund II, LP, dated as of September 25, 2013.		S-1		333-213899		4.4		September 30, 2016
4.7		Warrant to Purchase Stock held by Tennenbaum Senior Loan SPV III, LLC, dated as of September 25, 2013.		S-1		333-213899		4.5		September 30, 2016
4.8		Warrant to Purchase Stock held by Tennenbaum Senior Loan Fund IV-B, LP, dated as of September 25, 2013.		S-1		333-213899		4.6		September 30, 2016
4.9		Subscription Agreement, by and between the Company and Iconiq, dated as of October 21, 2014.		S-1		333-213899		4.7		September 30, 2016
5.1**		Opinion of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Professional Corporation
10.1*		Software Development Cooperation Agreement, by and between the Company and SAP AG, effective as of October 1, 2013.		S-1		333-213899		10.1		September 30, 2016
10.2+		2014 Equity Incentive Plan and form of equity agreements thereunder.		S-1		333-213899		10.6		September 30, 2016
10.3+		Amendment No. 1 to the 2014 Equity Incentive Plan.		S-1		333-213899		10.7		September 30, 2016
10.4+		Amendment No. 2 to the 2014 Equity Incentive Plan.		S-1		333-213899		10.8		September 30, 2016
10.5+		Amendment No. 3 to the 2014 Equity Incentive Plan.		S-1		333-213899		10.9		September 30, 2016

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				Incorporated by Reference
Exhibit Number		Description		Form		File No.		Exhibit		Filing Date
10.6+		2016 Equity Incentive Plan and the form of equity award agreements thereunder.		S-1/A		333-213899		10.10		October 17, 2016
10.7+		Employee Incentive Compensation Plan of the Company.		S-1		333-213899		10.11		September 30, 2016
10.8+		Form of 2015 Executive Officer Bonus Plan.		S-1		333-213899		10.12		September 30, 2016
10.9+		Form of Change of Control and Severance Policy.		S-1		333-213899		10.13		September 30, 2016
10.10+		Executive Employment Agreement, by and between the Registrant and Therese Tucker, effective as of January 1, 2016.		S-1		333-213899		10.14		September 30, 2016
10.11+		2015 Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bonus Plan, by and between the Company and Therese Tucker, dated as of February 5, 2016.		S-1		333-213899		10.15		September 30, 2016
10.12+		Employment Offer Letter, by and between the Company and Karole Morgan-Prager, dated as of May 4, 2015.		S-1		333-213899		10.16		September 30, 2016
10.13+		2015 Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Bonus Plan, by and between the Company and Karole Morgan-Prager, dated as of December 29, 2015.		S-1		333-213899		10.17		September 30, 2016
10.14+		Confirmatory Offer Letter, by and between the Registrant and Karole Morgan-Prager, dated as of September 29, 2016.		S-1		333-213899		10.18		September 30, 2016
10.15+		Employment Offer Letter, by and between the Company and Mark Partin, dated as of December 25, 2014.		S-1		333-213899		10.19		September 30, 2016
10.16+		Confirmatory Offer Letter, by and between the Registrant and Mark Partin, dated as of September 29, 2016.		S-1		333-213899		10.20		September 30, 2016
10.17+		Confirmatory Offer Letter, by and between the Registrant and Chris Murphy, dated as of September 29, 2016.		S-1		333-213899		10.21		September 30, 2016
10.18+		Form of Indemnification Agreement between the Registrant and each of its directors and executive officers.		S-1		333-213899		10.22		September 30, 2016
10.19		Restrictive Covenant Agreement, by and between the Company and Therese Tucker, dated as of August 8, 2013.		S-1		333-213899		10.23		September 30, 2016
10.20		Restrictive Covenant Agreement, by and between the Company and Mario Spanicciati, dated as of August 9, 2013.		S-1		333-213899		10.24		September 30, 2016
10.21*		Office Lease, by and between the Company and Douglas Emmet 2008, LLC, dated November 22, 2010.		S-1		333-213899		10.25		September 30, 2016
10.22*		First Amendment to Office Lease, by and between the Company and Douglas Emmett 2008, LLC, dated August 14, 2012.		S-1		333-213899		10.26		September 30, 2016
10.23*		Second Amendment to Office Lease, by and between the Company and Douglas Emmett 2008, LLC, dated December 26, 2013.		S-1		333-213899		10.27		September 30, 2016
10.24*		Third Amendment to Office Lease, by and between the Company and Douglas Emmett 2008, LLC, dated June 24, 2014.		S-1		333-213899		10.28		September 30, 2016

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				Incorporated by Reference
Exhibit Number		Description		Form		File No.		Exhibit		Filing Date
10.25		Fourth Amendment to Office Lease, by and between the Company and Douglas Emmett 2008, LLC, dated January 29, 2015.		S-1		333-213899		10.29		September 30, 2016
21.1		List of subsidiaries of the Company.
23.1		Consent of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm.
23.2**		Consent of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Professional Corporation (included in Exhibit 5.1).
23.3		Consent of Frost & Sullivan.
24.1		Power of Attorney (included on signature page to this prospectus).
101.INS**		XBRL Instance Document
101.SCH**		XBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document
101.CAL**		XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document
101.DEF**		XBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document
101.LAB**		XBRL Taxonomy Extension Label Linkbase Document
101.PRE**		XBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document

 

*	Portions of this exhibit have been omitted pursuant to confidential treatment request. Omitted information has been separately filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

**	To be filed by amendment.

+	Indicates management contract or compensatory plan.