MNDO MIND C T I Ltd

Except as otherwise indicated, all financial statements and other financial information included in this annual report are presented solely under U.S. GAAP.

The following table presents selected consolidated financial data as of and for each of the five years in the period ended December 31, 2019. The selected consolidated financial data presented below are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements for these periods and should be read in conjunction with these financial statements and the related notes thereto. Our audited consolidated balance sheets as of December 31, 2018 and 2019 and our audited consolidated statements of operations and cash flows for each of the three years ended December 31, 2019 and the related notes thereto are included elsewhere in this annual report. You should read the selected financial data in conjunction with Item 5 “Operating and Financial Review and Prospects.”

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

We believe that the occurrence of any one or some combination of the following factors would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Relating to our Business and Industry

If we are unable to compete effectively in the marketplace, we may suffer a decrease in market share, revenues and profitability.

All the markets we operate in are significantly fragmented and highly competitive. The principal competitive factors in our market include completeness of offering, global reach, ease of integration, product features, platform scalability, reliability, security and performance, brand awareness and reputation, the strength of sales and marketing efforts, customer support, as well as the cost of deploying and using our products.

Some of our competitors are larger and have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, more established customer relationships, larger budgets and significantly greater resources than we do. In addition, they have the operating flexibility to bundle competing products and services at little or no perceived incremental cost, including offering them at a lower price as part of a larger sales transaction. As a result, our competitors may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards or customer requirements. In addition, some competitors may offer products or services that address one or a limited number of functions at lower prices, with greater depth than our products or in different geographies. Our current and potential competitors may develop and market new products and services with comparable functionality to our products, and this could lead to us having to decrease prices in order to remain competitive. Customers utilize our products in many ways and use varying levels of functionality that our products offer or are capable of supporting or enabling within their applications. Customers that use many of the features of our products or use our products to support or enable core functionality for their applications may have difficulty or find it impractical to replace our products with a competitor’s products or services, while customers that use only limited functionality may be able to more easily replace our products with competitive offerings. Our customers also may choose to build some of the functionality our products provide, which may limit or eliminate their demand for our products.

With the introduction of new products and services and new market entrants, we expect competition to intensify in the future. Moreover, as we expand the scope of our products, we may face additional competition. If one or more of our competitors were to merge or partner with another of our competitors, the change in the competitive landscape could also adversely affect our ability to compete effectively. In addition, some of our competitors have lower list prices than ours, which may be attractive to certain customers even if those products have different or lesser functionality. If we are unable to maintain our current pricing due to competitive pressures, our margins will be reduced and our business, results of operations and financial condition would be adversely affected. In addition, pricing pressures and increased competition generally could result in reduced revenue, reduced margins, increased losses or the failure of our products to achieve or maintain widespread market acceptance, any of which could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Our backlog, revenues and operating results may vary significantly from quarter to quarter.

Our results of operations, including the levels of our revenues, cost of revenues, gross margins and operating expenses, have fluctuated from quarter to quarter in the past and may continue to vary significantly in the future. These fluctuations are a result of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control, may be difficult to predict and may or may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business. Our operating results may vary significantly from quarter to quarter due to a number of factors, including the following:

Due to all of the foregoing, we cannot predict revenues for any future quarter with any significant degree of accuracy. Accordingly, we believe that period-to-period comparisons of our operating results are not necessarily meaningful, and you should not rely upon them as indications of future performance. Accordingly, in the event of a revenue shortfall, we may not be able to mitigate the negative impact on our income (loss) and margins in the short term. If we fail to meet or exceed the expectations of investors, we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class action suits.

In future quarters, our operating results may be below the expectations of public market analysts and investors, and as a result, the price of our ordinary shares may fall.

We seek to expand our business through acquisitions, which could result in diversion of resources and extra expenses and which may involve other risks that could disrupt our business and harm our financial condition.

It is part of our strategy to pursue acquisitions of business, products and technologies, or the establishment of joint venture arrangements in order to offer new products or services or otherwise enhance our market position or strategic strengths, and we are actively evaluating potential acquisition opportunities. The negotiation of potential acquisitions or joint ventures, as well as the integration of an acquired or jointly developed business, technology or product, could cause diversion of management’s attention from the day-to-day operation of our business. This could impair our relationships with our employees, customers, distributors, resellers and marketing allies. Future acquisitions could result in:

In addition, we have limited experience with respect to negotiating an acquisition and operating an acquired business. Due to the multiple risks and difficulties associated with any acquisition, there can be no assurance that we will be successful in achieving our expected strategic, operating and financial goals for any such acquisition. If future acquisitions disrupt our operations, our business may suffer.

We may not be successful in the integration of our acquisitions.

We cannot assure you that we have identified, or will be able to identify, all material adverse issues related to the integration of our acquisitions, such as significant defects in the internal control policies of companies that we have acquired. In addition, our acquisitions could lead to difficulties in integrating acquired personnel and operations and in retaining and motivating key personnel from these businesses, while maintaining our corporate culture. In some instances, we may need to depend on the seller of an acquired business to provide us with certain transition services in order to meet the needs of our customers. Any failure to properly integrate and retain personnel, to recognize significant defects in the internal control policies of acquired companies or to scale and adapt our internal control policies and our reporting systems and procedures, and any interruptions of transition services, may require a significant amount of time and resources to address and may harm our company.

If we do not continually enhance our products and service offerings, introduce new products and features and adopt and monetize new technologies and methodologies in the marketplace, we may have difficulty retaining existing customers and attracting new customers.

We believe that our future success will depend, to a significant extent, upon our ability to enhance our existing products and services, to introduce new products, services and features to meet the requirements of our customers, and to adopt to and leverage new technologies and methodologies such as cloud, microservices-based architecture, in a rapidly developing and evolving market. We devote significant resources to refining and expanding our base software modules and to developing our products, services and development methodologies and tools. In some instances, we rely on cooperative relationships with third parties to assist us in delivering certain products and services to our customers. Our present or future products, services and technology may not satisfy the evolving needs of the communications industry or of other industries that we serve. If we are unable to anticipate or respond adequately to such needs, due to resource, technological or other constraints, our business and results of operations could be harmed.

Our success depends on our ability to continually develop and market new and more technologically advanced products and enhancements.

The market for our products and the services is characterized by:

We believe that our future success will largely depend upon our ability to continue to enhance our existing products and successfully develop and market new products on a cost-effective and timely basis. We cannot assure you that we will be successful in developing and marketing new products that respond adequately to technological change. Our failure to do so would have a material adverse effect on our ability to market our own products.

If our security measures for our software, hardware, services or cloud offerings are compromised and as a result, our data, our customers’ data or our IT systems are accessed improperly, made unavailable, or improperly modified, our products and services may be perceived as vulnerable, which may materially affect our business and result in potential legal liability.

Our products and services, including our cloud offerings, store, retrieve, and manage our customers’ information and data, as well as our own data. We have a reputation for secure and reliable product offerings and related services, and we have invested a great deal of time and resources in protecting the integrity and security of our products, services and the internal and external data that we manage. Despite our efforts to implement network security measures, we cannot guarantee that our systems are fully protected from vulnerabilities related to IT-related viruses, worms and other malicious software programs, attacks, break-ins and similar disruptions from unauthorized tampering by computer hackers and others. Such cybersecurity incident could include an attempt to gain unauthorized access to digital systems for purposes of misappropriating assets or sensitive information, corrupting data, or causing operational disruption. Security measures in our products and services may be penetrated or bypassed by computer hackers and others who may gain unauthorized access to our or our customers’ or partners’ software, hardware, cloud offerings, networks, data or systems. They may use a wide variety of methods, which may include developing and deploying malicious software to attack our products third-party data, products or services incorporated into our own. Data may also be accessed or modified improperly as a result of customer, partner or employee error or malfeasance and third parties may attempt to fraudulently induce customers, partners, employees or suppliers into disclosing sensitive information such as user names, passwords or other information in order to gain access to our data or IT systems or our customers’ or partners’ data or IT systems. Any of the foregoing occurrences could create system disruptions and cause shutdowns or denials of service or compromise data, including personal or confidential information, of us, our partners or our customers.

If a cyber-attack or other security incident (for example phishing, advanced persistent threats, or social engineering) were to result in unauthorized access to, or deletion of, and/or modification and/or exfiltration of our customers’ data, other external data or our own data or our IT systems or if the services we provide to our customers were disrupted, customers could lose confidence in the security and reliability of our products and services, including our cloud offerings, and perceive them not to be secure. This in turn could lead to fewer customers using our products and services and result in reduced revenue and earnings. The costs we would incur to address and fix these security incidents would increase our expenses. These risks will increase as we continue to grow our cloud and network offerings and store and process increasingly large amounts of data, including personal information and our customers’ confidential information and data and other external data, and host or manage parts of our customers’ businesses in cloud-based IT environments.

Any of the events described above could cause our customers to make claims against us for damages allegedly resulting from a security breach or service disruption, which could adversely affect our business, results of operation and financial condition.

Our products and platform and our business are subject to a variety of European and international laws and regulations, including those regarding privacy, data protection and information security, and our customers may be subject to regulations related to the handling and transfer of certain types of sensitive and confidential information. Any failure of our products to comply with or enable our customers and channel partners to comply with applicable laws and regulations would harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We and our customers that use our products may be subject to privacy and data protection-related laws and regulations that impose obligations in connection with the collection, processing and use of personal data, financial data, health or other similar data. The U.S. federal and various state and foreign governments have adopted or proposed limitations on, or requirements regarding, the collection, distribution, use, security and storage of personally identifiable information of individuals. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and numerous state attorneys general are applying federal and state consumer protection laws to impose standards on the online collection, use and dissemination of data, and to the security measures applied to such data.

Similarly, many foreign countries and governmental bodies, including the European Union (“EU”) member states, have laws and regulations concerning the collection and use of personally identifiable information obtained from individuals located in the EU or by businesses operating within their jurisdiction, which are often 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 personally identifiable information that identifies or may be used to identify an individual, such as names, telephone numbers, email addresses and, in some jurisdictions, IP addresses and other online identifiers.

For example, the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) took effect in the European Union on May 25, 2018. The GDPR enhances data protection obligations for businesses and requires service providers (data processors) processing personal data on behalf of customers to cooperate with European data protection authorities, implement security measures and keep records of personal data processing activities. Noncompliance with the GDPR can trigger fines equal to or greater of €20 million or 4% of global annual revenues. There are also additional EU laws and regulations (and member states implementations thereof) which govern the protection of consumers and of electronic communications. If our efforts to comply with GDPR or other applicable EU laws and regulations are not successful, we may be subject to penalties and fines that would adversely impact our business and results of operations, and our ability to conduct business in the EU could be significantly impaired.

As well, we continue to see jurisdictions imposing data localization laws, which require personal information, or certain subcategories of personal information to be stored in the jurisdiction of origin. These regulations may inhibit our ability to expand into those markets or prohibit us from continuing to offer services in those markets without significant additional costs.

The uncertainty and changes in the requirements of multiple jurisdictions may increase the cost of compliance, delay or reduce demand for our services, restrict our ability to offer services in certain locations, impact our customers’ ability to deploy our solutions in certain jurisdictions, or subject us to sanctions, by national data protection regulators, all of which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Additionally, although we endeavor to have our products and platform comply with applicable laws and regulations, these and other obligations may be modified, they may be interpreted and applied in an inconsistent manner from one jurisdiction to another, and they may conflict with one another, other regulatory requirements, contractual commitments or our internal practices.

We also may be bound by contractual obligations relating to our collection, use and disclosure of personal, financial and other data or may find it necessary or desirable to join industry or other self-regulatory bodies or other privacy or data protection-related organizations that require compliance with their rules pertaining to privacy and data protection.

We expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws, rules of self-regulatory bodies, regulations and industry standards concerning privacy, data protection and information security in the United States, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and we cannot yet determine the impact such future laws, rules, regulations and standards may have on our business. Moreover, existing U.S. federal and various state and foreign privacy and data protection-related laws and regulations are evolving and subject to potentially differing interpretations, and various legislative and regulatory bodies may expand current or enact new laws and regulations regarding privacy and data protection-related matters. Because global laws, regulations and industry standards concerning privacy and data security have continued to develop and evolve rapidly, it is possible that we or our products or platform may not be, or may not have been, compliant with each such applicable law, regulation and industry standard and compliance with such new laws or to changes to existing laws may impact our business and practices, require us to expend significant resources to adapt to these changes, or to stop offering our products in certain countries. These developments could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Any failure or perceived failure by us, our products or our platform to comply with new or existing U.S., EU or other foreign privacy or data security laws, regulations, policies, industry standards or legal obligations, or any security incident that results in the unauthorized access to, or acquisition, release or transfer of, personally identifiable information or other customer data may result in governmental investigations, inquiries, enforcement actions and prosecutions, private litigation, fines and penalties, adverse publicity or potential loss of business.

If we fail to attract and retain qualified personnel, we will not be able to implement our business strategy or operate our business effectively.

Our products require sophisticated software development, sales, professional services and technical customer support. Our success depends on our ability to attract, train, motivate and especially retain highly skilled personnel within each of these areas of expertise. Qualified personnel in these areas are in great demand worldwide and are likely to remain a limited resource. We cannot assure you that we will be able to retain the skilled employees we require. In addition, the resources required to retain such personnel may adversely affect our operating margins. The failure to retain qualified personnel may harm our business. In particular, we maintain a large engineering and support center in Iasi, Romania and have encountered many successful attempts from other technology companies to recruit our employees after we have trained them. If this phenomenon continues and increases, we may not be able to retain the highly skilled personnel and may be forced to significantly raise the salaries of our Romanian employees and our results of operations will be consequently harmed.

Because our revenues are generated in numerous countries, our results of operations could suffer if we are unable to manage international operations effectively.

Our sales are made in many countries, with different legislation and complex taxation rules and in many states in the United States. Managing our existing international operations and additional international markets requires significant management attention and financial resources. Our ability to penetrate some international markets may be limited due to different technical standards, protocols and requirements for our products in different markets. In addition, conducting our business internationally subjects us to a number of risks, including:

We currently benefit from local tax benefits that may be discontinued or reduced.

We have derived benefits from various programs, including Israeli tax benefits relating to our “Approved and Preferred Enterprise” programs, and starting in 2017, we have derived benefits relating to the “Preferred Technological Enterprise” program under the Israel Law for the Encouragement of Capital Investment, 1959.

To be eligible for tax benefits as a “Preferred Technological Enterprise,” we must continue to meet certain conditions. Should it be determined that our Preferred Technological Enterprise programs have not met, or do not meet, the statutory conditions, our income taxes will increase.

Additional tax liabilities could materially adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

As a global corporation, we are subject to income and other taxes both in Israel and in various foreign jurisdictions. Our domestic and international tax liabilities are subject to the allocation of revenues and expenses in different jurisdictions and the timing of recognizing revenues and expenses. Additionally, the amount of income taxes paid or accrued is subject to our interpretation of applicable laws in the jurisdictions in which we do business. From time to time, we are subject to income and other tax audits in various jurisdictions, the timings of which are unpredictable. While we believe we comply with applicable tax laws, there can be no assurance that a governing tax authority will not have a different interpretation of the law and assess us with additional taxes. Should we be assessed additional taxes, there could be a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

Our business may be negatively affected by exchange rate fluctuations.

Although the majority of our revenues are denominated in U.S. dollars, or dollars, or $, approximately 19% of our expenses are incurred in New Israeli Shekel, or NIS, and approximately 62% of our expenses are denominated in Euro or linked to the Euro. As a result, we may be negatively affected by fluctuations in the exchange rates between the Euro or the NIS and the dollar. We cannot predict any future trends in the rate of devaluation or appreciation of the NIS or of the Euro against the dollar. If the dollar cost of our operations in Israel and/or Romania increases, our dollar-measured results of operations will be adversely affected. In addition, some of our revenues are denominated in Euro, some are denominated in Canadian dollar, or CAD and some are denominated in Great Britain Pound, or GBP. As a result, our dollar-measured results of operations will be adversely affected by devaluation in the GBP, CAD or Euro relative to the dollar. We may choose to limit these exposures by entering into hedging transactions. However, hedging transactions may not enable us to avoid exchange-related losses, and our business may be harmed by exchange rate fluctuations.

We depend on a limited number of key personnel who would be difficult to replace. If we lose the services of these individuals, our business may be harmed.

Because our markets are constantly changing, the success of our business depends in large part upon the continuing contributions of our senior management. Specifically, continued growth and success largely depend on the managerial and technical skills of our founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Monica Iancu, and other members of our senior management. Because the demand for highly qualified senior personnel exceeds the supply of this type of personnel, it will be difficult to replace members of our management if one or more of them were to leave us. If either Ms. Iancu or other members of the senior management team are unable or unwilling to continue their employment with us, our business may be harmed.

If we are unable to adequately protect our intellectual property or become subject to a claim of infringement, our business may be materially adversely affected.

Our success and ability to compete depend substantially upon our internally developed or acquired technology. Any misappropriation of our technology could seriously harm our business. In order to protect our technology and products, we rely on a combination of trade secret, copyright and trademark law. Despite our efforts to protect our intellectual property rights, unauthorized parties may attempt to copy or otherwise obtain and use our software or technology or to develop software with the same functionality. Policing unauthorized use of our products is difficult and we cannot be certain that the steps we have taken will prevent misappropriation, particularly in foreign countries where the laws may not protect our intellectual property rights as fully as in the United States.

If anyone asserts a claim against us relating to proprietary technology or information, we might seek to license his intellectual property or to develop non-infringing technology. We might not be able to obtain a license on commercially reasonable terms or on any terms. Alternatively, our efforts to develop non-infringing technology could be unsuccessful. Our failure to obtain the necessary licenses or other right or to develop non-infringing technology could prevent us from selling our software and could therefore seriously harm our business.

We use certain “open source” software tools that may be subject to intellectual property infringement claims or that may subject our derivative works or products to unintended consequences, possibly impairing our product development plans, interfering with our ability to support our clients or requiring us to allow access to the source code of our products or necessitating that we pay licensing fees. 

Certain of our products contain open source code and we may use more open source code in the future. In addition, certain third-party software that we embed in our products contains open source code. Open source code is code that is covered by a license agreement that permits the user to liberally use, copy, modify and distribute the software without cost, provided that users and modifiers abide by certain licensing requirements. The original developers of the open source code provide no warranties on such code. 

As a result of the use of open source software, we could be subject to suits by parties claiming ownership of what they believe to be their proprietary code or we may incur expenses in defending claims alleging non-compliance with certain open source code license terms. In addition, third-party licensors do not provide intellectual property protection with respect to the open source components of their products, and we may be unable to be indemnified by such third-party licensors in the event that we or our customers are held liable in respect of the open source software contained in such third-party software. If we are not successful in defending against any such claims that may arise, we may be subject to injunctions and/or monetary damages or be required to remove the open source code from our products. Such events could disrupt our operations and the sales of our products, which would negatively impact our revenues and cash flow. 

Moreover, under certain conditions, the use of open source code to create derivative code may obligate us to make the resulting derivative code available to others at no cost. The circumstances under which our use of open source code would compel us to offer derivative code at no cost are subject to varying interpretations. If we are required to publicly disclose the source code for such derivative products or to license our derivative products that use an open source license, our previously proprietary software products may be available to others without charge. If this happens, our customers and our competitors may have access to our products without cost to them, which could harm our business. Certain open source licenses require as a condition to use, modification or distribution of such open source that proprietary software incorporated into, derived from or distributed with such open source be disclosed or distributed in source code form, be licensed for the purpose of making derivative works or be redistributable at no charge. The foregoing may under certain conditions be interpreted to apply to our software, depending upon the use of the open source and the interpretation of the applicable open source licenses.

We monitor our use of open source code to avoid subjecting our products to conditions we do not intend. The use of open source code, however, may ultimately subject some of our products to unintended conditions so that we are required to take remedial action that may divert resources away from our development efforts.

We are subject to ongoing costs and risks associated with being a public company, including potential lawsuits.

As an Israeli company subject to U.S. federal securities laws, we spend a significant amount of management time and resources to comply with laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, SEC regulations, Nasdaq listing rules and the Israeli Companies Law, 1999 (the “Companies Law”, or the “Israeli Companies Law”). In connection with our compliance with Section 404 and the other applicable provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, our management and other personnel devote a substantial amount of time to assure that we continue to comply with these requirements. There is no guarantee that these efforts will result in management assurance that our internal control over financial reporting is adequate in future periods. If our internal controls are found to be ineffective in future periods, it could harm our operations, financial reporting or financial results.

Since we are a public company in the United States, the cost of our directors’ and officers’ liability insurance has significantly increased over recent years, as a result of which we have decided not to renew such insurance. Instead, our directors and officers rely on indemnification agreements provided by us. Accordingly, any lawsuits against our directors and officers could result in expensive legal expenses, settlements and judgments that we would be required to bear, which would harm our financial condition.

Risks Relating to our Billing and Related Services Business

System disruptions and failures may result in customer dissatisfaction, customer loss or both, which could materially and adversely affect our reputation and business.

Our billing systems are an integral part of our customers’ business operations. The continued and uninterrupted performance of these systems for our customers is critical to our success. Customers may become dissatisfied by any system failure that interrupts our ability to provide services to them.

Our ability to serve our customers depends on our ability to protect our systems and infrastructure against damages and unexpected adverse events. We also depend on various cloud providers and co-location datacenter providers which provide us environments, tools and applications on which we provide our products. Although we maintain insurance that we believe is appropriate for our business and industry, such coverage may not be sufficient to compensate for any significant losses that may occur as a result of any of these events. In addition, we have experienced systems outages and service interruptions in the past, none of which has had a material adverse effect on us. However, a prolonged system-wide outage or frequent outages could cause harm to our customers and to our reputation and reduce the attractiveness of our services significantly, which could result in decreased demand for our products and services and could cause our customers to make claims against us for damages allegedly resulting from an outage or interruption. Any damage or failure that interrupts or delays our operations could result in material harm to our business and expose us to material liabilities.

The customer base for our wireline and wireless billing and customer care products is characterized by very small to medium size telephony carriers. If this market segment fails to grow, the demand for our billing and customer care software would diminish substantially.

Our wireline and wireless billing and customer care products target very small to medium size carriers. Our growth in this field depends on continued growth of carriers of this size. We cannot be certain that carriers of this size will be able to successfully compete with large telephony carriers in existing markets or will successfully develop in new and emerging markets. If this market segment fails to grow, the demand for our billing and customer care software would diminish substantially and our business would suffer. In addition, there may never be significant demand for new billing and customer care software by providers of telecom services.

If we experience loss of one or more existing billing customers, we may suffer a decrease in revenues, reputation and profitability.

A significant part of our revenues is derived from our existing customer base, maintenance agreements, customizations and additional professional services. Small service providers may be acquired by larger carriers and replace our solutions with the buyer’s existing billing platform, cease operations due to lack of funding, or terminate their relationship with us due to their financial condition, loss of market share and competitive pricing, as occurred with customers of ours over the years. If one or more customers cease using our solutions or services due to replacements or any other reason, our business and results of operations would suffer.

Because some of our billing customers require highly complex implementations and we sell fixed price projects, we may underestimate the effort and time required to implement such projects, resulting in a lower or negative profit margin for such projects and the incurrence of contractual penalties for late performance. This could materially harm our results of operations.

In 2019, we derived 60% of our revenues from the sale of software and related services to telecommunications service providers. As projects become more complex, the risk for on-time and on-budget implementation increases. Each such contract may include penalties and potential liability for damages arising from late performance. These customers conduct a lengthy and complex approval and purchasing process, and the pricing for each project needs to be competitive in order to win. Our cost of sales increases as the length of the approval process increases because we need to support each opportunity during the time required for the customer to determine their specifications and the time required for the customer to receive internal approval to commit significant resources towards acquisition of the billing solution. The project implementation may be delayed due to customer related reasons such as lack of resources, delay in the build-up of the customer’s network infrastructure or deferral in making implementation scope related decisions. Our estimate for the cost includes the effort required to release new versions comprising enhanced functionality, the on-site professional services effort needed to perform migration of data from a customer’s existing platform and to develop, test and implement the customizations specifically requested by the customer.

All the delays, either by us or by a third party, increase the cost of supplying the project and expose us to potential claims from customers and may decrease our revenues and could materially harm our profitability, business and results of operations.

From time to time, our billing software and the systems into which it is integrated contain undetected errors. This may cause us to experience a significant decrease in market acceptance and use of our software products and we may be subject to warranty and other liability claims.

From time to time, our billing software, as well as the systems into which it is integrated, contains undetected errors. Because of this integration, it can be difficult to determine the source of the errors. Also, from time to time, hardware systems we resell contain certain defects or errors. As a result, and regardless of the source of the errors, we could experience one or more of the following adverse results:

In addition, we may be subject to claims based on errors in our software or mistakes in performing our services. Our licenses and agreements generally contain provisions such as disclaimers of warranties and limitations on liability for special, consequential and incidental damages, designed to limit our exposure to potential claims. However, not all of our contracts contain these provisions and we cannot assure you that the provisions that exist will be enforceable. In addition, while we maintain product liability and professional indemnity insurance, we cannot assure you that this insurance will provide sufficient, or any, coverage for these claims. A product liability or professional indemnity claim, whether or not successful, could adversely affect our business by damaging our reputation, increasing our costs, and diverting the attention of our management team.

Risks Relating to our Messaging Business

Although we expect that the acquisitions of Message Mobile and GTX will result in synergies and other benefits to us, we may not realize those benefits because of difficulties related to integration, the achievement of synergies and other challenges.

We entered the mobile messaging business in 2019 with the acquisitions of Message Mobile and GTX. Prior to the completion of the acquisitions, we, Message Mobile and GTX operated independently, and there can be no assurances that our businesses can be combined in a manner that allows for the achievement of substantial benefits. The integration process will require significant time and resources, and we may not be able to manage the process successfully. If we are not able to successfully integrate the businesses of Message Mobile and GTX with ours or pursue our customer and product strategy successfully, the anticipated benefits of the acquisitions may not be realized fully or may take longer than expected to be realized. Further, it is possible that there could be a loss of our pre-acquisition or new key employees and customers, disruption of our ongoing businesses, unexpected issues, higher than expected costs and an overall post-completion process that takes longer than originally anticipated. Specifically, the following issues, among others, must be addressed in combining the operations of Message Mobile and GTX with ours in order to realize the anticipated benefits of the acquisitions so the combined company performs as the parties hope:

In addition, at times the attention of certain members of our management and resources may be focused on integration of the businesses of the companies and diverted from day-to-day business operations, which may disrupt our ongoing business and the business of the combined company.

We have incurred, and may continue to incur, significant, non-recurring costs in connection with the acquisition and integration of Message Mobile and GTX, including costs to maintain employee morale and to retain key employees. We cannot ensure that the elimination of duplicative costs or the realization of other efficiencies will offset the transaction and integration costs in the near term or at all.

Our messaging business depends on customers increasing their use of our messaging products, and any loss of customers or decline in their use of our products could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Our ability to grow our mobile messaging business and generate incremental revenue depends, in part, on our ability to maintain and grow our relationships with existing messaging customers and to have them increase their usage of our messaging platform. If our customers do not increase their use of our messaging products, then our revenue may decline and our results of operations may be harmed. Messaging customers are charged based on the usage of our products. Most of these customers do not have long-term contractual financial commitments to us and, therefore, they may reduce or cease their use of our products at any time without penalty or termination charges. Messaging customers may terminate or reduce their use of our products for any number of reasons, including if they are not satisfied with our products, the value proposition of our products or our ability to meet their needs and expectations. We cannot accurately predict customers’ usage levels, and the loss of customers or reductions in their usage levels of our products may each have a negative impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition. If a significant number of messaging customers cease using, or reduce their usage of our products, it could harm our operations, financial reporting or financial results. 

If we are unable to attract new messaging customers in a cost-effective manner, then our business, results of operations and financial condition would be adversely affected.

In order to grow our messaging business, we must continue to attract new customers in a cost-effective manner. We use a variety of marketing channels to promote our messaging products and platform, such as regional customer events and telemarketing campaigns. We will incur marketing expenses before we are able to recognize any revenue that the marketing initiatives may generate, and these expenses may not result in increased revenue or brand awareness. We may make significant expenditures and investments in new marketing campaigns, and we cannot guarantee that any such investments will lead to the cost-effective acquisition of additional customers. If we are unable to maintain effective marketing programs, then our ability to attract new customers could be materially and adversely affected, our marketing expenses could increase substantially and our results of operations may suffer.

If we are unable to increase adoption of our messaging products by enterprises, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.

Our ability to increase the customer base of our messaging business, especially among enterprises, and achieve broader market acceptance of our messaging products will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively organize, focus and train our sales and marketing personnel.

As we seek to increase the adoption of our messaging products by enterprises, we expect to incur higher costs and longer sales cycles. In the enterprise market segment, the decision to adopt our products may require the approval of multiple technical and business decision makers, including security, compliance, procurement, operations and IT. In addition, while enterprise customers may quickly deploy our products on a limited basis before they will commit to deploying our products at scale, they often require extensive education about our products and significant customer support time, engage in protracted pricing negotiations and seek to secure readily available development resources. In addition, sales cycles for enterprises are inherently more complex and less predictable, and some enterprise customers may not use our products enough to generate revenue amounts that justify our cost to acquire such customers. In addition, these complex and resource intensive sales efforts could place additional strain on our product and engineering resources. Further, enterprises, including some of our customers, may choose to develop their own messaging solutions that do not include our products. They also may demand reductions in pricing as their usage of our products increases, which could have an adverse impact on our gross margin. As a result of our limited experience selling and marketing messaging products to enterprises, our efforts to sell to these potential customers may not be successful. If we are unable to increase the messaging revenue that we derive from enterprises, then our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.

To deliver our messaging products, we rely on network service providers for our messaging services.

We currently interconnect with network service providers around the world to enable the use by our customers of our messaging products over their networks. We expect that we will continue to rely heavily on network service providers for these services going forward. Our reliance on network service providers has reduced our operating flexibility, ability to make timely service changes and control quality of service. In addition, the fees that we are charged by network service providers may change daily or weekly, while we do not typically change our customers’ pricing as rapidly.

Furthermore, many of these network service providers do not have long-term committed contracts with us and may terminate their agreements with us without notice or restriction. If a significant portion of our network service providers stop providing us with access to their infrastructure, fail to provide these services to us on a cost-effective basis, cease operations or otherwise terminate these services, the delay caused by qualifying and switching to other network service providers could be time consuming and costly and could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Further, if problems occur with our network service providers, it may cause errors or poor-quality communications with our products, and we could encounter difficulty identifying the source of the problem. The occurrence of errors or poor quality communications on our messaging products, whether caused by our platform or a network service provider, may result in the loss of our existing customers or the delay of adoption of our products by potential customers and may adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We may have to lower our prices for messaging products or change our pricing model from time to time.

We charge our customers based on their use of our messaging products. We expect that we may need to change our pricing from time to time. In the past we have sometimes reduced our prices either for individual customers in connection with long-term agreements or for a particular product. One of the challenges to our pricing is that the fees that we pay to network service providers over whose networks we transmit communications can vary daily or weekly and are affected by volume and other factors that may be outside of our control and difficult to predict. This can result in us incurring increased costs that we may be unable or unwilling to pass through to our customers, which could adversely impact our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Further, as competitors introduce new messaging products or services that compete with ours or reduce their prices, we may be unable to attract new customers or retain existing customers based on our historical pricing. As we expand internationally, we also must determine the appropriate price to enable us to compete effectively internationally. Moreover, enterprises, which are a primary focus for our direct sales efforts for our messaging products, may demand substantial price concessions. In addition, if the mix of products sold changes, including for a shift to IP-based products, then we may need to, or choose to, revise our pricing. As a result, in the future we may be required or choose to reduce our prices or change our pricing model, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Defects or errors in our messaging products could diminish demand for these products, harm our business and results of operations and subject us to liability.

Our customers use our messaging products for important aspects of their businesses, and any errors, defects or disruptions to our products and any other performance problems with our products could damage our customers’ businesses and, in turn, hurt our brand and reputation. We provide regular updates to our messaging products, which may contain undetected errors, failures, vulnerabilities and bugs when first introduced or released. Real or perceived errors, failures or bugs in our products could result in negative publicity, loss of or delay in market acceptance of our messaging platform, loss of competitive position, lower customer retention or claims by customers for losses sustained by them. In such an event, we may be required, or may choose, for customer relations or other reasons, to expend additional resources in order to help correct the problem. In addition, we may not carry insurance sufficient to compensate us for any losses that may result from claims arising from defects or disruptions in our products. As a result, our reputation and our brand could be harmed, and our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.

We face a risk of litigation resulting from customer misuse of our messaging software to send unauthorized messages in violation of applicable laws.

The actual or perceived improper sending of messages with our messaging software may subject us to potential risks, including liabilities or claims relating to consumer protection laws. For example, the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 restricts telemarketing and the use of automatic SMS text messages without proper consent. The scope and interpretation of the laws that are or may be applicable to the delivery of messages are continually evolving and developing. If we do not comply with these laws or regulations or if we become liable under these laws or regulations due to the failure of our customers to comply with these laws by obtaining proper consent, we could face direct liability.

In addition, if our customers’ use of our messaging products will not adhere to privacy regulations and messaging rules, they and us may be blocked from sending more messages through specific channels and may be fined for such conduct. Our failure to prevent such infringements could have a material adverse effect on our business.

If we experience loss of one or more existing customers, we may suffer a decrease in revenues, reputation and profitability.

A significant part of our messaging revenues is derived from servicing the messaging needs of the existing customer base of our messaging business. Customers of our messaging business may be acquired by other organizations and may replace our solutions with the buyer’s existing messaging provider services, cease operations due to lack of funding, or terminate their relationship with us due to their financial condition, loss of market share and competitive pricing, as occurred with customers of Message Mobile and GTX over the years. If one or more customers cease using our messaging products or services due to replacements or any other reason, our business and results of operations would suffer.

System disruptions and failures may result in customer dissatisfaction, customer loss or both, which could materially and adversely affect our reputation and business.

We provide real time messaging services to our customers. The continued and uninterrupted performance of these services for our customers is critical to our success. Customers may become dissatisfied by any service failure that interrupts their business, which could lead them to stop using our messaging services. This could materially and adversely affect our reputation and business.

Changes to regulations or technology vendor rules could materially and adversely affect our business.

We use messaging technologies and products, such as SMS and WhatsApp, to deliver messages from our customers to consumers. Changes in rules and regulations may prevent us from using some services, which may block our ability to grow our services and have a material adverse effect on our business.

Risks Relating to the Market of our Ordinary Shares

Our share price has fluctuated and could continue to fluctuate significantly.

The market for our ordinary shares, as well as the prices of shares of other technology companies, has been volatile. The price of our ordinary shares has fluctuated significantly over the years. A number of factors, many of which are beyond our control, may cause the market price of our ordinary shares to fluctuate significantly, such as:

We do not control these matters and any of them may adversely affect our share price. In addition, trading in shares of companies listed on the Nasdaq Global Market in general and trading in shares of technology companies in particular has been subjected to extreme price and volume fluctuations that have been unrelated or disproportionate to operating performance. These broad market and industry factors may depress our share price, regardless of our actual operating results. Given the likely volatility that exists for our ordinary shares, sales of a substantial number of our ordinary shares could cause the market price of our ordinary shares to decline.

If we are characterized as a passive foreign investment company, our U.S. shareholders will be subject to adverse tax consequences.

If, for any taxable year, either, (i) 75% or more of our gross income is passive income; or (ii) 50% or more of our assets, averaged over the year and generally determined based upon value, including cash (even if held as working capital), produce or are held to produce passive income, we may be characterized as a “passive foreign investment company”, or PFIC for United States federal income tax purposes. For this determination, passive income includes dividends, interest, royalties, rents, annuities and the excess of gain over losses from the disposition of assets that produce passive income.

As a result of our cash position and the value of our assets, we may be deemed to be a PFIC for U.S. federal income tax purposes.

If we are characterized as a PFIC, our shareholders who are residents of the United States will be subject to adverse U.S. tax consequences. Our treatment as a PFIC could result in a reduction in the after-tax return to shareholders resident in the United States and may cause a reduction in the value of our shares. If we were to be treated as a PFIC, our shareholders will be required, absent certain elections, to pay an interest charge together with tax calculated at the then prevailing highest tax rates on ordinary income on certain “excess distributions” including any gain on the sale of Ordinary Shares. The consequences of holding shares in a PFIC are described below under “Additional Information - United States Federal Income Tax Consequences - Passive Foreign Investment Companies.” Prospective investors should consult with their own tax advisors with respect to the tax consequences applicable to them of investing in our Ordinary Shares.

Risks Relating to Our Location in Israel

Potential political, economic and military instability in Israel may harm our operating results.

We are organized under the laws of the State of Israel and most of our senior management is located in Israel. Accordingly, our operating results are directly influenced by economic, political and military conditions in and relating to Israel. Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, a number of armed conflicts have taken place between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Hamas (an Islamist militia and political group in the Gaza Strip) and Hezbollah (an Islamist militia and political group in Lebanon). Recent political uprisings, social unrest and violence in various countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Israel’s neighbor Syria, are affecting the political stability of those countries and have enabled the development of extremist groups. This instability may lead to deterioration of the political relationships that exist between Israel and these countries and has raised concerns regarding security in the region and the potential for armed conflict. In addition, Iran has threatened to attack Israel and is believed to be developing nuclear weapons. Iran is also believed to have a strong influence among parties hostile to Israel in areas that neighbor Israel, such as the Syrian government, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Any armed conflicts or political instability in the region could negatively affect business conditions and harm our results of operations. We cannot predict the effect on the region of the increase in the degree of violence between Israel and the Palestinians. Furthermore, several countries and trade groups restrict business with Israel and Israeli companies, and additional countries and trade groups may restrict doing business with Israel and Israeli companies for political reasons. These restrictive laws and policies may seriously harm our operating results, financial condition or the expansion of our business. In addition, the current situation in Israel could adversely affect our operations if our customers and/or strategic allies believe that instability in the region could affect our ability to fulfill our commitments.

It may be difficult to enforce a U.S. judgment against us, our officers and directors or to assert U.S. securities laws claims in Israel.

We are incorporated in the State of Israel. Substantially most of our executive officers and directors are nonresidents of the United States, and a substantial portion of our assets and the assets of these persons are located outside the United States. Therefore, it may be difficult for a shareholder, or any other person or entity, to collect a judgment obtained in the United States against us or any of these persons, or to effect service of process upon these persons in the United States.

We have been informed by our legal counsel in Israel that it may be difficult to bring original actions in Israel to enforce civil liabilities under the Securities Act and the Exchange Act. Israeli courts may refuse to hear a claim based on a violation of U.S. securities laws because Israel is not the most appropriate forum to bring such a claim. In addition, even if an Israeli court agrees to hear a claim, it may determine that Israeli law and not U.S. law is applicable to the claim. If U.S. law is found to be applicable, the content of applicable U.S. law must be proved as a fact, which can be a time-consuming and costly process. Certain matters of procedure will also be governed by Israeli law. There is little binding case law in Israel addressing these matters.

Subject to specified time limitations and legal procedures, under the rules of private international law currently prevailing in Israel, Israeli courts may enforce a U.S. judgment in a civil matter, including judgments based upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. securities laws and including a monetary or compensatory judgment in a non-civil matter, provided that the following key conditions are met:

Provisions of Israeli law and our articles of association may delay, prevent or make difficult a change of control and therefore may depress the price of our stock.

Some of the provisions of our articles of association and Israeli law could, together or separately:

In particular, our articles of association provide that our board of directors will be divided into three classes that serve staggered three-year terms and authorize our board of directors to adopt protective measures to prevent or delay a coercive takeover, including without limitation the adoption of a “Shareholder Rights Plan.” In addition, Israeli corporate law regulates mergers and acquisitions of shares through tender offers, requires approvals for transactions involving significant shareholders and regulates other matters that may be relevant to these types of transactions. See Item 10.B “Memorandum and Articles of Associations - Mergers and Acquisitions under Israeli Law.” Furthermore, Israeli tax law treats stock-for-stock acquisitions between an Israeli company and a foreign company less favorably than does U.S. tax law. For example, Israeli tax law may subject a shareholder who exchanges his ordinary shares for shares in another corporation to taxation prior to the sale of the shares received in such stock-for stock swap.