UiPath (PATH) Risk Factors

Our agreements with our customers and other third parties may include indemnification provisions under which we agree to indemnify or otherwise be liable to them for losses suffered or incurred as a result of claims of infringement, misappropriation, or other violation of intellectual property rights, data protection, damages caused by us to property or persons, or other liabilities relating to or arising from our software, services, or platform, our acts or omissions under such agreements, or other contractual obligations. Some of these indemnity agreements provide for uncapped liability and some indemnity provisions survive termination or expiration of the applicable agreement. Large indemnity payments could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Although we attempt to contractually limit our liability with respect to such indemnity obligations, we are not always successful and may still incur substantial liability related to them, and we may be required to cease use of certain functions of our platform or products as a result of any such claims. Any dispute with a customer or other third party with respect to such obligations could have adverse effects on our relationship with such customer or other third party and other existing or prospective customers, reduce demand for our products and services, and adversely affect our business, financial conditions, and results of operations. In addition, although we carry general liability and cyber security insurance, our insurance may not be adequate to indemnify us for all liability that may be imposed or otherwise protect us from liabilities or damages with respect to claims alleging compromises of customer data, and any such coverage may not continue to be available to us on acceptable terms or at all.

Our platform and products are complex and use novel technology. Undetected errors, failures, or bugs have occurred in our platform and products in the past and may occur in the future. Our platform and products are used throughout our customers' business environments and with different operating systems, system management software, applications, devices, databases, servers, storage, middleware, custom and third-party applications and equipment, and networking configurations, which may cause errors or failures in the business environment into which our platform and products are deployed. This diversity of applications increases the likelihood of errors or failures in those business environments. Despite testing by us, real or perceived errors, failures, or bugs may not be found until our customers use our platform and products. Such failures or bugs can cause reputational damage, and in some cases can affect our revenue due to the impact of service level commitments that we offer to our customers, as described below. Our platform and products also empower our customers to develop their own use cases for our automation platform and products. We cannot guarantee that these user-developed automations will be effective or that they do not include errors, failures, or bugs that then may be attributed, correctly or not, to our underlying technologies. For instance, our customers may use our products in a manner in which they were not intended and that could cause our platform or products to be implicated in any resulting errors or failures. Real or perceived errors, failures, or bugs in our platform and products could result in negative publicity, loss of or delay in market acceptance of our platform and products, regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, harm to our brand, weakening of our competitive position, claims by customers for losses sustained by them, or failure to meet the stated service level commitments in our customer agreements. In such an event, we may be required, or may choose, for customer relations or other reasons, to expend significant additional resources in order to help correct the problem. Any errors, failures, or bugs in our platform or products could also impair our ability to attract new customers, retain existing customers, or expand their use of our software, which would adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA") U.S. domestic bribery laws, the United Kingdom Bribery Act, and other anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws in the countries in which we conduct activities. Due to the international scope of our operations, we must comply with these laws in each jurisdiction where we operate. Additionally, many anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws, including the FCPA, have long-arm statutes that can expand the applicability of these laws to our operations worldwide. Accordingly, we must incur significant operational costs to support our ongoing compliance with anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws at all levels of our business. If we fail to comply with these laws we may be subject to significant penalties. Anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws have been enforced aggressively in recent years and are interpreted broadly to generally prohibit companies, their employees and their third-party intermediaries from authorizing, offering, or providing, directly or indirectly, improper payments or benefits to recipients in the public or private sector. As we increase our international sales and business and sales to the public sector, we may engage with business partners and third-party intermediaries to market our products and to obtain necessary permits, licenses, and other regulatory approvals. In addition, we or our third-party intermediaries may have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or state-owned or affiliated entities. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of these third-party intermediaries, our employees, representatives, contractors, partners, and agents, even if we do not explicitly authorize such activities. While we have policies and procedures to address compliance with such laws, we cannot assure you that all of our employees and agents will not take actions in violation of our policies and applicable law, for which we may be ultimately held responsible. As we increase our international sales and business, our risks under these laws may increase. Detecting, investigating, and resolving actual or alleged violations of anti-corruption laws can require a significant diversion of time, resources, and attention from senior management. In addition, noncompliance with anti-corruption, anti-bribery, or anti-money laundering laws could subject us to whistleblower complaints, investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, enforcement actions, fines, damages, other civil or criminal penalties or injunctions, suspension or debarment from contracting with certain persons, reputational harm, adverse media coverage, and other collateral consequences. If any subpoenas or investigations are launched, or governmental or other sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal proceeding, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be harmed. In addition, responding to any action will likely result in a materially significant diversion of management's attention and resources and significant defense costs and other professional fees.

We have been rapidly expanding our international operations and personnel to support our business in numerous international markets. We generally conduct our international operations through directly or indirectly wholly-owned subsidiaries, and we are or may be required to report our taxable income in various jurisdictions worldwide with increasingly complex tax laws based upon our business operations in those jurisdictions. Our intercompany relationships and agreements are subject to complex transfer pricing regulations administered by tax authorities in various jurisdictions with potentially divergent tax laws. Tax authorities may disagree with tax positions that we have taken. For example, the U.S Internal Revenue Service (the "IRS") or another tax authority could challenge our allocation of income by tax jurisdiction and the amounts paid between our affiliated companies pursuant to our intercompany arrangements and transfer pricing policies, including amounts paid with respect to our intellectual property in connection with our intercompany research and development cost sharing arrangement and legal structure. The amount of taxes we pay in different jurisdictions may depend on the application of the tax laws of the various jurisdictions, including the United States, to our international business activities, changes in tax rates, new or revised tax laws or interpretations of existing tax laws and policies, and our ability to operate our business in a manner consistent with our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements. The authorities in these jurisdictions could review our tax returns or require us to file tax returns in jurisdictions in which we are not currently filing and could impose additional tax, interest, and penalties. In addition, the authorities could claim that various withholding requirements apply to us or our subsidiaries, assert that benefits of tax treaties are not available to us or our subsidiaries, or challenge our methodologies for valuing developed technology or intercompany arrangements, including our transfer pricing. If such a challenge or disagreement were to occur, and our position was 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. Our financial statements could fail to reflect adequate reserves to cover such a contingency. Furthermore, we are subject to periodic audits in the various jurisdictions in which we operate, which if determined aversely could have an adverse impact on our financial conditions.

In the ordinary course of business, we collect, receive, access, generate, transfer, store, disclose, share, make accessible, protect, secure, dispose of, use, share and otherwise process personal data and other sensitive information, including proprietary and confidential business data, trade secrets, intellectual property, sensitive third-party data about employees, contractors, customers, suppliers, and others. Our data processing activities subject us to numerous data privacy and security obligations, such as various laws, codes, regulations, industry standards, external and internal privacy and security policies, contracts, and other obligations that govern the processing of personal data by us and on our behalf. In the United States, federal, state, and local governments have enacted numerous data privacy and security laws, including data breach notification laws, personal data privacy laws, and consumer protection laws. The CCPA imposes obligations on covered businesses. These obligations include, but are not limited to, providing specific disclosure in privacy notices and affording California residents certain rights related to their personal data. The CCPA allows for statutory fines for noncompliance (up to $7,500 per violation). In addition, the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, or CPRA, which goes into effect on January 1, 2023 will expands the CCPA. Additionally, the CPRA establishes new California Privacy Protection Agency to implement and enforce the law. In addition, data privacy and security laws have been proposed at the federal, state, and local levels in recent years, which could further complicate compliance efforts. For example, Virginia and Colorado have similarly enacted comprehensive privacy laws, the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act and Colorado Privacy Act, respectively, which emulate the CCPA and CPRA in many respects. The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act takes effect on January 1, 2023, and the Colorado Privacy Act takes effect on July 1, 2023. Outside the United States, an increasing number of laws, regulations, and industry standards apply to data privacy and security. For example, under the EU GDPR, government regulators may impose temporary or definitive bans on data processing, as well as fines of up to 20 million euros or 4% of annual global revenue, whichever is greater. Further, individuals may initiate litigation related to processing of their personal data. Furthermore, in Europe, there is a proposed regulation related to artificial intelligence ("AI") that, if adopted, could impose onerous obligations related to the use of AI-related systems. We may have to change our business practices to comply with such obligations. In Canada, the PIPEDA and various related provincial laws, as well as Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation ("CASL"), applies to our operations. As another example, the LGPD applies to our operations. The LGPD broadly regulates processing personal data of individuals in Brazil and imposes compliance obligations and penalties comparable to those of the EU GDPR. We also target customers in Asia and have operations in Japan, Singapore, India, Hong Kong, and Australia and are subject to new and emerging data privacy regimes in Asia, including China's Personal Information Protection Law, Japan's Act on the Protection of Personal Information, and Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act. In addition, privacy advocates and industry groups have proposed, and may propose, standards with which we are legally or contractually bound to comply. Certain jurisdictions have enacted data localization laws and cross-border personal data transfer laws, which could make it more difficult to transfer information across jurisdictions (such as transferring or receiving personal data that originates in the EU or in other foreign jurisdictions). Existing mechanisms that facilitate cross-border personal data transfers may change or be invalidated. For example, absent appropriate safeguards or other circumstances, the EU GDPR generally restricts the transfer of personal data to countries outside of the European Economic Area ("EEA") that the European Commission does not consider to provide an adequate level of data privacy and security, such as the United States. The European Commission released a set of "Standard Contractual Clauses" ("SCCs") that are designed to be a valid mechanism to facilitate personal data transfers out of the EEA to these jurisdictions. Currently, these SCCs are a valid mechanism to transfer personal data outside of the EEA, but there exists some uncertainty regarding whether the SCCs will remain a valid mechanism. Additionally, the SCCs impose additional compliance burdens, such as conducting transfer impact assessments to determine whether additional security measures are necessary to protect the at-issue personal data. In addition, Switzerland and the UK similarly restrict personal data transfers outside of those jurisdictions to countries such as the United States that do not provide an adequate level of personal data protection, and certain countries outside Europe (e.g. Russia, China, Brazil) have also passed or are considering laws requiring local data residency, or otherwise impeding the transfer of personal data across borders, any of which could increase the cost and complexity of doing business. If we cannot implement a valid compliance mechanism for cross-border data transfers, we may face increased exposure to regulatory actions, substantial fines, and injunctions against processing or transferring personal data from Europe or other foreign jurisdictions. The inability to import personal data to the United States could significantly and negatively impact our business operations, including by limiting our ability to conduct clinical trial activities in Europe and elsewhere; limiting our ability to collaborate with parties that are subject to such cross-border data transfer or localization laws; or requiring us to increase our personal data processing capabilities and infrastructure in foreign jurisdictions at significant expense. Our obligations related to data privacy and security are quickly changing in an increasingly stringent fashion, creating some uncertainty as to the effective future legal framework. Additionally, these obligations may be subject to differing applications and interpretations, which may be inconsistent or conflict among jurisdictions. Preparing for and complying with these obligations requires significant resources and may necessitate changes to our information technologies, systems, and practices and to those of any third parties that process personal data on our behalf. In addition, these obligations may require us to change our business model. Our business model materially depends on our ability to process personal data, so we are particularly exposed to the risks associated with the rapidly changing legal landscape. For example, we may be at heightened risk of regulatory scrutiny, and any changes in the regulatory framework could require us to fundamentally change our business model. Moreover, despite our efforts, our personnel or third parties upon whom we rely may fail to comply with such obligations, which could negatively impact our business operations and compliance posture. For example, any failure by a third-party processor to comply with applicable law, regulations, or contractual obligations could result in adverse effects, including inability to or interruption in our ability to operate our business and proceedings against us by governmental entities or others. If we fail, or are perceived to have failed, to address or comply with data privacy and security obligations, we could face significant consequences. These consequences may include, but are not limited to, government enforcement actions (e.g., investigations, fines, penalties, audits, inspections, and similar); litigation (including class- related claims); additional reporting requirements and/or oversight; bans on processing personal data; orders to destroy or not use personal data; and imprisonment of company officials. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, or financial condition, including but not limited to: loss of customers; interruptions or stoppages in our business operations (including, interruptions or stoppages of data collection needed to train our algorithms); inability to process personal data or to operate in certain jurisdictions; limited ability to develop or commercialize our products; expenditure of time and resources to defend any claim or inquiry; adverse publicity; or revision or restructuring of our operations. Additionally, we publish privacy policies and other documentation regarding our processing of personal data. Although we endeavor to comply with our privacy policies and other data protection obligations, we may at times fail to do so or may be perceived to have failed to do so. Moreover, despite our efforts, we may not be successful in achieving compliance if our employees, contractors, service providers, or vendors fail to comply with our published policies and documentation. Such failures can subject us to potential foreign, federal, state, and local action if they are found to be deceptive, unfair, or misrepresentative of our actual practices. Claims that we have violated individuals' privacy rights or failed to comply with privacy policies and other data protection obligations, even if we are not found liable, could be expensive and time-consuming to defend and could result in adverse publicity that could harm our business. We have in the past and may in the future receive inquiries or be subject to investigations by international government entities regarding, among other things, our privacy, data protection, and information security practices. We have been subject to investigations by regulators in Romania and Turkey in connection with a security incident affecting our information technology systems in 2020; however, we have remediated the incident and notified all affected individuals and relevant government authorities as required under applicable privacy laws. The result of these investigations could impact our brand reputation, subject us to monetary remedies and costs, interrupt or require us to change our business practices, divert resources and the attention of management from our business, or subject us to other remedies that adversely affect our business.

Our platform and products provide automation solutions that our customers can integrate throughout their businesses. Accordingly, we compete with companies that provide RPA and other automation solutions, including Appian Corporation, Automation Anywhere, Inc., Blue Prism Group PLC, Celonis Inc., Kofax Inc., Kyron Systems Inc., Microsoft Corporation, NICE LTD., NTT Ltd., Pegasystems Inc., and WorkFusion, Inc. In addition to RPA software providers, we compete with automation lifecycle technology providers, such as low-code, iBPMS, iPaaS, process mining, and test automation vendors, which develop and market automation capabilities as extensions of their core platforms, and enterprise platform vendors, which provide horizontal applications and productivity tools and are acquiring, building, or investing in RPA functionality or partnering with RPA providers. We also compete with companies that provide and support the traditional systems relying on manual tasks and processes that our platform and products are designed to replace, including companies that facilitate outsourcing of such tasks and processes to lower cost workers. Our customers may also internally develop their own automated solutions to address tasks particular to their business. Our market may need further education on the value of automation solutions and our platform and products, and on how to integrate them into current operations. A lack of education as to how our automation platform and products operate may cause potential customers to prefer more traditional methodologies or their limited, internally-developed automated processes, to be cautious about investing in our platform and products, or to have difficulty integrating our platform and products into their business architecture. If we are unable to educate potential customers and change the market's readiness to accept our technology, then our business, results of operations, and financial condition may be harmed. The RPA market is one of the fastest growing enterprise software markets and is increasingly competitive. With the introduction of new technologies and market entrants, we expect that the competitive environment will remain intense going forward. For instance, as our market becomes increasingly driven by cloud-based solutions, native cloud providers may enter this market and provide competitive offerings at lower prices. Additionally, open source alternatives for automation that are offered freely may impact our ability to sell our products to certain customers who may prefer to rely on these tools at no cost. Some of our actual and potential competitors have been acquired by other larger enterprises, have made or may make acquisitions, may enter into partnerships or other strategic relationships that may provide more comprehensive products than they individually had offered or may achieve greater economies of scale than us. In addition, new entrants not currently considered to be competitors may enter the market through acquisitions, partnerships, or strategic relationships. As we look to market and sell our products and platform capabilities to potential customers with existing internal solutions, we must convince their internal stakeholders that our products and platform capabilities are superior to their current solutions. If we fail to do so, our business, results of operation and financial condition may be harmed.

Part of our growth strategy relies on our ability to deliver significant value in a short time to our customers, so that our customers will scale the use of our platform throughout their enterprise. Accordingly, our future success depends in part on our ability to exhibit this value and sell additional licenses and products to our existing customers, and our customers renewing their licenses with us and our channel partners when the contract term expires. Our license agreements primarily have annual terms, and some of our license agreements have multi-year terms. We generally do not sell standalone licenses with a term of less than one year. However, during the term of an annual contract or the last year of a multi-year contract, our customers may enter into an additional license agreement with a termination date that is coterminous with the anniversary date of such annual contract. Our customers have no obligation to renew their licenses for our products after the expiration of their license period. We provide some customers the opportunity to use our automation platform and products for free prior to purchasing a license. We also work with our customers to identify opportunities for follow-on sales to increase our footprint within their businesses. In order for us to maintain or improve our results of operations, it is important that our customers renew or expand their licenses with us and our channel partners. We cannot accurately predict our renewals and dollar-based net retention rate given the diversity of our customer base, in terms of size, industry, and geography. Our renewals and dollar-based net retention rate may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, many of which are outside our control, including the business strength or weakness of our customers, continuing or new delays in renewals due to economic conditions, customer usage, including the ability of our customers to quickly integrate our products into their businesses and continually find new uses for our products within their businesses, cloud automation deployment or adoption issues, customer satisfaction with our products and platform capabilities and customer support, the utility of our platform to cost-effectively integrate with third-party software products, our prices, the capabilities and prices of competing products, mergers and acquisitions affecting our customer base, consolidation of affiliates' multiple paid business accounts into a single paid business account or loss of business accounts in their entirety, the effects of global economic conditions, including the immediate and longer-term effects of the war in Ukraine, or reductions in our customers' spending on software solutions or their spending levels generally, perceived security or data privacy risks from the use of our products, changes in regulatory regimes that effect our customers or our ability to sell our products, including changes to sanctions and export control regimes, or the views of the industry and public with regard to our products and RPA products generally, including as a result of increased automation and displacement of human workforces. These factors may also be exacerbated if, consistent with our growth strategy, our customer base continues to grow to encompass larger enterprises, which may also require more sophisticated and costly sales efforts. If our customers do not purchase additional licenses and products from us or our customers fail to renew their licenses, our revenue may decline and our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be harmed. We continually review how best to market our platform to our customers and potential customers, and how to organize, train and deploy our sales teams for efficiency and effectiveness; however, if our efforts and the changes that we are trying to implement on an ongoing basis are not successful, it could adversely affect our platform adoption and our growth.

To encourage awareness, use, familiarity, and adoption of our platform and products, we offer a community edition and enterprise trial version of our software, each of which provides free, online access to certain of our products. This "try-before-you-buy" strategy may not be successful in driving developer education regarding or leading customers to purchase our products. Many users of our free tier may not lead to others within their organization purchasing and deploying our platform and products. To the extent that users do not become, or we are unable to successfully attract paying customers, we will not realize the intended benefits of these marketing strategies and our ability to grow our revenue will be adversely affected.

Our operations in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, although a small fraction of our overall Company, are subject to additional regulatory and political risk and additional compliance costs in connection with sanctions and other trade controls imposed by the United States and other governmental authorities in response to Russia's military operations in Ukraine. These government measures include export controls restricting certain exports, re-exports, transfers or releases of commodities, software, and technology to Russia and Belarus, and sanctions targeting certain officials, individuals, entities, regions, and industries in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, including certain large Russian banks. We have no way to predict the progress or outcome of the situation, as the conflict and government reactions are rapidly developing and beyond our control. Prolonged unrest, military activities, or additional sanctions, should they be implemented, could have a material adverse effect on our operations and business outlook. If the conflict were to expand to the countries that border Ukraine, including Romania, our business could be adversely impacted. Although we have taken steps designed to ensure that we comply with applicable regulations and that these events will not affect the services that we offer customers, these steps involve additional compliance costs and operational costs. If the relationship between Russia and the United States significantly worsens, or if Russia, the United States, or other countries impose additional economic sanctions, supply chain restrictions, or other restrictions on doing business, and we are restricted or precluded from continuing our software development operations in Ukraine, our costs could increase, and our product development efforts could be harmed which could adversely impact our business, financial position, and results of operations.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may prevent us or our employees, customers, partners, suppliers, or vendors or other parties with whom we do business from conducting certain marketing and other business activities for an indefinite period of time, which could adversely impact our business, financial position, and results of operations. Further, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the emergence of new variant strains of COVID-19, many state, local, and foreign governments have put in place, and others in the future may put in place or reinstate, quarantines, executive orders, shelter-in-place orders, and similar government orders and restrictions in order to control the spread of the disease. The reaction to COVID-19, including as a result of such orders or restrictions (or the perception that such orders or restrictions could occur or reoccur), have resulted in business closures, work stoppages, slowdowns, and delays, work-from-home policies, travel restrictions, and cancellation of events, among other effects that could negatively impact productivity and disrupt our operations or those of our customers, partners, suppliers, or vendors or other parties with whom we do business. In light of the uncertain and evolving situation relating to the spread of COVID-19, we have taken measures intended to help minimize the risk of the virus to our employees and the communities in which we participate. These measures included temporarily suspending all non-essential travel worldwide for our employees, canceling, postponing, or holding virtually any UiPath events and discouraging employee attendance at any industry events or in-person work-related meetings. Although we have recently reopened and may continue to selectively reopen certain of our offices, permit some travel, and hold certain in-person meetings and events in compliance with applicable government orders and public health guidelines, the majority of our employees continue to work remotely. We have a distributed workforce and our employees are accustomed to working remotely and working with others who are working remotely. However, the limitation on in-person travel and in-person meetings could negatively impact our marketing efforts, the length or variability of our sales cycles, our international operations and continued international operations, or the length of our average recruiting cycle for employees across the organization. Further, operational or other challenges could arise as we and our customers, partners, suppliers, and vendors and other parties with whom we do business continue to operate remotely. In addition, our management team has spent, and will likely continue to spend, significant time, attention, and resources monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic and seeking to manage its effects on our business and workforce. COVID-19 could also adversely affect workforces, economies, and financial markets globally, potentially leading to an economic downturn and a reduction in customer spending on our products or an inability for our customers, partners, suppliers, or vendors or other parties with whom we do business to meet their contractual obligations. While it is not possible at this time to predict the duration and extent of the impact that COVID-19 could have on worldwide economic activity and our business in particular, the continued spread of COVID-19, especially in light of the emergence of new variant strains of COVID-19, the timing, distribution, rate of public acceptance, and efficacy of vaccines and other treatments, and the measures taken by governments, businesses, and other organizations in response to COVID-19 could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations. In addition, as a public company we have provided and may in the future provide guidance about our business and future operating results, which has been and which, we expect, will be based on assumptions, estimates, and expectations as of the date such guidance is given. Guidance is necessarily speculative in nature and is inherently subject to significant business, economic, and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are expected to be beyond our control, such as the global economic uncertainty and financial market conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. If we were to revise or fail to meet our announced guidance or expectations of analysts as a result of these factors, the price of our Class A common stock could be negatively affected. Moreover, to the extent the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affects our business, financial condition, and results of operations, it may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this "Risk Factors" section, including, but not limited to, those related to our ability to expand within our existing customer base, acquire new customers, develop and expand our sales and marketing capabilities, and expand internationally.

Our success significantly depends upon maintaining and growing our relationships with a variety of channel partners and we anticipate that we will continue to depend on these partners in order to grow our business. Our channel partners enable us to extend our local and global reach, in particular with smaller customers and in geographies where we have less direct sales presence. For the fiscal years ended January 31, 2022 and 2021, we derived a substantial amount of our revenue from sales through channel partners, and we expect to continue to derive a substantial amount of our revenue from channel partners in future periods. Our agreements with our channel partners are generally non-exclusive and do not prohibit them from working with our competitors or offering competing products, and many of our channel partners may have more established relationships with our competitors. If our channel partners choose to place greater emphasis on products of their own or those offered by our competitors, do not effectively market and sell our products, or fail to meet the needs of our customers, then our ability to grow our business and sell our products may be adversely affected. In addition, the loss of one or more of our larger channel partners, who may cease marketing our products with limited or no notice, and our possible inability to replace them, could adversely affect our sales. Moreover, our ability to expand our distribution channels depends in part on our ability to educate our channel partners about our platform and products, which can be complex. Our failure to recruit additional channel partners, or any reduction or delay in their sales of our products or conflicts between channel sales and our direct sales and marketing activities may harm our results of operations. Even if we are successful, these relationships may not result in greater customer usage of our products or increased revenue. We also bear the risk that our channel partners will fail to comply with U.S. or international anti-corruption or anti-competition laws, in which case we might be fined or otherwise penalized as a result of the agency relationship with such partners. In addition, the financial health of our channel partners and our continuing relationships with them are important to our success. Some of these channel partners may be unable to withstand adverse changes in economic conditions, which could result in insolvency and/or the inability of such distributors to obtain credit to finance purchases of our products and services, which could negatively impact our future financial performance. In addition, weakness in the end-user market could negatively affect the cash flows of our channel partners who could, in turn, delay paying their obligations to us, which would increase our credit risk exposure. Our business could be harmed if the financial condition of some of these channel partners substantially weakened and we were unable to timely secure replacement channel partners. Further, we recently started forming strategic alliances where we license our software to a third-party alliance partner and contemporaneously agree to partner together to drive future sales of our products to third parties. For example, we may agree to fund automation practice enablement activities of the third-party alliance partner so they can create or expand their RPA practice. If the strategic alliance partner is unable to successfully create or expand their RPA practice, we may not realize the benefits we expect. These strategic alliances may also include noncancelable commitments we make to these third-party alliance partners whereby we plan to leverage the partner's products or services in arrangements with third-party customers. Should we be unable to deploy the partner's products or services in arrangements with third party customers, it may materially and adversely impact our gross margins, profitability and financial results in any given period. Further, these strategic alliances are a new vector for potential growth and expansion for us and these alliances may not be successful and/or as profitable as we project.