inst-10k_20191231.htm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates of the Registrant, based on the closing price of the Registrant’s common stock on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30, 2019, the last business day of its most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was $1,439,351,920. Excludes an aggregate of 3,194,553 shares of the Registrant’s common stock held as of such date by officers, directors and stockholders that the Registrant has concluded are or were affiliates of the Registrant. Exclusion of such shares should not be construed to indicate that the holder of any such shares possesses the power, direct or indirect, to direct or cause the direction of the management or policies of the Registrant or that such person is controlled by or under common control with the Registrant.

The number of shares of Registrant’s Common Stock outstanding as of February 24, 2020 was 38,263,210.

In this Annual Report on Form 10-K, “we,” “our,” “us,” “Instructure,” and the “Company” refer to Instructure, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries.

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. All statements other than statements of historical facts are “forward-looking statements” for purposes of these provisions, including those relating to future events or our future financial performance and financial guidance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,” “might,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “project,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” “intend” or “continue,” the negative of terms like these or other comparable terminology, and other words or terms of similar meaning in connection with any discussion of future operating or financial performance. These statements are only predictions. All forward-looking statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are based on information available to us on the date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Any or all of our forward-looking statements in this document may turn out to be wrong. Actual events or results may differ materially. Our forward-looking statements can be affected by inaccurate assumptions we might make or by known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. We discuss many of these risks, uncertainties and other factors in this Annual Report on Form 10-K in greater detail under the heading “Item 1A—Risk Factors.” We caution investors that our business and financial performance are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, other than the statements regarding the proposed acquisition by Thoma Bravo, do not assume the consummation of such proposed acquisitions unless specifically stated otherwise.

Instructure’s mission is to help people learn and develop, from their first day of school to their last day of work. Our vision is to help organizations everywhere leverage technology to maximize the potential of their people.

In today’s dynamic, knowledge-driven economy, quality education and constant learning are critical to the success of people and organizations. Academic institutions recognize that for students to reach their maximum potential, they require an interactive and accessible learning environment. Similarly, companies strive to compete by delivering continuous learning and feedback to better attract, develop, retain and promote the best people. Organizations in both markets—education and corporate—also require actionable data to measure, track and improve individual and organizational performance.

With applications for learning, assessment and performance management, Instructure enables organizations worldwide to develop, deliver, manage and track engaging academic and employee development programs. Built on our innovative, cloud-based platform, our applications combine powerful, elegant and easy-to-use functionality with the reliability, security, scalability and support that our customers require. They include:

For the millions of students, teachers and employees who use our applications to achieve their educational and professional goals, we provide a native-cloud, engaging and intuitive user experience designed for frequent and open interactions, a streamlined workflow and the creation and sharing of content. Our open standards allow for integration with third-party publishers and software providers to deliver additional learning content and applications. We also provide data analytics capabilities, enabling real-time reaction to information and benchmarking in order to personalize curricula and goal setting; and to increase the efficacy of the learning, assessment and performance management processes.

We deliver our applications through a Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, business model. Customers can rapidly deploy our systems with minimal upfront implementation. They also benefit from regular software updates and 99.9% uptime. Our SaaS business model reduces the need for our customers to buy and support a broad range of IT infrastructure, and reduces the cost, complexity and disruptions associated with implementations and upgrades of on-premise software.

We launched our first offering, Canvas, in February 2011 and have experienced rapid customer adoption in the education market. To better meet the needs of the corporate market, we leveraged a portion of the foundational code underlying Canvas to develop Bridge, which we launched in February 2015. Subsequent offerings include Canvas Interactive Video, which we launched in 2016, and Canvas Assessment, which we launched in 2017. As of December 31, 2019, we had over 5,000 customers, representing colleges, universities, K–12 schools and companies in more than 80 countries.

For 2019, 2018 and 2017, our revenue was $258.5 million, $209.5 million and $161.0 million, respectively, representing year-over-year growth of 23% and 30%. We have experienced net revenue retention rates of over 100% at each of December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017. For 2019, 2018 and 2017, our net losses were, $80.8 million, $43.5 million and $43.1 million, respectively, as we focused on growing our business.

On February 17, 2020, we entered into an Amended and Restated Agreement and Plan of Merger (the “Merger Agreement”), by and among us, Instructure Holdings, LLC (f/k/a PIV Purchaser, LLC), a Delaware limited liability company (“Parent”) and PIV Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and a direct and wholly owned subsidiary of Parent (“Purchaser”). The Merger Agreement amended and restated that certain Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated as of December 4, 2019, as amended by that certain Amendment No. 1 to Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated as of February 13, 2020. Parent and Purchaser are each affiliated with Thoma Bravo Fund XIII, L.P. (the “Thoma Bravo Fund”), and Parent, Purchaser and the Thoma Bravo Fund are each affiliated with Thoma Bravo, LLC (“Thoma Bravo”). The Merger Agreement contemplates that Purchaser will commence an all cash tender offer for all of the issued and outstanding shares of Instructure (the “Offer”), followed by a merger of Purchaser with and into Instructure pursuant to which Instructure will survive as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Parent (the “Merger”).

Pursuant to and subject to the terms of the Merger Agreement, Purchaser commenced a tender offer to purchase each issued and outstanding share of Instructure, par value $0.0001 per share, at an offer price of $49.00 per share, net to the seller thereof in cash, without interest and subject to any withholding taxes (such amount or any higher amount per share that may be paid pursuant to the Offer being hereinafter referred to as the “Offer Price”). The Merger Agreement contemplates that the Merger will be effected pursuant to Section 251(h) of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”), which permits completion of the Merger without a vote of our holders of common stock upon the acquisition by Purchaser of at least a majority of our issued and outstanding shares (other than certain specified shares as more specifically described in the definition of “Minimum Condition” set forth on Annex I to the Merger Agreement). At the effective time of the Merger (the “Effective Time”), each outstanding share of our common stock (other than the shares accepted for payment in the Offer and shares held by stockholders who validly exercise appraisal rights under Section 262 of the DGCL or held by Instructure, Parent or their respective wholly owned subsidiaries), will be cancelled and converted into the right to receive the Offer Price.

Our Board of Directors (the “Board”) has approved the Merger and the Merger Agreement, and the Board has resolved to recommend to our stockholders to accept the Offer and tender their shares of Instructure common stock to Purchaser pursuant to the Offer. Under the terms of the Merger Agreement, Purchaser’s obligation to accept and pay for shares that are tendered in the Offer is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of customary conditions, including: (i) the condition that, prior to the expiration of the Offer, there have been validly tendered and received (within the meaning of Section 251(h) of the DGCL) and not validly withdrawn a number of shares of Instructure common stock that, together with shares of Instructure common stock then owned by Parent and any of its wholly owned subsidiaries, would represent at least one share of Instructure common stock more than a majority of all then outstanding shares of Instructure common stock (other than certain specified shares as more specifically described in the definition of “Minimum Condition” set forth on Annex I to the Merger Agreement); (ii) the accuracy of Instructure’s representations and warranties in the Merger Agreement, subject to specified materiality qualifications; (iii) compliance by Instructure with its covenants in the Merger Agreement in all material respects; (iv) the absence of any changes that have (or would reasonably be expected to have) a material adverse effect on Instructure’s business, operations, assets or financial condition having occurred after the date of the Merger Agreement and continuing thereafter; and (v) the absence of legal restraints or orders prohibiting the consummation of the transactions.

The Merger Agreement provides certain termination rights for both Instructure and Parent, and further provides that a termination fee of $63,540,750 will be payable by Instructure to Parent upon termination of the Merger Agreement under certain circumstances and that a reverse termination fee of $136,857,000 will be payable by Parent to Instructure upon termination of the Merger Agreement under certain circumstances.

The Merger Agreement contains customary representations, warranties and covenants for Instructure, Parent and Purchaser, respectively. In addition, Instructure will continue to be subject to certain non-solicitation obligations related to alternative acquisition proposals and certain restrictions on its activities prior to the Effective Time. If the Merger is consummated, the shares will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and deregistered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Instructure will cease to be a publicly traded company.

For additional information related to the Offer and the Merger, refer to the filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) in connection with such transactions, including the Tender Offer Statement on Schedule TO, filed by Purchaser and Parent with the SEC on February 24, 2020, together with the exhibits and annexes thereto and as amended or supplemented from time to time (the “Schedule TO”) and the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14D-9 filed by Instructure with the SEC on February 24, 2020, together with the exhibits and annexes thereto and as amended or supplemented from time to time (the “Schedule 14D-9”). We have prepared this Annual Report on Form 10-K and the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K as if we were going to remain an independent company. If the Offer and Merger are consummated, many of the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K will no longer be applicable.

We designed our platform from the ground up with modern, web-based design features that enable users to teach, learn and collaborate anytime, anywhere, across a wide variety of application environments, operating systems, devices and locations. We believe our platform offers the following key benefits:

Our applications enhance academic and corporate learning by providing a system of engagement for teachers and learners, enabling frequent and open interactions, a streamlined workflow and the creation and sharing of content with anytime, anywhere access to information. Our applications also provide users with powerful, easy-to-use functionality for intuitive interactions with course content and activities. All of our applications run on our extensible platform, which allows us to easily deploy new applications and features to support the needs of our customers. We use modern, mobile technology to provide anytime, anywhere access to our applications from a wide array of devices, including personal computers, tablets and smartphones. We offer native mobile applications for Canvas on iOS and Android for free download.

The Canvas Learning Management Platform is an extendable, customizable, highly integrated set of solutions designed to meet the teaching and learning needs of every K–12 and higher education institution, including the Canvas LMS, Canvas Assessment, Canvas Network, Canvas Catalog, and Canvas Interactive Video. With its cloud-based offerings, Canvas streamlines digital tools and content for teachers and students, creating a simpler and more connected learning experience.

Canvas LMS is a learning management system designed to give our K–12 and higher education customers an extensive set of flexible tools to support and enhance content creation, management and delivery of face-to-face and online instruction.

Canvas provides access to a critical set of user and course activity data, including user and device characteristics, discrete page views, user engagement, individual curricula and assessments and evaluations. Data is delivered to administrators in a format optimized for warehousing, performing queries, reporting and making it easier for administrators to benchmark, customize teaching and improve learning outcomes.

Additionally, Canvas supports standards-based integration with hundreds of third-party publishers and software providers. The extensibility of the Canvas application enables our customers to build a learning and teaching environment that meets their unique organizational needs.

Canvas Network allows anyone around the world access to open online courses for personal and professional development. Through Canvas Network, academic institutions have the flexibility to offer and deliver courses over the internet to a much broader audience than just their own employees or on-campus students. Some institutions choose to pursue a massive open online course (MOOC) format, and some choose to pursue a smaller online course format with more interaction. Institutions already using Canvas can easily move courses onto Canvas Network, extending their reach and enhancing their brand.

Canvas Catalog is a white-label, web-based course catalog and registration system built on top of the Canvas LMS that enables organizations to create and maintain a branded marketplace for their online course offerings. Catalog provides a searchable course index, online payment gateways for student registration and enrollment, custom course landing pages, collections of courses in specialized programs, automatically distributed certificates and other ways to recognize completion.

Canvas Interactive Video is a next-generation online video platform designed to enable corporate, K–12 and higher education customers to host, manage and deliver impactful video learning experiences. Our customers who also use Canvas or Bridge can seamlessly integrate Interactive Video for a modern, streamlined, easy-to-use video learning solution that provides the interactivity, insights and reliability organizations need to engage their employees and students.

Canvas Assessment is a comprehensive assessment management system that empowers K–12 schools and districts to measure student learning and preparedness for high-stakes exams mandated by federal and state regulations. With our simple, elegant and scalable testing platform, educators can create and deliver effective benchmark exams with simple deployment workflows, leveraging data collected to guide instruction and enhance curricula school- or district-wide. Our customers who also use Canvas LMS can integrate Canvas Assessment for a seamless user experience.

Bridge is an employee development and engagement platform designed to enable our corporate customers to develop, retain and promote employees by improving performance and engagement. The Bridge platform includes:

Built on a modern technology stack, our native-cloud, multi-tenant platform and applications scale to millions of users and enable us to leverage advancements in web design, open source technologies and security. We adhere to industry-standard best security practices to protect our servers and our customers’ critical information.

We host our platform and applications on cloud infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services, or AWS. We primarily use Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, or Amazon EC2, along with load balancing, auto scaling and storage services provided by AWS. Our hosting services provide full support, rolling release upgrades/updates, backup and disaster recovery services. Our infrastructure enables us to scale both horizontally and vertically in order to rapidly adjust to variances in usage at the server, database and file store level. Our applications run on virtualized instances in Tier III and Tier IV AWS data center facilities, which provide industry-standard best security practices. As of December 31, 2019, we used domestic AWS data center facilities in Virginia, Ohio and Oregon, and international facilities in Dublin, Ireland, Frankfurt, Germany, Sydney, Australia, Montreal, Canada and Singapore. We intend to expand operations into other regions based on market conditions. These AWS managed facilities have earned multiple certifications including, but not limited to, SOC 2 Type II, ISO9001 and ISO27001.

We designed our platform for resilience and rapid recovery from component failure. We apply a wide variety of strategies to achieve enterprise-grade reliability and durability. We have automated procedures in place to handle coordinated changes across our various instances and store backups of key data stores in multiple redundant and geographically isolated locations.

Our technology stack is a dynamic web application built with our own automated scaling and provisioning technologies. We use Web 2.0 technologies like Ruby on Rails, Java and Node.js, which provide users a familiar web experience. Our platform was built on underlying open source technologies, allowing us to take full advantage of advancements in scalability and flexibility. We utilize the Linux operating system, Postgres and Cassandra databases, and Redis data structure store. Our platform also provides an API that third-parties can use to add new features and functionality.

Keeping our platform secure is a primary focus of our dedicated enterprise security team due to the sensitive nature of the data contained within the applications. We are diligent about data security and have adopted the AICPA SOC 2 set of security controls. We demonstrate compliance with these controls through annual audits and web application vulnerability assessments.

As of December 31, 2019, we had over 5,000 customers representing colleges, universities, school districts and companies in more than 80 countries. Canvas is used by all Ivy League schools and we have K–12 customers in nearly all states. The majority of our academic customers implement Canvas widely within their institutions and across school districts. We define a customer as an entity with an active subscription contract. In situations where there is a single contract that applies to entities with multiple subsidiaries or divisions, universities or schools, only the entity that has contracted for our platform is counted as a customer. For example, a contracting school district is counted as a single customer even though the school district encompasses multiple schools. In 2019, no single customer represented more than 10% of our revenue.

We sell our applications and services through a direct sales force. Our sales organization includes technical sales engineers who serve as experts in the technical aspects of our applications and customer implementations. Many of our sales efforts require us to respond to request for proposals, particularly in the higher education space and to a lesser extent in K–12, and to a minimal extent in the corporate market. As we grow internationally, we may use reseller partnerships as needed to penetrate certain new markets.

We engage in a variety of traditional and online marketing activities designed to provide sales lead generation and sales support and promote brand awareness. Our specific marketing activities for lead generation include advertising in trade publications, digital advertising, including search engine optimization and search engine marketing, display search, email, and referral marketing. Brand awareness activities include press relations in business, human resources, education publications and blogs, market specific advertising campaigns and speaking engagements, and industry trade-shows and seminars. We also host InstructureCon, our annual user conference for current customers and prospects. More than 2,900 people attended InstructureCon 2019 in Long Beach, California.

Although our software is easy to adopt and use, we believe strong customer support and services are essential for customer retention. We provide most services and support by phone or online video and audio conferencing rather than in person, resulting in a more efficient and cost-effective business model for us and our customers. Our Customer Success department is responsible for all customer post-sale interactions and comprises employees located in the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia Columbia, and Budapest, Hungary. Our services and support efforts include the following:

We are committed to enabling our customers to build an ecosystem for successful learning, assessment, development and engagement. Our open platform is central to both our technology and our strategy.

From a technological perspective, we remain focused on implementing industry standards like IMS Global Learning Consortium’s Learning Tools Interoperability, or LTI, enabling Canvas and Bridge to integrate with a broad spectrum of third-party solutions used by our customers.

Our partnership program invites third-party software, service and content providers, through a library of open APIs, to easily integrate with our applications and take advantage of value add services and events to enhance the partnership. This allows us to broaden and efficiently extend the functionality of our applications. We have more than 450 partners, including Pearson, McGraw-Hill Education, Cengage, AspirEDU, Microsoft, ProctorU, Google, Apple, Pronto, Certica Solutions, Unicheck, and Nearpod.

Our product, customer success, and sales and marketing teams operate cross-functionally and regularly engage with customers, partners and industry analysts to understand customer needs and general industry trends to enhance our existing applications and identify opportunities for new product innovations. Additionally, our research and education team analyzes user data and current online learning trends and collaborates with customers to inform application development and growth into adjacent markets. Once improvements are identified, prioritized and resourced, the entire development organization works closely together to design, develop, test and launch new functionality and application updates. We have made, and will continue to make, significant investments to strengthen our existing applications, and expand the number of applications on our extensible platform that will benefit our customers and allow us to expand into new markets.

We are passionate about making learning and working more engaging and accessible for people everywhere and we apply that same vision at Instructure every day. We maintain four values that we believe set us apart, define our company culture and serve as a strategic advantage as they align directly with the experience we strive to provide to our customers.

Since our founding, we have worked hard to retain our open and engaging culture with people who are passionate about improving learning. We have received multiple “best places to work” awards and have maintained high ratings on recruiting websites. As of December 31, 2019, we had 1,397 employees.

We operate in highly competitive markets. Canvas primarily competes with systems offered by Blackboard, D2L and Moodle in the education market. Bridge primarily competes with systems offered by Cornerstone OnDemand, Saba Software and SumTotal Systems (owned by Skillsoft) along with dozens of small, specialized systems for specific industries to large, generalized systems provided as part of a larger human resources management suite.

We may face future competition in our markets from other large, established companies, as well as from smaller specialized companies.

We believe that we compete favorably on the basis of these factors. Our ability to remain competitive will depend to a great extent upon our ongoing performance in the areas of product development, partner ecosystem development and customer support. In addition, many of our competitors, particularly the large software companies named above, may have greater name recognition, longer operating histories and significantly greater resources. Some competitors may be able to devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their products than we can to ours, which could allow them to respond more quickly than we can to changes in customer needs. We cannot assure you that our competitors will not offer or develop products or services that are superior to ours or achieve greater market acceptance.

We rely on a combination of trade secret, copyright, and trademark laws, a variety of contractual arrangements, such as license agreements, assignment agreements, confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements, and confidentiality procedures and technical measures to gain rights to and protect the intellectual property used in our business. We actively pursue registration of our trademarks, logos, service marks, and domain names in the United States and in other key jurisdictions, but, other than the patent acquired in connection with our acquisition of Practice XYZ, Inc. (“Practice”), we have not, to date, applied for patent protection for any of our inventions. We are the registered holder of a variety of U.S. and international domain names that include the term Instructure, Canvas and Bridge.

A substantial portion of our Canvas application, including the base code, uses “open source” software we license from third parties. Open source software is made available to the general public on an “as-is” basis under the terms of a non-negotiable license. Open source software is generally freely accessible, usable and modifiable. Certain open source licenses, like the GNU Affero General Public License may require us to offer the components of our software that incorporate the open source software for no cost, make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon incorporating or using the open source software, and license such modifications or derivative works under the terms of the particular open source license. We also rely on certain intellectual property rights that we license from third parties under proprietary licenses. Though such third-party technologies may not continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, we believe that alternative technologies would be available to us.

To promote our open platform philosophy, we make available a substantial portion of the source code for Canvas available to the public on the “GitHub” platform for no charge, under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License. We accept modifications of the source code for Canvas from contributors who agree to the terms of our contributor agreement. Our contributor agreement provides for assignment of joint ownership in the copyright to the contribution, and a license to any patent rights of the contributor. Contributors must also represent that it is an original work and that the contribution does not violate any third-party intellectual property right.

We control access to and use of our proprietary technology and other confidential information through the use of internal and external controls, including contractual protections with employees, contractors, customers, and partners, and our software is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Our policy is to require employees and independent contractors to sign agreements assigning to us any inventions, trade secrets, works of authorship, developments and other processes generated by them on our behalf and agreeing to protect our confidential information, and all of our key employees and contractors have done so. In addition, we generally enter into confidentiality agreements with our vendors and customers. We also control and monitor access to, and distribution of our software, documentation and other proprietary information. In addition, we intend to expand our international operations, and effective copyright, trademark, and trade secret protection may not be available to us in every country in which our software is available.

The legal environment of internet-based businesses is evolving rapidly in the United States and elsewhere. The manner in which existing laws and regulations are applied in this environment, and how they will relate to our business in particular, both in the United States and internationally, is often unclear. For example, we sometimes cannot be certain which laws will be deemed applicable to us given the global nature of our business, including with respect to such topics as data privacy and security, pricing, credit card fraud, advertising, taxation, content regulation, and intellectual property ownership and infringement. Moreover, our academic customers are regulated at the state and federal levels by legislatures, administrative agencies and other policymaking bodies that can directly impact their ability to procure and deploy technology products.

Our customers, and those with whom they communicate using our applications, upload and store customer data onto our platform. This presents legal challenges to our business and operations, such as rights of privacy or intellectual property rights related to the content loaded onto our platform. Both in the United States and internationally, we must monitor and comply with a wide variety of laws and regulations regarding the data stored and processed on our platform as well as the operation of our business.

Data privacy and security with respect to the collection of personally identifiable information, or PII, continues to be the focus of worldwide legislation and regulation. We are subject to data privacy and security regulation by regulatory authorities in the U.S. (including the states in which we conduct our business) and potentially in other countries.

In recent years, there have been a number of well-publicized data breaches involving the unauthorized use and disclosure of individuals’ PII. Many states have responded to these incidents by enacting laws requiring holders of personal information to maintain safeguards and to take certain actions in response to a data breach, such as providing prompt notification of the breach to affected individuals and state officials or amending existing laws to expand compliance obligations. For example, the recently enacted California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, which took effect on January 1, 2020, imposes a number of privacy and security obligations on companies who process PII of California residents. These laws may impose limits on the collection, distribution, use and storage of student PII. Federal laws are also under consideration that may create additional compliance obligations and penalties. In the EU, where companies must meet specified privacy and security standards, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, and data protection laws of each of the European Member countries require comprehensive information privacy and security protections for consumers with respect to PII collected about them. We rely on adherence to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks, as agreed to and set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the EU and Switzerland, concerning U.S. companies doing business in Europe, collecting PII from European citizens, and transferring such PII to the United States under the Privacy Shield Frameworks. In light of the continued uncertainty around cross-border data transfer, we have engaged in efforts to legitimize data transfers from the EEA through means other than the Privacy Shield Frameworks, such as through the use of so-called ‘model contract clauses’ developed by the European Commission. The GDPR introduced new data protection requirements in the EU and significant penalties of up to the greater of 4% of worldwide turnover and €20 million for violations of data protection rules. We have adopted additional mechanisms necessary to comply with the GDPR. We post on our website our privacy policies and practices concerning the processing, use and disclosure of PII. Our publication of our privacy policy and other statements we publish that provide promises and assurances about privacy and security can subject us to potential state and federal action if they are found to deceptive or misrepresentative of our practices.

Through contractual obligations with our customers we sometimes agree to certain obligations related to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, which generally prohibits educational institutions that receive federal funding from disclosing PII from a student’s education records without the student’s consent. We are also subject to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which applies to operators of commercial websites and online services directed to U.S. children under the age of 13 that collect personal information from children, and to operators of general audience websites with actual knowledge that they are collecting information from U.S. children under the age of 13. Also, certain laws and regulations that protect the collection, use and disclosure of particular types of data may hinder our ability to provide services to customers and potential customers subjected to such laws.

U.S. and international copyright and trademark laws protect the rights of third parties from infringement of their works of authorship. Our customers and users can generally use our platform to upload and present a wide variety of content. We maintain an active copyright infringement policy and respond to takedown requests by third-party intellectual property right owners that might result from content uploaded to our platform. As our business expands to other countries, we must also respond to regional and country-specific intellectual property considerations, including takedown and cease-and-desist notices in foreign languages, and we must build infrastructure to support these processes. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, also applies to our business. This statute includes a safe harbor that is intended to reduce the liability of online service providers for hosting content provided by users that infringes copyrights of others. The copyright infringement policies that we have implemented for our platform are intended to satisfy the DMCA safe harbor.

We were incorporated in Delaware in September 2008. Our principal executive offices are located at 6330 South 3000 East, Suite 700, Salt Lake City, UT 84121 and our telephone number is (800) 203-6755. Our corporate website address is www.instructure.com. The information contained in, or that can be accessed through, our website is not part of, and is not incorporated into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We file electronically with the Securities and Exchange Commission our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. We make available on our website at www.instructure.com, free of charge, through a hyperlink on our website, copies of these reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after electronically filing such reports with, or furnishing them to, the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, the SEC maintains an internet site at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.

You should carefully consider the following risk factors, in addition to the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including the section of this report titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our financial statements and related notes. If any of the events described in the following risk factors and the risks described elsewhere in this report occurs, our business, operating results and financial condition could be seriously harmed. This Annual Report on Form 10-K also contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of factors that are described below and elsewhere in this report.

The conditions under the Merger Agreement to Purchaser’s consummation of the Offer and the subsequent Merger may not be satisfied in the anticipated timeframe, or at all.

Consummation of Purchaser’s pending Offer and subsequent Merger is subject to certain closing conditions, including, among others, (i) the condition that, prior to the expiration of the Offer, there have been validly tendered and not validly withdrawn a number of shares of our common stock that, upon the consummation of the Offer, together with shares of our common stock then owned by Parent and Purchaser (if any), would represent at least a majority of the aggregate voting power of our common stock outstanding immediately after the consummation of the Offer; (ii) the absence of legal restraints on Purchaser’s ability to accept and pay for shares of our common stock tendered in the Offer; (iii) the accuracy of Instructure’s representations and warranties in the Merger Agreement, subject to specified materiality qualifications; (iv) compliance by Instructure with its covenants in the Merger Agreement in all material respects; and (v) the absence of any changes that have (or would reasonably be expected to have) a material adverse effect on Instructure’s business, operations, assets or financial condition. The Offer and subsequent Merger is not subject to any financing condition. There can be no assurances that our stockholders will tender their shares in sufficient amounts to satisfy the Minimum Condition, or that any or all of the other conditions will be satisfied in the timeframe expected, if at all.

Failure to complete, or delays in consummating the pending Offer and our subsequent Merger with Purchaser could materially and adversely affect our results of operations and our stock price.

A number of the conditions to the consummation of the Offer and subsequent Merger are not within our control, and difficulties in otherwise satisfying the conditions may prevent, delay or otherwise materially adversely affect the consummation of the pending Offer and subsequent Merger. We cannot predict with certainty whether and when any of the required closing conditions will be satisfied or if another uncertainty may arise and cannot assure you that we will be able to successfully consummate the Offer and the Merger as currently contemplated under the Merger Agreement or at all. Risks related to the failure of the Offer and the Merger to be consummated include, but are not limited to, the following:

The occurrence of any of these events individually or in combination could materially and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations and the price per share of our common stock.

Uncertainty about Purchaser’s pending Offer and the subsequent Merger may adversely affect relationships with our customers, suppliers, and employees, whether or not the Offer and the Merger are completed.

In response to the announcement of the pending Offer and subsequent Merger, our existing or prospective customers or suppliers may:

Any such delays or changes to terms could materially harm our business or, if the Offer and the Merger are completed, the business of the combined company.

In addition, as a result of the pending Offer and subsequent Merger, our current and prospective employees could experience uncertainty about their future with us or the combined company. As a result, key employees may depart because of issues relating to such uncertainty or a desire not to remain following the completion of the Offer and the Merger.

Losses of customers, employees or other important strategic relationships could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition. Such adverse effects could also be exacerbated by a delay in the completion of the Offer and the Merger for any reason.

Our executive officers and directors may have interests in the pending Offer and subsequent Merger that are different from, or in addition to, those of our stockholders generally.

Our executive officers and directors may have interests in the pending Offer and subsequent Merger that are different from, or are in addition to, those of stockholders generally. These interests include direct or indirect ownership of our common stock, stock options and restricted stock units, and for certain executive officers, executive agreements providing for severance payments and benefits upon a change in control of Instructure.

Until the completion of the Merger or the termination of the Merger Agreement in accordance with its terms, in consideration of the agreements made by the parties in the Merger Agreement, we are prohibited from entering into certain transactions and taking certain actions that might otherwise be beneficial to us and our stockholders.

Until the earlier of the Effective Time and the termination of the Merger Agreement, the Merger Agreement restricts us from taking specified actions without the consent of Parent, and requires us to generally operate in the ordinary course of business consistent with past practices. These restrictions may prevent us from making appropriate changes to our businesses, retaining our workforce, paying dividends or pursuing attractive business opportunities that may arise prior to the completion of the Merger.

Additional lawsuits may be filed against us and the members of our board of directors arising out of our acquisition by Thoma Bravo, which may delay or prevent the proposed transaction.

Additional putative stockholder complaints, including stockholder class action complaints, and other complaints may be filed against us, our board of directors, Thoma Bravo and others in connection with the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement. The outcome of litigation is uncertain, and we may not be successful in defending against any such future claims. Lawsuits that may be filed against us, our board of directors, or Thoma Bravo could delay or prevent our acquisition by Thoma Bravo, divert the attention of our management and employees from our day-to-day business and otherwise adversely affect us financially.

Each of the parties may terminate the Merger Agreement if the Closing of the Offer has not occurred by the outside date specified in the Merger Agreement.

While each party has agreed to use its reasonable best efforts to take, or cause to be taken, all actions and to do, or cause to be done, all things necessary, proper or advisable under applicable law to consummate the transactions, including the Offer and the Merger, each party has the right to terminate the Merger Agreement if the closing of the Offer has not occurred by April 2, 2020, or such later date as may be mutually agreed by Parent and Instructure.

If the Merger Agreement is terminated, we may, under certain circumstances, be obligated to pay a termination fee to Parent. These costs could require us to use available cash that would have otherwise been available for other uses.

If the proposed Merger is not completed, in certain circumstances, we could be required to pay a termination fee of $63,540,750 to Parent. If the Merger Agreement is terminated, the termination fee we may be required to pay, if any, under the Merger Agreement may require us to use available cash that would have otherwise been available for general corporate purposes or other uses. For these and other reasons, termination of the Merger Agreement could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations or financial condition, which in turn would materially and adversely affect the price per share of our common stock.

We have a history of losses and anticipate that we will continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future and may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.

We have incurred net losses of $80.8 million, $43.5 million and $43.1 million in 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively. We had an accumulated deficit of $348.2 million at December 31, 2019. We must generate and sustain higher revenue levels in future periods to become profitable, and, even if we do, we may not be able to maintain or increase our profitability. We expect to continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future as we expend substantial financial and other resources on, among other things:

These expenditures may not result in additional revenue or the growth of our business. We also expect that our revenue growth rate will continue to decline over time. Accordingly, we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to offset our expected cost increases and achieve and sustain profitability. If we fail to achieve and sustain profitability, the market price of our common stock could decline.

We have a limited operating history, which makes it difficult to evaluate our prospects and future operating results.

We launched Canvas in February 2011 and launched Bridge in February 2015. Our limited operating history makes our ability to forecast future operating results difficult and subjects us to a number of uncertainties, including our ability to plan and model future growth. Our revenue grew 23%, 30% and 43% in 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively, compared to the prior year; however, our historical revenue growth is not necessarily indicative of our future performance. We expect our revenue growth rates to continue to slow in future periods due to a number of reasons, which may include the maturation of our business, slowing demand for our platform and applications, increasing competition, a decrease in the growth of our overall markets, or if we fail, for any reason, to continue to capitalize on growth opportunities, our relative lack of experience with renewals or a decline in available opportunities as a result of our increased market penetration in one or more of our markets.

We have encountered and will encounter risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing industries, such as determining appropriate investments of our limited resources, market adoption of our current and future applications, competition from other companies, acquiring and retaining customers, hiring, integrating, training and retaining skilled personnel, developing new applications, determining prices and contract terms for our applications, unforeseen expenses and challenges in forecasting accuracy. If our assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties, which we use to plan our business, are incorrect or change, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our prospects, operating results and business could be harmed.

We depend on new customer acquisition and expansion and customer renewals to grow our business.

We derive, and expect to continue to derive, a substantial majority of our revenue from the sale of new subscriptions or renewals of subscriptions to our learning management platform and applications. Our growth today is primarily driven by new subscriptions. Our contracts typically vary in length between one and five years and our customers have no obligation to renew their subscriptions after the expiration of their initial subscription periods. Our customers may elect not to renew or may seek to renew for lower subscription amounts or for shorter contract lengths. Our renewal rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including limited customer resources, pricing changes, adoption and utilization of our applications and services by our customers, customer satisfaction with our learning management platform and applications, the acquisition of our customers by other companies, procurement or budgetary decisions from legislative or other regulatory bodies, and deteriorating general economic conditions. As our customer base continues to grow, renewals will become an increasingly important part of our results. If our customers do not renew their subscriptions for our learning management platform and applications, or decrease the amount they spend with us, our revenue will decline and our business will be harmed.

Because our recent growth has resulted in the rapid expansion of our business, we do not have a long history upon which to base forecasts of customer renewal rates or future revenue. As a result, our future operating results may be significantly below the expectations of investors and security analysts, which could harm the market price of our common stock.

We have a limited history with our subscription and pricing models and changes in our models could adversely affect our revenue, gross profit and financial position.

We have limited experience with respect to determining the optimal prices and contract length for our platform and applications, in particular with Bridge, and as a result, we have in the past and expect in the future that we will need to change our pricing model or contract length from time to time. For example, in January 2017, we raised our subscription prices for Canvas for higher education institutions. As the market for our platform and applications grows, as new competitors introduce new competitive applications or services, or as we enter into new international markets, we may be unable to attract new customers at the same price or based on the same pricing models we have historically used, or for contract lengths consistent with our historical averages. Pricing and contract length decisions may also impact the mix of adoption among our applications and negatively impact our overall revenue. Moreover, larger organizations may demand substantial price concessions or shorter contract duration. As a result, in the future we may be required to reduce our prices or offer shorter contract durations, which could adversely affect our revenue, gross profit and financial position.

We may experience quarterly fluctuations in our operating results due to a number of factors, which makes our future results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations.

Our quarterly operating results have fluctuated in the past and we expect them to fluctuate in the future due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. As a result, our past results may not be indicative of our future performance, and comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. In addition to the other risks described in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, factors that may affect our quarterly operating results include:

We may not be able to accurately forecast the amount and mix of future subscriptions, size or duration of contracts, revenue and expenses and, as a result, our operating results may fall below our estimates or the expectations of security analysts and investors. If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of security analysts or investors, or below any estimates we may provide, the market price of our common stock could decline.

Our business is subject to seasonal sales and customer growth fluctuations which could result in volatility in our operating results.

We have historically experienced a pattern of higher sales and new academic customers in the second and third quarters, as a result of school procurement periods, which are typically based on a fiscal year ending June 30. This has resulted in lower sequential sales and customer growth in the other quarters of the year. As we attempt to expand the number of our corporate customers, we may see changes to this pattern of seasonality. Seasonality may cause our sales and customer growth to vary from quarter-to-quarter depending on the variability in the volume and timing of sales and renewals. These factors, among other things, make forecasting more difficult and may adversely affect our ability to predict financial results accurately, which could result in volatility or adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

We could lose revenue if there are changes in the spending policies or budget priorities for government funding of colleges, universities, schools and other education providers.

Our Canvas customers include colleges, universities, K-12 schools and other education providers, many of which depend substantially on government funding. Accordingly, any general decrease, delay or change in federal, state or local funding for colleges, universities, schools and other education providers could cause our current and potential customers to reduce their purchases of Canvas and related services, or decide not to renew their subscriptions, any of which could cause us to lose customers and revenue. In addition, a specific reduction in governmental funding support for learning management systems could also cause us to lose customers and revenue.

Because we generally recognize revenue from subscriptions ratably over the term of the agreement, near term changes in sales may not be reflected immediately in our operating results.

We offer our platform and learning, assessment, development and engagement applications primarily through multi-year subscription agreements and generally recognize revenue ratably over the related subscription period. As a result, much of the revenue we report in each quarter is derived from agreements entered into during prior quarters or years. A decline in new or renewed subscriptions in any one quarter is not likely to be reflected immediately in our revenue results for that quarter. However, declines would negatively affect our revenue and deferred revenue balances in future periods, and the effect of significant downturns in sales and market acceptance of our platform and applications, and potential changes in our rate of renewals, may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods. Our subscription model also makes it difficult for us to rapidly increase our total revenue and deferred revenue balance through additional sales in any period, as revenue from new customers is recognized over the applicable subscription term.

If the markets for our applications develop more slowly than we expect, our growth may slow or stall, and our operating results would be harmed.

The markets for learning, assessment, development and engagement systems is still evolving, and we depend on continued growth of these markets. In particular, we do not know whether the trend of adoption of cloud-based learning management systems we have experienced with our academic customers in the past will continue in the future. To date, we have derived a substantial majority of our revenue from Canvas. A critical factor for our continued growth is our ability to sell Canvas to new customers in K-12 and higher education. The adoption trend for our academic customers is subject to influence from federal, state and local policymakers. We launched Bridge in February 2015. Given our limited history with corporate customers, we do not know whether companies will adopt cloud-based learning, development and engagement systems, or what prices or contract terms to which they will agree. We will incur substantial operating costs, particularly in sales and marketing and research and development, in attempting to develop these markets. If the market for Canvas does not continue to grow, or grows more slowly than we expect, or if the market for Bridge does not develop as we anticipate, our operating results would be harmed.

If we fail to effectively develop and expand our sales and marketing capabilities, our ability to increase our customer base and increase the market share of our learning management platform and applications could be harmed.

To increase the number of customers and increase the market share of our platform and applications, we will need to expand our sales and marketing operations, including our domestic and international sales force. We will continue to dedicate significant resources to sales and marketing programs. The effectiveness of our inbound sales and marketing has varied over time and, together with the effectiveness of any international resellers we may engage, may vary in the future. Our business will be harmed if our efforts do not generate a correspondingly significant increase in revenue. We may not achieve anticipated revenue growth from expanding our sales force if we are unable to hire, develop and retain talented sales personnel, if our new sales personnel are unable to achieve desired productivity levels in a reasonable period of time or if our sales and marketing programs are not effective.

We face significant competition from both established and new companies offering learning assessment, development and engagement systems, which may harm our ability to gain new customers, retain existing customers and grow our business.

The learning, assessment, development and engagement systems market is evolving, highly competitive and significantly fragmented, particularly in the K-12 and corporate markets. With the introduction of new technologies and the potential entry of new competitors into the market, we expect competition to persist and intensify in the future, which could harm our ability to increase sales, maintain or increase renewals and maintain our prices.

We face intense competition from other software companies that develop learning management systems. Canvas primarily competes with systems offered by Blackboard, D2L and Moodle. Bridge primarily competes with systems offered by Cornerstone OnDemand, Saba Software and SumTotal Systems (owned by Skillsoft) along with dozens of small, specialized systems for specific industries to large, generalized systems provided as part of a larger human resources management suite. Competition could significantly impede our ability to sell or renew subscriptions to our platform and applications on terms favorable to us. Our current and potential competitors may develop and market new technologies that render our existing or future applications less competitive, unmarketable or obsolete. In addition, if these competitors develop applications with similar or superior functionality to our software, we may need to decrease the prices or accept less favorable terms for our subscriptions in order to remain competitive. If we are unable to maintain our pricing due to competitive pressures, margins will be reduced and operating results will be negatively affected.

Current competitors have, and potential competitors may have, significantly more financial, technical, marketing and other resources than us, and may be able to devote greater resources to the development, promotion, sale and support of their applications and services, have more extensive customer bases and broader customer relationships, and longer operating histories and greater name recognition than us. As a result, these competitors may be better able to respond quickly to new technologies and to undertake more extensive marketing campaigns. In a few cases, these vendors may also be able to offer additional software at little or no additional cost by bundling them with their existing suite of applications. To the extent any competitor has existing relationships with potential customers for other applications, those customers may be unwilling to purchase our software because of their existing relationships with the competitor. If we are unable to compete with such companies, the demand for our platform and applications could be adversely affected.

In addition, if one or more competitors were to merge or partner with another competitor, our ability to compete effectively could be adversely affected. Competitors may also establish or strengthen cooperative relationships with current or future distribution or technology partners or other parties with whom we have relationships, thereby limiting our ability to sell our applications. We may not be able to compete successfully against current or future competitors, and competitive pressures may harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

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

Our future success depends on our ability to adapt and enhance our platform and applications. To attract new customers and increase revenue from existing customers, we need to continue to enhance and improve our application offerings, features and enhancements to meet customer needs at prices that our customers are willing to pay. Such efforts will require adding new functionality and responding to technological advancements, which will increase our research and development costs. If we are unable to develop applications that address customers’ needs, or enhance and improve our platform in a timely manner, we may not be able to maintain or increase market acceptance of our platform and applications. Further, our competitors may expend a considerably greater amount of funds on their research and development programs, and those that do not may be acquired by larger companies that would allocate greater resources to our competitors’ research and development programs. If we fail to maintain adequate research and development resources or compete effectively with the research and development programs of our competitors our business could be harmed. Our ability to grow is also subject to the risk of future disruptive technologies. Access and use of our platform and applications is provided via the internet, which, itself, was disruptive to the previous enterprise software model. If new technologies emerge that are able to deliver learning management software and related applications at lower prices, more efficiently, more conveniently or more securely, such technologies could adversely affect our ability to compete.

The length and unpredictability of the sales cycle for our platform and applications could delay new sales and cause our revenue for any given quarter to fail to meet our estimates or market expectations.

The sales cycle between our initial contact with a potential customer and the signing of a subscription agreement varies. As a result of the variability and length of the sales cycle, we have only a limited ability to forecast the timing of sales. A delay in or failure to complete sales could harm our business and financial results, and could cause our financial results to vary significantly from period to period. Our sales cycle varies widely, reflecting differences in potential customers’ decision-making processes, procurement requirements and budget cycles, and is subject to significant risks over which we have little or no control, including:

Potential customers typically conduct extensive and lengthy evaluations before committing to our applications and services and generally require us to expend substantial time, effort and money educating them as to the value of our offerings.

Our business outside the United States exposes us to risks associated with international operations.

For 2019, 20% of our revenue was derived from outside the United States. We opened our international headquarters in London, England in June 2014 and have offices in Sydney, Australia, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Budapest, Hungary. Our growth strategy involves the further expansion of our operations and customer base internationally. Our current international operations and future initiatives will involve a variety of risks, including:

For example, in June 2016, the electorate in the United Kingdom voted in favor of leaving the European Union (commonly referred to as “Brexit”). The withdrawal of the U.K. from the European Union occurred on January 31, 2020. Pursuant to the formal withdrawal arrangements agreed between the U.K. and the European Union, the U.K. will be subject to a transition period through December 31, 2020, or the Transition Period, during which European Union rules will continue to apply. Negotiations between the U.K. and the European Union are expected to continue in relation to the customs and trading relationship between the U.K. and the European Union following the expiry of the Transition Period. Depending on the terms of Brexit following the Transition Period, the U.K., where we operate our international headquarters, could lose the benefits of global trade agreements negotiated by the European Union on behalf of its members, which may result in increased trade barriers which could make our doing business in Europe more difficult. In addition, currency exchange rates for the British Pound and the Euro with respect to each other and the U.S. dollar have already been affected by Brexit. Should this foreign exchange volatility continue, it could cause volatility in our quarterly financial results. In any event, we cannot predict to what extent these changes will impact our business or results of operations, or our ability to conduct operations in Europe.

Our limited experience in operating our business internationally increases the risk that any potential future expansion efforts that we may undertake will not be successful. If we invest substantial time and resources to expand our international operations and are unable to do so successfully and in a timely manner, our business and operating results will be harmed.

If we fail to offer high-quality professional services and support, our business and reputation may suffer.

High-quality professional services and support, including training, implementation and consulting services, are important for the successful marketing, sale and use of our learning management platform and applications and for the renewal of existing customers. The importance of high-quality professional services and support will increase as we expand our business and pursue new customers. If we do not provide effective ongoing support, our ability to sell additional functionality and services to, or to retain, existing customers may suffer and our reputation with existing or potential customers may be harmed.

If we fail to manage our growth effectively or our business does not grow as we expect, our operating results may suffer.

Our growth has placed, and will continue to place, a significant strain on our operational, financial and management infrastructure. To manage this growth effectively, we must continue to improve our operational, financial and management systems and controls by, among other things:

If we fail to manage our expansion or implement new systems, or if we fail to implement improvements or maintain effective internal controls and procedures, costs and expenses may increase more than expected and we may not expand our customer base, increase renewal rates, enhance existing applications, develop new applications, satisfy customers, respond to competitive pressures, or otherwise execute our business plan. If we are unable to effectively manage our growth, our operating results will be harmed.

We rely on our management team and other key employees, and the loss of one or more key employees could harm our business.

Our success and future growth depend upon the continued services of our management team, including the members of the Office of the Chief Executive Officer, which is comprised of Matthew Kaminer, Jeff Weber, Marta DeBellis, Frank Maylett, Melissa Loble, Mitch Benson, and John Knotwell, and other key employees in the areas of engineering, marketing, sales, services and general and administrative functions. From time to time, there may be changes in our management team resulting from the hiring or departure of executives. We also are dependent on the continued service of our existing software engineers and information technology personnel because of the complexity of our software, technologies and infrastructure. We may terminate any employee’s employment at any time, with or without cause, and any employee may resign at any time, with or without cause. We do not maintain any “key man” insurance for any employee. The loss of one or more of our key employees could harm our business.

If we fail to attract and retain additional qualified personnel, we may be unable to execute our business strategy.

To execute our business strategy, we must attract and retain highly qualified personnel. In particular, we compete with many other companies for software developers with high levels of experience in designing, developing and managing cloud-based software, as well as for skilled information technology, marketing, sales and operations professionals, and we may not be successful in attracting and retaining the professionals we need, in particular in Utah, where we are headquartered. We have from time to time experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications which may, among other things, impede our ability to execute our software development and sales strategies. Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel have greater resources than we do. In addition, in making employment decisions, particularly in the software industry, job candidates often consider the value of the stock options or other equity incentives they are to receive in connection with their employment. If the price of our stock declines, or experiences significant volatility, our ability to attract or retain qualified employees will be adversely affected. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our growth prospects could be harmed.

If we cannot maintain our company culture as we grow, we could lose the innovation, teamwork, passion and focus on execution that we believe contribute to our success and our business may be harmed.

We believe that a critical component to our success has been our company culture, which is based on dedication to customer experience, openness, ownership, trust, integrity, excellence and simplicity. We have invested substantial time and resources in building our team within this company culture. If we fail to preserve our culture our ability to retain and recruit personnel and to effectively focus on and pursue our corporate objectives could be harmed. As we grow and develop the infrastructure of a public company, we may find it difficult to maintain these important aspects of our company culture. If we fail to maintain our company culture, our business may be harmed.

If we do not maintain the compatibility of our applications and platform with third-party applications that our customers use in their businesses or schools, our revenue will decline.

A significant percentage of our customers choose to integrate our applications and platform with certain capabilities of third-party publishers and software providers using application programming interfaces, or APIs. The functionality and popularity of our platform depends, in part, on our ability to integrate our platform with third-party applications and software. Third-party providers of applications may change the features of their applications and software, restrict our access to their applications and software or alter the terms governing use of their applications and access to those applications and software in an adverse manner. Such changes could functionally limit or terminate our ability to use these third-party applications and software in conjunction with our platform, which could negatively impact our offerings and harm our business. If we fail to integrate our platform with new third-party applications and software that our customers utilize, we may not be able to offer the functionality that our customers need, which would negatively impact our ability to generate revenue and adversely impact our business.

If our network or computer systems are breached or unauthorized access to customer data is otherwise obtained, our platform and applications may be perceived as insecure and we may lose existing customers or fail to attract new customers, our reputation may be damaged and we may incur significant liabilities.

Use of our platform and applications involve the storage, transmission and processing of our customers’ data, including personal or identifying information regarding their students or employees. Cyber-attacks and other malicious internet-based activities continue to increase generally, and cloud-based platform providers of software and services have been targeted. If any unauthorized access to or security breaches of our platform, or those of our service providers, occurs, or is believed to have occurred, such an event or perceived event could result in the loss of data, loss of intellectual property or trade secrets, loss of business, severe reputational or brand damage adversely affecting customer or investor confidence, regulatory investigations and orders, litigation, indemnity obligations, damages for contract breach, penalties for violation of applicable laws, regulations, or contractual obligations, and significant costs for remediation that may include liability for stolen assets or information and repair of system damage that may have been caused, incentives offered to customers or other business partners in an effort to maintain business relationships after a breach, and other liabilities. Additionally, any such event or perceived event could impact our reputation, harm customer confidence, hurt our sales and expansion into existing and new markets, or cause us to lose existing customers. We could be required to expend significant capital and other resources to alleviate problems caused by such actual or perceived breaches and to remediate our systems, we could be exposed to a risk of loss, litigation or regulatory action and possible liability, and our ability to operate our business may be impaired. Additionally, actual, potential or anticipated attacks may cause us to incur increasing costs, including costs to deploy additional personnel and protection technologies, train employees and engage third-party experts and consultants. Moreover, failure to maintain effective internal accounting controls related to data security breaches and cybersecurity in general could impact our ability to produce timely and accurate financial statements and could subject us to regulatory scrutiny. Moreover, failure to maintain effective internal accounting controls related to data security breaches and cybersecurity in general could impact our ability to produce timely and accurate financial statements and could subject us to regulatory scrutiny.

In addition, if the security measures of our customers are compromised, even without any actual compromise of our own systems, we may face negative publicity or reputational harm if our customers or anyone else incorrectly attributes the blame for such security breaches to us or our systems. If customers believe that our platform and applications do not provide adequate security for the storage of personal or other sensitive information or its transmission over the internet, our business will be harmed. Customers’ concerns about security or privacy may deter them from using our platform for activities that involve personal or other sensitive information.

Our errors and omissions insurance covering certain security and privacy damages and claim expenses may not be sufficient to compensate for all liability. Although we maintain liability insurance for liabilities incurred as a result of some security and privacy damages, we cannot be certain that our coverage will be adequate for liabilities actually incurred or that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all. Because the techniques used and vulnerabilities exploited to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not identified until they are launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or vulnerabilities or implement adequate preventative measures. We may also experience security breaches that may remain undetected for an extended period.

Because data security is a critical competitive factor in our industry, we make public statements in our privacy policies describing the security of our platform. Should any of these statements be untrue, become untrue, or be perceived to be untrue, even if through circumstances beyond our reasonable control, we may face claims, including claims of unfair or deceptive trade practices, brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, state, local, or foreign regulators, and private litigants.

Interruptions or performance problems associated with our technology and infrastructure may adversely affect our business and operating results.

Our continued growth depends in part on the ability of our existing and potential customers to access our applications at any time. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, disruptions, outages, and other performance problems due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, introductions of new functionality, human or software errors, distributed denial of service attacks, or other security related incidents. In some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance problems within an acceptable period of time. It may become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve our performance, especially during peak usage times and as our platform becomes more complex and our user traffic increases. If our platform and applications are unavailable or if our users are unable to access our applications within a reasonable amount of time or at all, our business will be harmed.

Moreover, our standard customer agreements include performance guarantees and service level standards that obligate us to provide credits or termination rights in the event of a significant disruption in our platform. To the extent that our third-party service providers experience outages, or to the extent we do not effectively address capacity constraints, upgrade our systems as needed, and continually develop our technology and network architecture to accommodate actual and anticipated changes in technology, our business and operating results may be adversely affected.

Our use of “open source” software could negatively affect our ability to offer our platform and applications and subject us to possible litigation.

Our applications, in particular a substantial portion of Canvas, use “open source” software that we, in some cases, have obtained from third parties. Open source software is generally freely accessible, usable and modifiable, and is made available to the general public on an “as-is” basis under the terms of a non-negotiable license. Use and distribution of open source software may entail greater risks than use of third-party commercial software. Open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code. In addition, certain open source licenses, like the GNU Affero General Public License, or AGPL, may require us to offer for no cost the components of our software that incorporate the open source software, to make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon incorporating or using the open source software, or to license our modifications or derivative works under the terms of the particular open source license. If we are required, under the terms of an open source license, to release the source code of our proprietary software to the public, our competitors could create similar applications with lower development effort and time, which ultimately could result in a loss of sales for us.

We may also face claims alleging noncompliance with open source license terms or infringement or misappropriation of proprietary software. These claims could result in litigation, require us to purchase a costly license or require us to devote additional research and development resources to change our software, any of which would have a negative effect on our business and operating results, including being enjoined from the offering of the components of our software that contained the open source software. In addition, if the license terms for open source software that we use change, and we cannot continue to use the version of such software that we had been using, we may be forced to re-engineer our applications, incur additional costs, or discontinue the sale of applications or services if re-engineering could not be accomplished on a timely basis.

We could also be subject to suits by parties claiming ownership of what we believe to be open source software. Litigation could be costly for us to defend, have a negative effect on our operating results and financial condition and require us to devote additional research and development resources to change our applications. Although we monitor our use of open source software to avoid subjecting our applications to unintended conditions, few courts have interpreted open source licenses, and there is a risk that these licenses could be construed in a way that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our applications. We cannot guarantee that we have incorporated open source software in our software in a manner that will not subject us to liability, or in a manner that is consistent with our current policies and procedures.

We make a substantial portion of the source code for Canvas available under the terms of an open source license, and accept contributions of modifications to that source code, each of which could negatively affect our ability to offer our platform and applications and subject us to possible litigation.

To promote our open platform philosophy, we make a substantial portion of the source code for Canvas available to the public on the “GitHub” platform for no charge, under the terms of the AGPL. An individual or entity with the appropriate technical and human resources may choose to use this open source version of Canvas to try to self-host the platform to avoid paying any fees to us. In addition, some individuals or entities may try to use the open source version of Canvas for commercial purposes and directly compete with us for customers. We are aware of a few entities that currently self-host the platform and are aware of some entities that are currently selling hosting and support services. If more customers decide to self-host or other entities use the base code to compete with us, we may experience lower revenue and our business may be harmed.

We accept modifications of the source code for Canvas from contributors who agree to the terms of our contributor agreement. Our contributor agreement provides for assignment of joint ownership in the copyright to the contribution, and a license to any patent rights of the contributor. Contributors must also represent that it is an original work and that the contribution does not violate any third-party intellectual property right. However, we cannot ensure that any of these contributions is free of all third-party rights and claims of intellectual property infringement or misappropriation. By incorporating any contribution into our code base, we may be subject to intellectual property infringement or misappropriation claims, which as discussed elsewhere, are costly to defend and could require costly re-writing of our code base or licensing of replacement third-party solutions. Third-party alternatives may not be available to us on commercially reasonable terms.

Our business is dependent upon our brand recognition and reputation, and if we fail to maintain or enhance our brand recognition or reputation, our business could be harmed.

We believe that maintaining and enhancing our brands and our reputation are critical to our relationships with our customers and to our ability to attract new customers. We also believe that our brands and reputation will be increasingly important as competition in our markets continues to develop. Our success in this area will depend on a wide range of factors, some of which are beyond our control, including the following:

If our brand promotion activities are not successful, our operating results and growth may be harmed.

Furthermore, negative publicity, whether or not justified, relating to events or activities attributed to us, our employees, our partners or others associated with any of these parties, may tarnish our reputation and reduce the value of our brand. Damage to our reputation and loss of brand equity may reduce demand for our applications and have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. Moreover, any attempts to rebuild our reputation and restore the value of our brands may be costly and time consuming, and such efforts may not ultimately be successful.

We rely upon Amazon Web Services to operate certain aspects of our service and any disruption of or interference with our use of Amazon Web Services could impair our ability to deliver our platform and applications to our customers, resulting in customer dissatisfaction, damage to our reputation, loss of customers and harm to our business.

Amazon Web Services, or AWS, provides a distributed computing infrastructure platform for business operations, or what is commonly referred to as a cloud computing service. We have designed our software and computer systems to use data processing, storage capabilities and other services provided by AWS. Currently, our cloud service infrastructure is run on AWS. Given this, we cannot easily switch our AWS operations to another cloud provider, so any disruption of or interference with our use of AWS would impact our operations and our business would be adversely impacted. AWS provides us with computing and storage capacity pursuant to an agreement that continues until terminated by either party. AWS may terminate the agreement without cause by providing 90 days’ prior written notice, and may terminate the agreement with 30 days’ prior written notice for cause, including any material default or breach of the agreement by us that we do not cure within the 30-day period. The agreement requires AWS to provide us their standard computing and storage capacity and related support in exchange for timely payment by us. If any of our arrangements with AWS is terminated, we could experience interruptions in our software as well as delays and additional expenses in arranging new facilities and services.

We utilize third-party data center hosting facilities operated by AWS, located in various sites within the states of Virginia, Ohio and Oregon. For international customers, we utilize third-party data center hosting facilities operated by AWS located in Dublin, Ireland, Frankfurt, Germany, Sydney, Australia, Montreal, Canada and Singapore.

Our operations depend, in part, on AWS’s abilities to protect these facilities against damage or interruption from natural disasters, power or telecommunications failures, criminal acts and similar events. Despite precautions taken at our data centers, the occurrence of spikes in usage volume, a natural disaster, an act of terrorism, vandalism or sabotage, a decision to close a facility without adequate notice, or other unanticipated problems at a facility could result in lengthy interruptions in the availability of our platform. Even with current and planned disaster recovery arrangements, our business could be harmed. Also, in the event of damage or interruption, our insurance policies may not adequately compensate us for any losses that we may incur. These factors in turn could further reduce our revenue, subject us to liability and cause us to issue credits or cause customers to fail to renew their subscriptions, any of which could harm our business.

We are dependent on the continued availability of the internet and third-party computer and communications systems.

Our ability to provide our platform and applications to our customers depends on our ability to communicate with our customers through the public internet and third-party computer and communications systems. A severe disruption of one or more of these systems could impair our ability to process information, which could impede our ability to provide services to our customers, harm our reputation, result in a loss of customers and harm our business and operating results.

Real or perceived errors, failures, or bugs in our platform or applications could adversely affect our operating results and growth prospects.

We push updates to our platform on a frequent basis. Despite testing by us, errors, failures or bugs may not be found in our platform or applications until after they are deployed to our customers. We have discovered and expect we will continue to discover software errors, failures and bugs in our platform or applications and anticipate that certain of these errors, failures and bugs will only be discovered and remediated after deployment to customers. Real or perceived errors, failures or bugs in our platform and applications could result in negative publicity, loss of or delay in market acceptance of our platform and applications, loss of competitive position, 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.

We implement bug fixes and upgrades as part of our regular system maintenance, which may lead to system downtime. Even if we are able to implement the bug fixes and upgrades in a timely manner, any history of defects or inaccuracies in the data we collect for our customers, or the loss, damage or inadvertent release of confidential data could cause our reputation to be harmed, and customers may elect not to purchase or renew their agreements with us or we may incur increased insurance costs. The costs associated with any material defects or errors in our software or other performance problems may be substantial and could harm our operating results.

Because many of our customers use our applications to store and retrieve critical information, we may be subject to liability claims if our applications do not work properly. We cannot be certain that the limitations of liability set forth in our licenses and agreements would be enforceable or would otherwise protect us from liability for damages. A material liability claim against us, regardless of its merit or its outcome, could result in substantial costs, significantly harm our business reputation and divert management’s attention from our operations.

We are subject to governmental laws, regulation and other legal obligations, particularly related to privacy, data protection and information security, and any actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could harm our business.

Personal privacy and information security are significant issues in the U.S. and the other jurisdictions where we offer our applications. The legislative and regulatory framework for privacy and security issues worldwide is rapidly evolving and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Our handling of data is subject to a variety of laws and regulations, including laws and regulations enforced by various government agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, and various state, local and foreign agencies. We collect personally identifiable information, or PII, and other data from our employees, customers and users. We use this information to provide services to our customers and users and to operate, support, expand and improve our business. We may also share customers’ or users’ PII with third parties as allowed by applicable law and agreements, as authorized by the customer, or as described in our privacy policies.

The U.S. federal and various state and foreign governments have adopted or proposed limitations on the collection, distribution, use and storage of PII. In the U.S., the FTC and many state attorneys general are applying federal and state consumer protection laws to impose standards on the online collection, use and dissemination of data. Furthermore, many states have enacted laws that apply directly to the operators of online services that are intended for K-12 school purposes or are proposing legislation to mandate privacy and data security obligations on the collection, use, and disclosure of PII generally. For example, the recently enacted California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, which is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2020, imposes a number of privacy and security obligations on companies who process PII of California residents. These laws may impose limits on the collection, distribution, use and storage of student PII. Many foreign countries and governmental bodies, including the European Union, or EU, Canada, Australia and other jurisdictions, have laws and regulations concerning the collection and use of PII obtained from their residents or by businesses operating within their jurisdiction. These laws and regulations often are more restrictive than those in the U.S. Laws and regulations in these jurisdictions may apply broadly to the collection, use, storage, disclosure and security of data that identifies or may be used to identify or locate an individual, such as names, email addresses and, in some jurisdictions, Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses and other online identifiers. We publicly post our privacy policies and practices concerning our processing, use and disclosure of PII. Our publication of our privacy policy and other statements we publish that provide promises and assurances about privacy and security can subject us to potential state and federal action if they are found to be deceptive or misrepresentative of our practices.

In the EU, where companies must meet specified privacy and security standards, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, became enforceable on May 25, 2018. The GDPR introduced new and enhanced data protection requirements throughout the EU and significant penalties of up to the greater of 4% of worldwide turnover and €20 million for violations of data protection rules. We are actively working to ensure ongoing compliance with the GDPR. We may find it necessary to establish systems to maintain EU-origin data in the European Economic Area, or EEA, or to amend agreements with our customers which may involve substantial expense and distraction from other aspects of our business. In addition, data protection authorities in each member state of the EU will still have the ability to interpret certain aspects of the GDPR, which has the potential to create inconsistencies on a country-by-country basis. Ongoing implementation of the GDPR could require us to change certain business practices and result in increased costs. Further, the EU’s proposed ePrivacy Regulation is currently under discussion by EU member states to complement and bring electronic communications services in line with the GDPR and force a harmonized approach across EU member states. Although it remains under debate, drafts of the proposed ePrivacy Regulation would alter rules on third-party cookies, web beacons and similar technologies, and significantly increase penalties for non-compliance. We cannot yet determine the impact such future laws, regulations, and standards may have on our business.

We rely on adherence to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks, as agreed to and set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the European Union and Switzerland, which established a means for legitimizing the transfer of PII by U.S. companies doing business in the EU from the EEA to the U.S. In light of the continued uncertainty around cross-border data transfer, we have engaged in efforts to legitimize data transfers from the EEA through means other than the Privacy Shield Frameworks, such as through the use of so-called ‘model contract clauses’ developed by the European Commission. We may experience hesitancy, reluctance, or refusal by European or multi-national customers to continue to use our services due to the potential risk exposure to such customers as a result of the uncertainty around the legality of cross-border data transfer methods on which we rely. Ongoing legal challenges to the Privacy Shield Framework and ‘model contract clauses’ may render either or both methods invalid or could result in further limitations on the ability to transfer data across borders. Additionally, certain countries have passed or are considering passing laws requiring local data residency.

Although we are working to comply with those federal, state, and foreign laws and regulations, industry standards, contractual obligations and other legal obligations that apply to us, those laws, regulations, standards and obligations are evolving and may be modified, interpreted and applied in an inconsistent manner from one jurisdiction to another, and may conflict with one another, other requirements or legal obligations, our practices or the features of our applications or platform. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with federal, state or foreign laws or regulations, industry standards, contractual obligations or other legal obligations, or any actual or suspected security incident, whether or not resulting in unauthorized access to, or acquisition, release or transfer of PII or other data, may result in governmental enforcement actions and prosecutions, private litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity and could cause our customers to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. Any inability to adequately address privacy and security concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable laws, regulations, policies, industry standards, contractual obligations, or other legal obligations could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales, and materially adversely affect our business.

We also expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws, regulations and industry standards concerning privacy, data protection and information security in the U.S., the EU and other jurisdictions, and we cannot yet determine the impact such future laws, regulations and standards may have on our business. Future laws, regulations, standards and other obligations, and changes in the interpretation of existing laws, regulations, standards and other obligations could impair our or our customers’ ability to collect, use or disclose information relating to consumers, which could decrease demand for our applications, increase our costs and impair our ability to maintain and grow our customer base and increase our revenue. New laws, amendments to or re-interpretations of existing laws and regulations, industry standards, contractual obligations and other obligations may require us to incur additional costs and restrict our business operations. Such laws and regulations may require companies to implement or update privacy and security policies, permit users to access, correct and delete personal information stored or maintained by such companies, inform individuals of security breaches that affect their personal information, and, in some cases, obtain individuals’ consent to use PII for certain purposes. In addition, a foreign government could require that any PII collected in a country not be disseminated outside of that country, and we are not currently equipped to comply with such a requirement. Other proposed legislation could, if enacted, impose additional requirements and prohibit the use of certain technologies that track individuals’ activities on web pages or that record when individuals click through to an internet address contained in an email message. Such laws and regulations could require us to change features of our software or restrict our customers’ ability to collect and use email addresses, page viewing data and personal information, which may reduce demand for our software. If we fail to comply with federal, state and international data privacy laws and regulations our ability to successfully operate our business and pursue our business goals could be harmed.

We also 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 also may be bound by additional, more stringent contractual obligations relating to our collection, use and disclosure of personal, financial and other data.

We are subject to contractual clauses that require us to comply with certain provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and we are subject to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and if we fail to comply with these laws, our reputation and business could be harmed.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, generally prohibits educational institutions that receive federal funding from disclosing PII from a student’s education records without the student’s consent. Through Canvas, our academic learning management application, our customers and users disclose to us certain information that may originate from or comprise a student education record, as the term is defined under FERPA. As an entity that provides services to institutions, we are often subject to contractual clauses that impose restrictions derived from FERPA on our ability to collect, process, transfer, disclose, and store student data, under which we may not transfer or otherwise disclose any PII from a student record to another party other than in a manner permitted under the statute. If we violate our obligations to any of our educational institution customers relating to the privacy of student records subject to FERPA, such a violation could constitute material breach of contract with one or more of our customers and could harm our reputation. Further, in the event that we disclose student information in a manner that results in a violation of FERPA by one of our educational customers, the U.S. Department of Education could require that customer to suspend our access to the customer’s student information that is covered under FERPA for a period of at least five years.

We are subject to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which applies to operators of commercial websites and online services directed to U.S. children under the age of 13 that collect personal information from children, and to operators of general audience websites with actual knowledge that they are collecting information from U.S. children under the age of 13. Canvas is directed, in part, at children under the age of 13. Through Canvas and other means, we collect certain personal information, including names and email addresses from children. COPPA is subject to interpretation by courts and other governmental authorities, including the FTC, and the FTC is authorized to promulgate, and has promulgated, revisions to regulations implementing provisions of COPPA, and provides non-binding interpretive guidance regarding COPPA that changes periodically with little or no public notice. Although we strive to ensure that our platform and applications are compliant with applicable COPPA provisions, these provisions may be modified, interpreted, or applied in new manners that we may be unable to anticipate or prepare for appropriately, and we may incur substantial costs or expenses in attempting to modify our systems, platform, applications, or other technology to address changes in COPPA or interpretations thereof. If we fail to accurately anticipate the application, interpretation or legislative expansion of COPPA we could be subject to governmental enforcement actions, litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity and we could be in breach of our customer contracts and our customers could lose trust in us, which could harm our reputation and business.

Third-party claims that we are infringing the intellectual property rights of others, whether successful or not, could subject us to costly and time-consuming litigation or require us to purchase expensive licenses, and our business could be harmed.

The software industry is characterized by the existence of a large number of patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property rights. Companies in the software industry must often defend against litigation claims based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. Third parties, including our competitors, may own patents or other intellectual property rights that cover aspects of our technology or business methods and may assert patent or other intellectual property rights within the industry. Moreover, in recent years, individuals and groups that are non-practicing entities, commonly referred to as “patent trolls,” have purchased patents and other intellectual property assets for the purpose of making claims of infringement in order to extract settlements. From time to time, we may receive threatening letters, notices or “invitations to license,” or may be the subject of claims that our services or software and underlying technology infringe or violate the intellectual property rights of others. Responding to such claims, regardless of their merit, can be time consuming, costly to defend in litigation, divert management’s attention and resources, damage our reputation and brand and cause us to incur significant expenses. Our technologies may not be able to withstand any third-party claims against their use. Claims of intellectual property infringement might require us to stop using technology found to be in violation of a third-party’s rights, redesign our application, which could require significant effort and expense, and cause delays of releases, enter into costly settlement or license agreements or pay costly damage awards, or face a temporary or permanent injunction prohibiting us from marketing or selling our software. If we cannot or do not license the infringed technology on reasonable terms or at all, or substitute similar technology from another source, we could be forced to limit or stop selling our software, we may not be able to meet our obligations to customers under our customer contracts, our revenue and operating results could be adversely impacted, and we may be unable to compete effectively. Additionally, our customers may not purchase our applications if they are concerned that they may infringe third-party intellectual property rights. The occurrence of any of these events may harm our business.

In our subscription agreements with our customers, we generally agree to indemnify our customers against any losses or costs incurred in connection with claims by a third-party alleging that the customer’s use of our services or software infringes the intellectual property rights of the third-party. Our customers who are accused of intellectual property infringement may seek indemnification from us. If any claim is successful, or if we are required to indemnify or defend our customers from any of these or other claims, these matters could be disruptive to our business and management and result in additional legal expenses.

The success of our business depends in part on our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights.

Our success is dependent, in part, upon protecting our proprietary technology. We do not own any patents and we rely on a combination of copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secret laws and contractual restrictions to establish and protect our proprietary rights in our applications and services. However, the steps we take to protect our intellectual property may be inadequate. We will not be able to protect our intellectual property if we are unable to enforce our rights or if we do not detect unauthorized use of our intellectual property. Any of our trademarks or other intellectual property rights may be challenged by others or invalidated through administrative process or litigation. Furthermore, legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property rights are uncertain. Despite our precautions, it may be possible for unauthorized third parties to copy our technology and use information that we regard as proprietary to create applications and services that compete with ours. Some license provisions protecting against unauthorized use, copying, transfer and disclosure of our offerings may be unenforceable under the laws of certain jurisdictions and foreign countries. Our corporate name and the name of our platform and applications have not been trademarked in each market where we operate and plan to operate. If we do not secure registrations for our trademarks, we may encounter more difficulty in enforcing them against third parties. Effective copyright, trademark and trade secret protection may not be available in every country in which our platform and applications are available. The laws of some foreign countries may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the United States, and mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be inadequate. To the extent we expand our international operations, our exposure to unauthorized copying and use of our technology and proprietary information may increase. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may be unable to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our technology and intellectual property.

Although we enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and consultants and enter into confidentiality agreements with the parties with whom we have strategic relationships and business alliances, no assurance can be given that these agreements will be effective in controlling access to and distribution of our applications and proprietary information or prevent reverse engineering. Further, these agreements may not prevent our competitors from independently developing technologies that are substantially equivalent or superior to our software and offerings, and we may be unable to prevent this competition.

We may be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect our intellectual property rights. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights and to protect our trade secrets. Such litigation could be costly, time consuming and distracting to management and could result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property. Furthermore, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property rights. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate. Any litigation, whether or not resolved in our favor, could subject us to substantial costs, divert resources and the attention of management and technical personnel from our business and adversely affect our business. Our inability to protect our proprietary technology against unauthorized copying or use, as well as any costly litigation, could delay further sales or the implementation of our software and offerings, impair the functionality of our software and offerings, delay introductions of new features or enhancements, result in our substituting inferior or more costly technologies into our software and offerings, or injure our reputation.

We could face liability, or our reputation might be harmed, as a result of the activities of our customers or users, the content in our platform or the data they store on our servers.

As a provider of cloud-based software, we may be subject to potential liability for the activities of our customers or users on or in connection with the data they store on our servers. Although our customer terms of use prohibit illegal use of our services by our customers and permit us to take down content or take other appropriate actions for illegal use, customers may nonetheless engage in prohibited activities or upload or store content with us in violation of applicable law or the customer’s own policies, which could subject us to liability or harm our reputation.

Various U.S. federal statutes may apply to us with respect to various customer activities. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, or DMCA, provides recourse for owners of copyrighted material who believe that their rights under U.S. copyright law have been infringed on the internet. Under the DMCA, based on our current business activity as an internet service provider that does not own or control website content posted by our customers, we generally are not liable for infringing content posted by our customers or other third parties, provided that we follow the procedures for handling copyright infringement claims set forth in the DMCA. Generally, if we receive a proper notice from, or on behalf, of a copyright owner alleging infringement of copyrighted material located on websites we host, and we fail to expeditiously remove or disable access to the allegedly infringing material or otherwise fail to meet the requirements of the safe harbor provided by the DMCA, the copyright owner may seek to impose liability on us. Technical mistakes in complying with the detailed DMCA take-down procedures, or if we fail to otherwise comply with the other requirements of the safe harbor, could subject us to liability for copyright infringement.

Although statutes and case law in the United States have generally shielded us from liability for customer activities to date, court rulings in pending or future litigation may narrow the scope of protection afforded us under these laws. In addition, laws governing these activities are unsettled in many international jurisdictions, or may prove difficult or impossible for us to comply with in some international jurisdictions. Also, notwithstanding the exculpatory language of these bodies of law, we may become involved in complaints and lawsuits which, even if ultimately resolved in our favor, add cost to our doing business and may divert management’s time and attention. Finally, other existing bodies of law, including the criminal laws of various states, may be deemed to apply or new statutes or regulations may be adopted in the future, any of which could expose us to further liability and increase our costs of doing business.

Additionally, our customers could use our platform or applications to store or process PII, including sensitive PII, without our knowledge of such storage or processing. In the event that our systems experience a data security incident, or an individual or entity accesses information without, or in excess of, proper authorization, we could be subject to data security incident notification laws, as described elsewhere, which may require prompt remediation and notification to individuals. If we are unaware of the data and information stored on our systems, we may be unable to appropriately comply with all legal obligations, and we may be exposed to governmental enforcement or prosecution actions, private litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity and these incidents could cause our customers to lose trust in us, which could harm our reputation and business.

Future acquisitions could disrupt our business and may divert management’s attention and if unsuccessful, harm our business.

We intend to expand by making acquisitions that could be material to our business. To date, we have only completed four acquisitions and our ability as an organization to successfully acquire and integrate technologies or businesses is limited. Acquisitions involve many risks, including the following:

We may not succeed in addressing these or other risks or any other problems encountered in connection with the integration of any acquired business. The inability to integrate successfully the business, technologies, products, personnel or operations of any acquired business, or any significant delay in achieving integration, could harm our business and operating results.

Our ability to raise capital in the future may be limited, and if we fail to raise capital when needed, we could be prevented from growing.

Our business and operations may consume resources faster than we anticipate. While we believe our cash, cash equivalents, short-term marketable securities and cash flows from operations will be sufficient to support our planned operations for at least the next 12 months, in the future, we may need to raise additional funds to invest in future growth opportunities. Additional financing may not be available on favorable terms, if at all. If adequate funds are not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to invest in future growth opportunities, which could harm our business and operating results. If we incur debt, the debt holders would have rights senior to common stockholders to make claims on our assets. In addition, our credit facility imposes, and future debt instruments may impose, restrictions on our ability to dispose property, make changes in our business, engage in mergers or acquisitions, incur additional indebtedness, and make investments and distributions. Furthermore, if we issue additional equity securities, stockholders will experience dilution, and the new equity securities could have rights senior to those of our common stock. Because our decision to issue securities in any future offering will depend on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing or nature of our future offerings. As a result, stockholders bear the risk that future securities offerings reduce the market price of our common stock and dilute their interest.

We may be subject to additional obligations to collect and remit sales tax and other taxes, and we may be subject to tax liability for past sales, which could harm our business.

State, local and foreign jurisdictions have differing rules and regulations governing sales, use, value added and other taxes, and these rules and regulations are subject to varying interpretations that may change over time. In particular, the applicability of such taxes to our learning management software in various jurisdictions is unclear. Further, these jurisdictions’ rules regarding tax nexus are complex and vary significantly. As a result, we could face the possibility of tax assessments and audits, and our liability for these taxes and associated penalties could exceed our original estimates. A successful assertion that we should be collecting additional sales, use, value added or other taxes in those jurisdictions where we have not historically done so and do not accrue for such taxes could result in substantial tax liabilities and related penalties for past sales, discourage customers from purchasing our application or otherwise harm our business and operating results.

Changes in tax laws or regulations that are applied adversely to us or our customers could increase the costs of learning management software and adversely impact our business.

New income, sales, use or other tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations or ordinances could be enacted at any time. Any new taxes could adversely affect our domestic and international business operations, and our business and financial performance. Further, existing tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations or ordinances could be interpreted, changed, modified or applied adversely to us. These events could require us or our customers to pay additional tax amounts on a prospective or retroactive basis, as well as require us or our customers to pay fines or penalties and interest for past amounts deemed to be due. If we raise our prices to offset the costs of these changes, existing and potential future customers may elect not to purchase our learning management platform or applications in the future. Additionally, new, changed, modified or newly interpreted or applied tax laws could increase our customers’ and our compliance, operating and other costs, as well as the costs of our software. Any or all of these events could harm our business and operating results.

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

As of December 31, 2019, we had approximately $393.6 million and $430.2 million of federal and state net operating loss carryforwards, respectively, available to reduce future taxable income that will begin to expire in 2028 for federal purposes and 2020 for state tax purposes. These net operating loss carryforwards could expire unused and be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities. Under the newly enacted federal income tax law, federal net operating losses incurred in 2018 and in future years may be carried forward indefinitely, but the deductibility of such federal net operating losses is limited. It is uncertain if and to what extent various states will conform to the newly enacted federal tax law. In addition, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, and corresponding provisions of state law, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” which is generally defined as a greater than 50% change, by value, in its equity ownership over a three-year period, the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes to offset its post-change income or taxes may be limited. We may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of subsequent shifts in our stock ownership, some of which may be outside of our control. If an ownership change occurs and our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards is materially limited, it would harm our future operating results by effectively increasing our future tax obligations.

We are a multinational organization faced with increasingly complex tax issues in many jurisdictions, and we could be obligated to pay additional taxes in various jurisdictions.

As a multinational organization, we are subject to taxation in several jurisdictions around the world with increasingly complex tax laws, the application of which can be uncertain. The amount of taxes we pay in these jurisdictions could increase substantially as a result of changes in the applicable tax principles, including increased tax rates, new tax laws or revised interpretations of existing tax laws and precedents, which could harm our liquidity and operating results. In addition, the authorities in these jurisdictions could review our tax returns and impose additional tax, interest and penalties, and the authorities could claim that various withholding requirements apply to us or our subsidiaries or assert that benefits of tax treaties are not available to us or our subsidiaries, any of which could adversely affect our operating results.

Our stock price has been and will likely continue to be volatile and may decline regardless of our operating performance.

The trading price of our common stock has been, and is likely to continue to be, volatile for the foreseeable future. For example, during 2019, our common stock’s daily price on the New York Stock Exchange has ranged from $36.49 to $54.31. The market price of our common stock may fluctuate significantly in response to numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control, including:

In addition, the stock markets have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many technology companies, including providers of cloud-based software. Stock prices of many technology companies have fluctuated in a manner unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies.

In the past, stockholders have instituted securities class action litigation following periods of market volatility. If we were to become involved in securities litigation, it could subject us to substantial costs, divert resources and the attention of management and harm our business.

Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market could occur at any time. If our stockholders sell, or the market perceives that our stockholders intend to sell, substantial amounts of our common stock in the public market, the market price of our common stock could decline. We are unable to predict the effect that such sales may have on the prevailing market price of our common stock.

As of December 31, 2019, we had options outstanding that, if fully exercised, would result in the issuance of 600,598 shares of common stock and RSUs outstanding that, upon vesting, would result in the issuance of 2,583,736 shares of common stock. In addition, as of December 31, 2019, there were 1,863,789 shares of common stock reserved for future issuance under our 2015 Equity Incentive Plan and 602,094 shares of common stock reserved for issuance under our 2015 Employee Stock Purchase Plan. The authorized number of shares under both such benefit plans are subject to automatic annual increases in the number of shares of common stock reserved for future issuance on January 1 of each year.

Further, as part of our acquisition of Practice we assumed Practice’s 2014 Equity Incentive Plan (the “Practice 2014 Plan”). No shares are available for issuance under the Practice 2014 Plan; however, any outstanding options granted under the Practice 2014 Plan will remain outstanding and subject to the terms of that plan until exercised, terminated or expired by their terms. As of December 31, 2019, options to purchase 381 shares of common stock remained outstanding under the Practice 2014 Plan.

Additionally, as part of our acquisition of Portfolium, Inc. (“Portfolium”), we assumed Portfolium’s 2014 Equity Incentive Plan (the “Portfolium 2014 Plan”). No shares are available for issuance under the Portfolium 2014 Plan; however, any outstanding options granted under the Portfolium 2014 Plan will remain outstanding and subject to the terms of that plan until exercised, terminated or expired by their terms. As of December 31, 2019, options to purchase 25,492 shares of common stock remained outstanding under the Portfolium 2014 Plan.

The concentration of our stock ownership will likely limit your ability to influence corporate matters, including the ability to influence the outcome of director elections and other matters requiring stockholder approval.

Based upon shares outstanding as of December 31, 2019, our executive officers, directors and the holders of more than 5% of our outstanding common stock, in the aggregate, beneficially owned approximately 36.5% of our common stock. As a result, these stockholders, acting together, will have significant influence over all matters that require approval by our stockholders, including the election of directors and approval of significant corporate transactions. Corporate actions might be taken even if other stockholders oppose them. This concentration of ownership might also have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control of our company that other stockholders may view as beneficial.

If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or if they downgrade our common stock, the price of our common stock could decline.

The trading market for our common stock depends, in part, on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our stock, publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business or cease to maintain coverage, our stock price would likely decline. In addition, if our operating results fail to meet the forecast of analysts, our stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our common stock could decrease, which might cause our stock price and trading volume to decline.

If we do not continue to develop effective internal controls, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results and our business could be harmed.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we assess the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting annually and the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures quarterly. In particular, Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or Section 404, requires us to perform system and process evaluation and testing of our internal control over financial reporting to allow management to report on, and our independent registered public accounting firm to attest to, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. If we are not able to comply with the requirements of Section 404 applicable to us, or if we or our independent registered public accounting firm identifies deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses, the market price of our stock could decline and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources.

Investor perceptions of our company may suffer if material weaknesses are found, and this could cause a decline in the market price of our common stock. Irrespective of compliance with Section 404, any failure of our internal control over financial reporting could harm our operating results and reputation. If we are unable to implement these requirements effectively or efficiently, it could harm our operations, financial reporting, or financial results and could result in an adverse opinion on our internal controls from our independent registered public accounting firm.

Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws and under Delaware law might discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our management and, therefore, depress the trading price of our common stock.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could depress the trading price of our common stock by acting to discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our management that the stockholders of our company may deem advantageous. These provisions:

Additionally, we are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which generally prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any of a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder and which may discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our company.

Any provision of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, bylaws or Delaware law that has the effect of delaying or deterring a change in control could limit the opportunity for our stockholders to receive a premium for their shares of our common stock, and could also affect the price that some investors are willing to pay for our common stock.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for: any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf; any action asserting a breach of fiduciary duty; any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our bylaws; or any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine. The choice of forum provision may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers or other employees, which may discourage such lawsuits against us and our directors, officer and other employees. If a court were to find the choice of forum provision contained in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our business and financial condition.

We lease space for our corporate headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah pursuant to leases that expire in February 2025 and October 2027. We also lease space in Chicago, Illinois, Pleasant Grove, Utah, Seattle, Washington, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with leases that expire through 2028. We maintain our international headquarters in London, England and sales offices in Sydney, Australia, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Budapest, Hungary. We believe our facilities are adequate for our current needs.

We are, and from time to time may be, party to litigation and subject to claims incident to the ordinary course of business. As our growth continues, we may become party to an increasing number of litigation matters and claims. The outcome of litigation and claims cannot be predicted with certainty, and the resolution of these matters could materially affect our future results of operations, cash flows or financial position. We are not presently party to any legal proceedings that in the opinion of management, if determined adversely to us, would individually or taken together have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition or cash flows.

Provided, however, between January 13, 2020 and January 30, 2020, five lawsuits were filed by purported stockholders of Instructure challenging the proposed acquisition of Instructure by Thoma Bravo. The first and second lawsuit, brought as putative class actions, are captioned Post v. Instructure, Inc., et al., No. 1:20-cv-00034 (D. Del. filed Jan. 13, 2020) and Zhang v. Instructure, Inc., et al., No. 1:20-cv-00042 (D. Del. filed Jan. 13, 2020). The third, fourth, and fifth lawsuits, brought by the plaintiffs individually, are captioned Bushansky v. Instructure, Inc., et al., No. 3:20-cv-00113 (S.D. Cal. filed Jan. 16, 2020); Domenico v. Instructure, Inc. et al., No. 2:20-cv-00814 (D.N.J. filed Jan. 24, 2020); and Rubin v. Instructure, Inc., et al., No. 3:20-cv-00193 (S.D. Cal. filed Jan. 30, 2020) (collectively, the “Complaints”). The Complaints name as defendants Instructure and each member of the Board. The Complaints allege violations of Section 14(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) and Rule 14a-9 promulgated thereunder against all defendants, and assert violations of Section 20(a) of the Exchange Act against the individual defendants. The Zhang complaint additionally alleges claims for breach of fiduciary duty against the individual defendants and an aiding and abetting claim against Instructure. The plaintiffs contend that Instructure’s revised definitive proxy statement (the “Proxy Statement”) filed with the SEC on January 7, 2020 omitted or misrepresented material information regarding the Merger. The complaints seek injunctive relief, rescission or rescissory damages, and an award of plaintiffs’ costs, including attorneys’ fees and expenses. The Post and Rubin complaints also seek dissemination of a proxy statement that discloses certain information requested by those plaintiffs. On February 5, 2020, Instructure filed an amendment to the Proxy Statement, which contained certain supplemental disclosures intended to moot plaintiffs’ disclosure claims. On February 5, 2020, the plaintiff in the Post action voluntarily dismissed his case. We believe the claims asserted in the complaints are without merit, and that the outcome of these proceedings will not have a material impact on our consolidated results of operations, cash flows, or financial position. However, any litigation is inherently uncertain, and any judgment or injunctive relief entered against us or any adverse settlement could materially and adversely impact our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

Our common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “INST.”

As of February 24, 2020, there were approximately 114 holders of record of our common stock. The actual number of stockholders is greater than this number of record holders and includes stockholders who are beneficial owners but whose shares are held in street name by brokers and other nominees.

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock. We intend to retain all available funds and future earnings, if any, to fund the development and expansion of our business and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. The terms of our credit facility also restrict our ability to pay dividends, and we may also enter into debt instruments in the future that will restrict our ability to declare or pay cash dividends on our common stock. Any future determination related to dividend policy will be made at the discretion of our board of directors and will be dependent on a number of factors, including our earnings, capital requirements and overall financial condition. Additionally, the Merger Agreement generally restricts, subject to certain limited exceptions, including, without limitation, Parent’s prior written consent, our ability to pay any dividend on our common stock during the interim period between the execution of the Merger Agreement and the effective time of the Merger (or the date on which the Merger Agreement is earlier terminated).

The following graph compares the performance of our common stock for the period indicated with the performance of the S&P 500 and the S&P 1500 Application Software Index. This graph assumes an investment of $100 at the close of market on November 13, 2015 in each of our common stock, the S&P 500 and the S&P 1500 Application Software Index, and assumes reinvestment of dividends, if any. The stock price performance shown on the graph below is not necessarily indicative of future stock price performance.

This information under “Stock Performance Graph” is not deemed filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and is not to be incorporated by reference in any filing of Instructure, Inc. under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, whether made before or after the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and irrespective of any general incorporation language in those filings.

Other than previously disclosed, we did not sell any unregistered securities during the year ended December 31, 2019. We did repurchase 72,000 shares for tax withholdings on vesting of restricted stock.

You should read the selected consolidated financial data below in conjunction with “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and the consolidated financial statements, related notes and other financial information included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The selected consolidated financial data in this section are not intended to replace the consolidated financial statements and are qualified in their entirety by the consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

The consolidated statement of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, and the consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2019 and 2018, are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The consolidated statement of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, and the consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements not included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2017 and 2016 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements adjusted for the adoption of the ASC 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (ASC 606). The consolidated statement of operations data and consolidated balance sheet data as of and for the year ended December 31, 2015 is derived from our audited consolidated financial statements, which have not been adjusted for ASC 606.

	Year Ended December 31,
	2019			2018			2017			2016			**2015
							*As Adjusted			*As Adjusted
	(in thousands, except per share data)
Consolidated Statements of Operations Data:
Revenue:
Subscription and support	$	236,241		$	188,501		$	144,108		$	100,270		$	62,463
Professional services and other		22,232			21,043			16,867			12,347			10,730
Total revenue		258,473			209,544			160,975			112,617			73,193
Cost of revenue:
Subscription and support^(1)(2)(3)		64,170			46,706			34,351			24,252			17,682
Professional services and other⁽¹⁾		18,656			15,137			12,211			8,750			6,391
Total cost of revenue		82,826			61,843			46,562			33,002			24,073
Gross profit		175,647			147,701			114,413			79,615			49,120
Operating expenses:
Sales and marketing^(1)(2)(3)		121,643			97,481			78,726			65,907			53,459
Research and development^(1)(2)(3)		83,526			59,391			48,293			35,973			24,151
General and administrative^(1)(2)(4)		56,471			35,602			31,196			25,542			23,482
Total operating expenses		261,640			192,474			158,215			127,422			101,092
Loss from operations		(85,993	)		(44,773	)		(43,802	)		(47,807	)		(51,972	)
Other income (expense):
Interest income		1,795			2,413			361			352			39
Interest expense		(16	)		(68	)		(55	)		(87	)		(74	)
Other income (expense), net		(225	)		(698	)		257			(343	)		(854	)
Total other income (expense), net		1,554			1,647			563			(78	)		(889	)
Loss before income tax benefit (expense)		(84,439	)		(43,126	)		(43,239	)		(47,885	)		(52,861	)
Income tax benefit (expense)		3,620			(339	)		155			(317	)		(117	)
Net loss	$	(80,819	)	$	(43,465	)	$	(43,084	)	$	(48,202	)	$	(52,978	)

	Year Ended December 31,
	2019			2018			2017			2016			**2015
							*As Adjusted			*As Adjusted
	(in thousands, except per share data)
Deemed dividends to investors	$	—		$	—		$	—		$	—		$	(632	)
Net loss attributable to common stockholders	$	(80,819	)	$	(43,465	)	$	(43,084	)	$	(48,202	)	$	(53,610	)
Net loss per common share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted	$	(2.19	)	$	(1.27	)	$	(1.47	)	$	(1.73	)	$	(6.07	)
Weighted-average common shares used in computing basic and diluted net loss per common share attributable to common stockholders		36,892			34,248			29,401			27,838			8,838

	Year Ended December 31,
	2019		2018		2017		2016		2015
	(in thousands)
Cost of revenue:
Subscription and support	$	1,769	$	1,235	$	762	$	488	$	177
Professional services and other		2,111		975		596		474		166
Sales and marketing		15,098		6,022		4,331		3,030		1,228
Research and development		19,550		8,338		6,023		3,862		1,403
General and administrative		17,984		6,177		3,958		2,820		6,262
Total stock-based compensation	$	56,512	$	22,747	$	15,670	$	10,674	$	9,236

PART I
Item 1.	Business	1
Item 1A.	Risk Factors	13
Item 1B.	Unresolved Staff Comments	35
Item 2.	Properties	35
Item 3.	Legal Proceedings	35
Item 4.	Mine Safety Disclosures	36
PART II
Item 5.	Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholders Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities	37
Item 6.	Selected Consolidated Financial Data	39
Item 7.	Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations	43
Item 7A.	Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk	56
Item 8.	Financial Statements and Supplementary Data	57
Item 9.	Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure	88
Item 9A.	Controls and Procedures	88
Item 9B.	Other Information	88
PART III
Item 10.	Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance	89
Item 11.	Executive Compensation	89
Item 12.	Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters	89
Item 13.	Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence	89
Item 14.	Principal Accountant Fees and Services	89
PART IV
Item 15.	Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules	90
Item 16.	Form 10-K Summary	92
	Signatures	93