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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

☒ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023

OR

☐TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For The Transition Period From              To

Commission file number: 001-41248

KNIGHTSCOPE, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

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Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (650) 924-1025

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

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Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

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 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.

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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 has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☐

If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐

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

As of June 30, 2023, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, the aggregate market value of the registrant’s Class A Common Stock held by non-affiliates based upon the closing price of such shares on The Nasdaq Global Market on such date was approximately $ 33 million. For purposes of the foregoing calculation, all directors and executive officers of the registrant and holders of more than 10% of the registrant’s Class A Common Stock are assumed to be affiliates of the registrant. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.

As of March 29, 2024, there were 93,310,259 shares of the registrant’s Class A Common Stock and 9,357,822 shares of the registrant’s Class B Common Stock outstanding.

Documents Incorporated by Reference

Part III incorporates certain information by reference from the registrant’s proxy statement for the 2024 annual meeting of stockholders to be filed no later than 120 days after the end of the registrant’s fiscal year ended December 31, 2023.

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SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Annual Report on Form 10-K (this “Annual Report”) contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We intend such forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”) and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). All statements contained in this Annual Report other than statements of historical fact, including statements regarding our future operating results and financial position, our business strategy and plans, market growth, product and service releases, the status of product development, and our objectives for future operations, are forward-looking statements. In some cases the words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “potential,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “could,” “would,” “project,” “plan,” “target,” or the negative of these terms and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report include, but are not limited to, statements about:

We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations and projections about future events and trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, short-term and long-term business operations and objectives, and financial needs. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and assumptions and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those stated, including those described in the sections titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 and “Risk Factors” in Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report, as such factors may be updated in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, (“the SEC”). Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time. It is not possible for our management to predict all risks, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements we may make. In light of these risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, the future events and trends discussed in this Annual Report may not occur and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements.

You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. The events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements may not be achieved or occur. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, performance, or achievements. Our forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this Annual Report, and we undertake no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this Annual Report or to conform these statements to actual results or revised expectations, except as required by law.

In this Annual Report, the words “we,” “us,” “our,” “the Company” and “Knightscope” refer to Knightscope, Inc., unless the context requires otherwise.

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SUMMARY RISK FACTORS

Our business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including those described in Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report. You should carefully consider these risks and uncertainties when investing in our common stock. The principal risks and uncertainties affecting our business include the following:

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PART I

Item 1. Business

Overview

Knightscope, Inc. is a Silicon Valley based technology company that designs, builds, and deploys solutions to enhance public safety. Knightscope products include ASRs and ECDs consisting of fully integrated, solar powered wireless emergency blue light towers (“BLT”), blue light emergency phones (“E-Phones”), and emergency call box systems (“Call Boxes”). Our technologies are made in the United States of America (“USA”) and are designed to enable public safety professionals to more effectively deter, intervene, capture, and prosecute criminals. Our mission is to make the USA the safest country in the world by helping protect the people, places, and things where people live, work, study and visit.

To support this mission, we design, develop, manufacture, market, deploy, and support ASRs and ECDs, with our proprietary Knightscope Security Operations Center (“KSOC”) and Knightscope Emergency Management System (“KEMS”) software user interfaces. Our ASRs and ECDs are designed to deter, detect, and report security incidents, providing innovative solutions for public safety at various venues, including convention centers, casinos, resorts, college campuses, corporate campuses and other public spaces.

We are a Delaware corporation, founded in April 2013. Our headquarters is located in Silicon Valley at 1070 Terra Bella Ave, Mountain View, CA 94043 and our telephone number is (650) 679-7626 and our website is www.knightscope.com.

Strategy

The Knightscope management team intends to continue its focus on organic growth as well as add to its core solutions portfolio through future, opportunistic acquisitions based on a target’s revenue, free cash flow, technology, talent, and facilities as well as strategic partnerships to achieve its mission.

In 2022, we completed the acquisition of Case Emergency Systems (“CASE”), a manufacturer of blue light emergency communication devices, and market the products under the portfolio of “K1B” emergency communication devices. Positioned to enhance Knightscope offerings, the K1B technologies are designed for reliability and ease of use in critical situations, providing one-touch connections to emergency services. They are solar-powered, weatherproof, and can operate wirelessly via cellular or satellite technology, making them suitable for a wide range of environments. With an installed base of nearly 10,000 devices across the USA, K1B technologies significantly enhance safety and security in public spaces by allowing individuals to quickly contact emergency services or security personnel with the push of a button on any K1B device. Our technologies aim to build on each other to create safer environments through proactive monitoring and reactive emergency communication capabilities. By integrating autonomous security with robust emergency communication systems, organizations can offer comprehensive safety solutions that are adaptive, responsive, and effective in a wide range of scenarios.

Use cases for our combined suite of ASR and K1B technologies include a wide variety of applications where a 24/7 presence, accessible emergency communication, and deterrence can assist public safety officials with incidents, disturbances, medical emergencies, theft, trespassing, fire, talk downs, and promote an overall feeling of improved safety. Areas where our products and services can be useful include, but are not limited to:

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Our core technologies are suitable for most environments that require law enforcement or security patrol coverage and designed to be force multipliers that offer public safety teams improved situational awareness. ASRs and ECDs conduct real-time on-site data collection and analysis in both indoor and outdoor spaces delivering alerts to security professionals through the KSOC and KEMS. The KSOC and KEMS software applications enable clients with appropriate credentials and user permissions to access the data for investigative and evidence collection purposes.

Our K1B portfolio of Emergency Communication Devices consist of the K1 Blue Light Towers, K1 Blue Light Emergency Phones, and K1 Call Boxes. Tower devices are tall, highly visible and recognizable apparatuses that provide emergency communications using cellular and satellite communications with solar power for additional safety in remote locations. E-Phones and Call Boxes offer a smaller, yet still highly visible, footprint than the towers, but with the same reliable communication capabilities.

We sell our ASRs and stationary multi-purpose security solutions under an annual all-inclusive subscription, Machine-as-a-Service (“MaaS”) business model, which includes the ASR machine as well as maintenance, service, support, data transfer, KSOC access, charging stations, and unlimited software, firmware and select hardware upgrades.

Our stationary K1B technologies are sold as point-of-sale modular systems, including Knightscope’s exclusive, self-diagnostic, alarm monitoring system, KEMS, that provides system owners daily email reports on the operational status of their system, a one-year parts warranty, and optional installation services. Modular upgrades are available for the blue light towers, such as public announcement speaker systems. Knightscope also offers an extended warranty on this series of stationary public safety towers.

Industry background

In the USA, there are more than 11,000 private security firms and approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies – a fragmented marketplace relying primarily on humans to safeguard people and assets primarily through monitoring and patrol activities. We believe that our products offer a better economic proposition for our clients relative to a solely human guard or a mobile vehicle patrol unit operating 24/7, enabling the estimated 2.5 million law enforcement and security professionals to focus on strategic decision-making and enforcement.

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Products

ASRs and ECDs

K3 and K5 ASRs

The K3 ASR and K5 ASR are designed to roam a geo-fenced area autonomously by utilizing numerous sensors and lasers, either on a random basis or based on a particular patrolling algorithm. They can successfully navigate around people, vehicles and objects in dynamic indoor or outdoor environments. To do this, the ASRs employ several autonomous motion and self-driving technologies, including lasers, ultrasonic sensors, inertial measurement unit (“IMU”), and wheel encoders integrated into a navigation software stack enabling autonomy. Each ASR can generate 1 to 2 terabytes of data per week and over 90 terabytes of data per year, which is accessible for review and analysis via the KSOC. Clients can recall, review, and save the data for analysis, forensic or archival purposes. Each ASR can autonomously charge and recharge on a 24-hour basis, 7 days per week without human intervention. Clients may also utilize the patrol scheduler feature on the KSOC to schedule periodic or regular patrols during certain times for alternative patrol routes.

The approximate dimensions of the K5 are as follows: Height: 5 feet, Width: 3 feet, Weight: 398 pounds.

The K5 is designed to be used primarily outdoors in such environments as open air malls, corporate campuses, hospitals, stadiums, retailers, warehouses, logistics facilities, college campuses, airports, train stations and multi-level parking structures. The K5’s advanced anomaly detection features include:

The approximate dimensions of the K3 are as follows: Height: 4 feet, Width: 2 feet, Weight: 340 pounds.

The K3 is tailored for indoor usage, allowing it to autonomously navigate complex dynamic indoor environments such as an indoor mall, office building, manufacturing facility, hospital, stadium plaza, warehouse or school. It has the same suite of advanced anomaly detection capabilities as the K5, but the parking utilization, parking meter and license plate recognition features are turned off.

The ASRs include several communications features. The units can transfer data over both 4G LTE networks and Private LTE. The company is also developing capabilities to operate over 5G networks for planned deployment in the future. Each one has an available intercom that may be used for two-way communication with a public safety team. In addition, one or multiple units may be used as a live broadcast public address system or to deliver pre-recorded messages based on time, location, detection or randomly.

The ASRs run on rechargeable batteries. They are configured to patrol autonomously for approximately two to three hours, following which, without human intervention, the ASRs find and dock to a charging station, recharging for approximately 20 minutes or more before resuming patrol. The ASRs remain operational during the charging period, providing 24/7 uptime to clients.

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K1 Tower

The K1 Tower carries all the relevant features from the K5 but in a large stationary format. The K1 can be used indoors or outdoors and especially at ingress/egress points for both people and vehicles.

The approximate dimensions of the K1 are: Height: 6 feet, Width: 3 feet, Weight: 150 pounds.

K1 Hemisphere

The new K1 Hemisphere, with its smaller profile, is a stationary unit designed for both indoor and outdoor use. The Hemisphere can easily be mounted to a variety of surfaces or objects and has 3 cameras that provide up to 210-degrees of eye-level, high-definition video, a strobe light, automatic license plate recognition, facial recognition (optional), automated broadcast announcements, and intercom capability running on a wired or wireless network.

The dimensions of the K1 Hemisphere are: Diameter: 24 inches, Depth: 10 inches, Weight: 30 pounds.

K1 Blue Light Tower

The K1 Blue Light Tower emergency phone is for outdoor use and delivers completely wireless emergency phone operation, 24/7/365, even in harsh weather conditions with voice connectivity, broadcast warning capability, a flashing strobe, and night area illumination to assist responders in locating callers.

The approximate dimensions of the K1 Blue Light Tower are: Height: 12 feet, Width: less than one foot, Weight: 208 pounds.

K1 Blue Light Emergency Phone

The K1 Blue Light Emergency Phone is a compact, full-featured emergency calling solution for indoor and outdoor use. It is ideally suited for areas with limited space and offers one-touch connectivity and a high-visibility blue strobe in places tower designs may not fit. The E-Phone enhances public safety by providing robust, reliable, and clear voice-to-voice communication over a cellular network.

The dimensions of the K1 Blue Light Emergency Phone are: Height: 31.5 inches, Width: 10.5 inches, Weight: 52 pounds.

K1 Call Box

The K1 Call Box is our smallest emergency call box system, delivering one-touch connection with a simple housing and interface. Call Boxes are typically mounted to a pole for outdoor use and can be outfitted with solar charging capabilities. Like all Knightscope emergency communications devices, it can provide a completely wireless solution for emergency phone calls, or it can be adapted to work with existing nearby wiring. Designed to work with hands-free ease, a handset, and TTY pad are additional options available on this device.

The dimensions of the K1 Call Box are: Height: 19.6 inches, Width: 15.3 inches, Weight: 47.4 pounds.

KSOC

The KSOC is our intuitive, browser-based interface that, coupled with our ASRs, and other line of products, provides our clients and security professionals with “smart mobile eyes and ears and voice – on the ground”. Once alerted of an abnormal event, such as a person spotted during a specific time in a particular location, authorized users can view the live stream of data in the KSOC from each of the ASRs in the user’s network, accessing it from a 911 dispatch center, security operations center or a remote laptop.

KEMS

The KEMS platform allows clients and technicians to better understand the real-time health and status of K1 Blue Light Towers, E-Phones and Call Boxes in network. The cloud-based application monitors the system wide state-of-health, alerts users of operational issues, provides technicians with real-time error detection/diagnostics, and collects/reports system performance statics.

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KNOC

The Company has built a custom set of tools that enables our employees to manage and monitor the network of ASRs and other Knightscope technologies operating in the field nationwide, which it refers to as the Knightscope Network Operations Center (“KNOC”). These tools allow our team to monitor the health of the ASRs down to the millisecond, with dozens of alerts related to critical indicators and statistics, including charging, software, navigation and temperatures. We also use the KNOC to execute over-the-air software upgrades, patches and other related items. The KNOC is staffed 24/7 by the Company in the U.S.

Knightscope+

Knightscope+ is a virtual monitoring and response solution providing an alternative for client sites that do not have the resources to receive and respond to alerts generated by Knightscope’s ASRs and other products. The service enables a full-service solution for ASR clients, including but not limited to, alerts, broadcast messaging, and two-way communications. Knightscope+ operators have extensive training and experience related to remote monitoring for greater situational awareness. Remote monitoring is an optional service that can be bundled into MaaS subscriptions.

Products in Development

The Company recently announced that its K7 multi-terrain ASR is under concept development. The K7 is expected to have the same features as the K5, but to employ four wheels for use on more rugged outdoor terrain such as dirt, sand, gravel and much larger environments. We expect that the K7 could be utilized at airfields, power utilities, borders, solar farms, wind farms or oil or gas fields as well as at numerous existing clients. While this technology builds on a great deal of our technology stack, we anticipate that its development will require significant additional time and resources before it can be launched into full-scale production.

Clients

Knightscope clients use the Company’s technology to protect people and assets. Our products are designed to enhance safety in public and private places by providing rapid communication and monitoring capabilities to small or large, remote, and inhospitable environments. The Company’s clients use Knightscope products to monitor or respond to medical emergencies, weather-related issues, and natural disasters, as well as to discourage, detect, and alert them of potential criminal activity.

Knightscope’s ASRs, and K1B ECDs provide our clients with the ability to augment their existing security infrastructure, enabling human security resources to be more strategic in their approach to security. Our ASRs, and ECDs have been deployed across a broad range of clients, including but not limited to casinos, corporations, law enforcement, municipalities, universities, and property management companies. In addition, Knightscope continues to partner with strategic resellers for our K1B portfolio, such as value-added resellers offering safety equipment looking to augment the security solutions offered to their customers with advanced technology.

Marketing and Sales

The Company has been able to successfully sell new contracts through virtual private demonstrations and live demonstrations with decision makers utilizing its innovative “Robot Roadshow” which has been instrumental in securing stakeholder ‘buy in’ to help close more contracts. The initiative entails a cross-country tour of a physical “Pod” housing numerous ASRs, the K1 Blue Light Emergency Phone, and Knightscope’s new Automated Gunshot Detection system, providing a one-on-one hybrid offline/online selling technique with in-person robots and telepresence and/or onsite sales staff.

On January 3, 2024, the Company announced that it achieved an Authority-to-Operate (“ATO”) from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (“FedRAMP”). The federal government adopted the Cloud First Policy, which requires all cloud service providers that hold federal data to be FedRAMP certified. FedRAMP compliance is one of the factors that enables Knightscope to do business with federal agencies.

We regularly advertise in the media through various online and offline channels.

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Research and Development

Our research and development efforts focus primarily on the development of robust base technology, new technology as well as scaling efforts. In addition, we will continue to enhance our ASR and K1B, capabilities and features, and the functionality of the KSOC and KEMSs software platforms. In January 2024, we received our ATO from FedRAMP, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. FedRAMP is a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. FedRAMP compliance is one of the factors that enables Knightscope to do business with federal agencies. This achievement means that Knightscope can be listed on the FedRAMP Marketplace as an approved provider for federal agencies as a next step and can also begin its deployment processes to perform on the contract awarded by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (the “VA”) for its first K5 GOV.  The K5 GOV is an ASR exclusively developed for the U.S. Federal Government.

Intellectual Property

The Company holds twelve patents collectively covering its ASRs, the security data analysis and display features of the KSOC and its parking monitor feature. The Company also has pending patent applications relating to its ASRs, KSOC, parking monitor feature, behavioral autonomous technology and the ASRs’ behavioral autonomous technology relating to visible weapon detection. The Company owns a trademark registration for its name “Knightscope” in the U.S. On August 10, 2021, the Company filed two trademark applications (Serial Numbers: 90875695 for LONG KNIGHTSCOPE. SHORT THE CRIMINALS and 90875697 for $KSCP). The Company relies and expects to continue to rely on a combination of confidentiality agreements with its employees, consultants, and third parties with whom it has relationships, as well as trademark, copyright, patent, trade secret, and domain name protection laws, to protect its proprietary rights.

Manufacturing and Suppliers

Knightscope assembles its ASRs at its Mountain View, California headquarters and ECDs in Downey and Irvine, California from components manufactured by more than 100 suppliers. The Company’s top three suppliers, measured by spending, are Alco Metal Fab, based in Santa Ana, California, Advanced Interconnection Technologies, based in Anaheim, California, and E and M Electric and Machinery Inc., based in Healdsburg, California. The Company is not highly dependent on any one supplier and believes it can source components from other suppliers and has done so when necessary.

In order to optimize our ability to serve our clients, we have partnered with one of our strategic investors, Konica Minolta, Inc., among others, to train their technicians to service, maintain and support our machines-in-network and assist us with our nationwide scaling efforts. As our fleet of deployed ASRs and K1B devices grows, the Company has engaged additional third-party service providers with broad geographic footprints to support our clients.

We believe that by opting to outsource field services, Knightscope is able to laser-focus on what we do best: innovation and product development. This strategic move not only streamlines our operations but also grants us access to specialized expertise and reach without the overhead of developing these capabilities in-house. We believe that this is a cost-effective approach that transforms fixed expenses into variable ones, offering the flexibility to scale operations in response to ever-changing market demands. Moreover, it reduces the burden of compliance and regulatory risks, allowing us to penetrate new markets with the aid of partners who have established local networks and expertise. Ultimately, outsourcing empowers us to dedicate more resources to strategic planning and innovation, allowing us to focus on staying ahead in the competitive technology landscape.

Competition

At the moment, we are not aware of any direct competitors for our ASR products in the advanced physical security technology space that have viable commercial products in the USA, addressing both outdoor and indoor applications, at the same scale as Knightscope. It is a common misconception outside of the security industry that we compete against closed-circuit television (“CCTV”) providers. We do not believe that they are competitive products because cameras do not provide a physical presence, are typically used for forensics after an event, and do not offer a client the plethora of capabilities available with our technologies. We believe that having these two types of systems working together provide a more holistic approach to promoting safety and reducing crime. While traditional human guards provide a closer competitor in some cases, we believe that utilizing our “Software, Hardware, Humans” approach is much more effective.

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We are aware of a start-up, SMP Robotics Services Corp. (“SMP”), which produces an outdoor autonomous security platform that it markets through third-party distributors which has primarily been focused on international markets but appears to be attempting re-entry to the U.S. market. We had previously listed Gamma 2 Robotics and SHARP Electronics as potential competitors in this space. However, according to industry sources, we understand that both Gamma 2 Robotics and SHARP Electronics have ceased operations in the security robot space after failed attempts to enter the market. Cobalt Robotics, a company exclusively focused on indoor applications, may be considered a partial competitor. Additionally, Turing AI has recently begun offering an indoor-only robot and Robotic Assistance Devices, a subsidiary of Artificial Intelligence Technology Solutions has continued to grow its stationary fixed device offerings, similar to other fixed solutions, such as those offered by Verkada. Flock Safety provides advanced security and surveillance solutions primarily focused on license plate reading and vehicle recognition technology, though they do not offer the mobility or range of a robot. Similarly, there are numerous startups focused on fixed camera crime analytics.

We do not actively compete against security companies, although sometimes clients will choose our ASRs instead of a security personnel. We augment clients’ security apparatus by providing technology to better monitor and safeguard assets and people. Our ASRs offer clients a significant cost reduction relative to the cost of human security guards. In addition, ASRs offer significantly more capabilities, such as license plate detection, data gathering, thermal imaging and people detection that are delivered consistently, on a 24-hour, 7 day per week basis, without regular human intervention. In certain cases, our technology complements and improves the operations of traditional security firms.

Competitors for our K1B portfolio include Code Blue Corporation, Talk-a-Phone, GaiTronics (“Hubbell”), and Rath. To differentiate its towers and call boxes from the competition, Knightscope has focused on providing its clients with self-sufficient solutions that include the use of solar power and wireless communications, requiring that no power infrastructure be in place in order for the products to work or landlines, making for easier installation and maintenance.

Government Regulation

Our operations are subject to numerous governmental laws and regulations, including those governing antitrust and competition, the environment, collection, recycling, treatment and disposal of covered electronic products and components.

In addition, a number of data protection laws impact, or may impact, the manner in which we collect, process and transfer personal data. U.S. laws that have been applied to protect user privacy (including laws regarding unfair and deceptive practices) may be subject to evolving interpretations or applications in light of privacy developments. Compliance with enhanced data protection laws requires additional resources and efforts, and noncompliance with personal data protection regulations could result in increased regulatory enforcement and significant monetary fines and costs.

Backlog and Seasonality

As of December 31, 2023, we had orders representing approximately $3.4 million in new contracts outstanding that we expect to be able to deliver within the year based on production capacity. Of the total sales outstanding as of December 31, 2023, $2.3 million represent MaaS agreements for ASR deployments and $1.1 million relates to orders for K1B.

We have not experienced any significant effects relating to seasonality for our products and services.

Human Capital

As of December 31, 2023, the Company had 95 full-time employees and one part-time employee working primarily out of our combined headquarters and production facility in Mountain View, California and production facilities in Downey and Irvine, California. We are not a party to any collective bargaining agreements.

The Company believes that our future growth and success will depend in part on our ability to attract and retain highly skilled employees. The executive management team is responsible for developing and executing the Company’s human capital strategy. The human capital strategy includes the attraction, acquisition, engagement, and development of the Company’s employees as resources allow.

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Available Information

We file reports and other information with the SEC, which are accessible on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act are available, free of charge, on our website at ir.knightscope.com. We make these reports available through our website as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such reports with, or furnish such reports to, the SEC. The information provided on, or accessible through, our website is not a part of, or incorporated into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. You may also access this information, free of charge, at the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov.

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Item 1A. Risk Factors

Risks Related to the Business and the Global Economy

We have not yet generated any profits or significant revenues, anticipate that we will incur continued losses for the foreseeable future, and may never achieve profitability.

The Company was formed in 2013 and made its first pilot sales in 2015. The Company listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market in January 2022. Accordingly, the Company has a limited history upon which to evaluate its performance and future prospects.

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The Company has incurred net losses since inception. Our net loss was $22.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 and $25.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. As of December 31, 2023, we had an accumulated deficit of $161.5 million. Cash and cash equivalents on hand were $2.3 million as of December 31, 2023, compared to $4.8 million as of December 31, 2022.  These factors raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. See Item 7: Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition, Liquidity and Capital Resources.

Our current and proposed operations are subject to all the business risks associated with new enterprises, including, but not limited to, likely fluctuations in operating results as the Company makes significant investments in research, development and product opportunities, integrates new products under development or acquired in acquisitions, and reacts to developments in its market, such as purchasing patterns of clients and any new competitors into the market. There can be no assurance that the Company will be successful in acquiring additional funding at levels sufficient to fund its future operations. If the Company is unable to raise additional capital in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to it, the Company may have to significantly reduce its operations, delay, scale back or discontinue the development of one or more of its platforms or discontinue operations completely.

Any evaluation of our business and our prospects must be considered in light of our limited operating history and the risks and uncertainties encountered by companies in our stage of development. Further, our industry is characterized by rapid technological change, changing client needs, evolving industry standards and frequent introduction of new products and services. We have encountered and will continue to encounter risks and difficulties frequently experienced by developing companies in rapidly changing industries. If we do not address these risks successfully, our operating results will be harmed.

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Investors should evaluate an investment in us in light of the uncertainties encountered by developing companies in a competitive environment. We cannot assure you that we will be profitable in the next several years or at all, or that we will generate any revenues in the future or sufficient revenues to meet our debt servicing and payment obligations.

The report of our independent registered public accounting firm expresses substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern, and we may not be able to continue to operate the business if we are not successful in securing additional funding.

The report of our independent registered public accounting firm on our financial statements as of and for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, which is included in this Annual Report, includes an explanatory paragraph indicating that there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern due to our recurring losses from operations, available cash and cash used in operations. The inclusion of a going concern explanatory paragraph by our independent registered public accounting firm may materially adversely affect our share price, our ability to secure additional financing, and otherwise execute our strategy.

As noted above, the Company has a history of losses and has projected operating losses and negative cash flows for the foreseeable future, and we are currently dependent on additional fundraising in order to sustain our ongoing operations. Our financial statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (“U.S. GAAP”), contemplating that we will continue to operate as a going concern. However, we cannot assure you that the Company will be successful in acquiring additional funding at levels sufficient to fund future operations. If the Company is unable to raise additional capital in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to it, the Company may have to significantly reduce its operations or delay, scale back or discontinue the development of additional products and services, seek alternative financing arrangements, declare bankruptcy or otherwise terminate its operations entirely.

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The Company expects to experience future losses as it implements its business strategy and will need to generate significant revenues to achieve profitability, which may not occur.

We have incurred net losses since our inception, and we expect to continue to incur net losses for the foreseeable future. To date, we have funded our operations from the sale of equity and debt securities in private transactions and in the capital markets, and by means of credit facilities and other financing arrangements. We expect to continue to incur significant operating expenses as we implement our business strategy, which include development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative expenses and, as a result, we expect to incur additional losses and continued negative cash flow from operations for the foreseeable future. We will need to generate significant revenues to achieve profitability. We cannot assure you that we will ever generate sufficient revenues to achieve profitability. If we do achieve profitability in some future period, we cannot assure you that we will be able sustain profitability on a quarterly or annual basis in the future. If our revenues grow more slowly than we anticipate or if our operating expenses exceed our expectations or cannot be adjusted accordingly, our business, operating results and financial condition will be materially and adversely affected.

The Company is subject to potential fluctuations in operating results due to its sales cycle.

Our sales cycles can be long and unpredictable, and our sales efforts require considerable time and expense. As a result, our sales are difficult to predict and may vary substantially from quarter to quarter, which may cause our operating results to fluctuate significantly. We spend a substantial amount of time, effort and money in our sales efforts without any assurance that our efforts will produce any revenue and the timing of our revenue is difficult to predict. Our sales efforts involve educating our clients about the use and benefit of our products and technology, including their technical capabilities and potential cost savings to the clients. Clients typically undertake a significant evaluation process that has in the past resulted in a lengthy sales cycle. In addition, product purchases are frequently subject to budget constraints, regulatory and administrative approvals, and other delays. If sales expected from a specific client for a particular quarter are not realized in that quarter or at all, our business, operating results and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.

If we are unable to acquire new customers, our future revenues and operating results will be harmed. Likewise, potential customer turnover in the future, or costs we incur to retain our existing customers, could materially and adversely affect our financial performance.

Our success depends on our ability to acquire new customers in new and existing markets, and in new and existing geographic markets. If we are unable to attract a sufficient number of new customers, we may be unable to generate revenue growth at desired rates. Our industry is competitive and our competitors may have substantial financial, personnel and other resources that they can utilize to develop solutions and attract customers. As a result, it may be difficult for us to add new customers to our customer base. Competition in the marketplace may also lead us to win fewer new customers or result in us providing discounts and other commercial incentives.

While our immediate focus is on the U.S. market, our long-term success will in part depend on our ability to acquire new customers outside the USA. If customers in other countries do not perceive the threat of security, or of firearms and weapons to be significant enough to justify the purchase of our products, we will be unable to establish a meaningful business outside the USA. If we are unable to attract a sufficient number of new customers outside the USA, we may be unable to generate future revenue growth at desired rates in the long term.

We are subject to the loss of contracts, due to terminations, non-renewals or competitive re-bids, which could adversely affect our results of operations and liquidity, including our ability to secure new contracts from other customers.

We are exposed to the risk that we may lose our contracts primarily due to the termination by a customer with or without cause at any time, the failure by a customer to exercise its option to renew a contract with us upon the expiration of the then current term, or our failure to win the right to continue to operate. The loss by us of contracts due to terminations, non-renewals or competitive re-bids could materially adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations and/or liquidity, including our ability to secure new contracts from other customers.

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The Company’s future operating results are difficult to predict and may be affected by a number of factors, many of which are outside of the Company’s control.

The market for advanced physical security technology is relatively new and unproven and is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. The industry is characterized by rapid change, new and complex technology and intense competition. Our ability to gain market share depends upon our ability to [create demand, including by increasing awareness about our products,] satisfy client demands, enhance existing products and services and develop and introduce new products and services. Our ability to gain market share also depends on a number of factors beyond our control, including the perceived value associated with our products and services, the public’s perception of the use of robots to perform tasks traditionally reserved for humans, and our clients’ acceptance of our view that security services can be performed more efficiently and cost-effectively through the use of our products and ancillary services. If any of these factors turns against us, our future operating results could be materially and adversely affected.

Our financial results will fluctuate in the future, which makes them difficult to predict.

Our financial results have fluctuated in the past and will fluctuate in the future. Additionally, we have a limited operating history with the current scale of our business, which makes it difficult to forecast future results. As a result, you should not rely upon the Company’s past financial results as indicators of future performance. You should take into account the risks and uncertainties frequently encountered by rapidly growing companies in evolving markets. Our financial results in any given quarter can be influenced by numerous factors, many of which we are unable to predict or are outside of our control, including:

Additionally, we expect to have U.S. government customers in the future. If the U.S. government does not complete its budget process before its fiscal year-end, government operations may be funded by means of a continuing resolution. Under a continuing resolution, the government essentially authorizes agencies of the U.S. government to continue to operate and fund programs at the prior year end but does not authorize new spending initiatives. When the U.S. government operates under a continuing resolution, or should appropriations legislation not be enacted prior to the expiration of such continuing resolution resulting in a partial shut-down of federal government operations, government agencies may delay the procurement of services, which could reduce our future revenue. For other risks associated with our U.S. government customers, see “We have a government customer and are seeking additional government customers, which subject us to risks including early termination, audits, investigations, sanctions, or penalties.”

The occurrence of any of the above and any unanticipated obstacles may hinder the execution of our business plan and adversely affect or materially adversely affect our operating results.

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Changes in global economic conditions, including, but not limited to, those driven by inflation and interest rates, may adversely affect customer spending and the financial health of our customers and others with whom we do business, which may adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, and cash resources.

Uncertainty about current and future global economic conditions may cause our customers and partners to cancel agreements with us, or potential customers and partners to hesitate to enter into agreements with us. Our financial success is sensitive to changes in general economic and financial conditions, including interest rates, energy costs, labor costs, inflation, commodity prices, unemployment levels, consumer debt levels, tax rates and other changes in tax laws, public health issues like the COVID-19 pandemic, or other economic factors, certain of which effects, including cost inflation, we experienced in 2022 and 2023 and expect to continue to experience in 2024.

Global inflation, elevated interest rates, and global industry-wide logistics challenges have impacted, and we expect will continue to impact, our business. Unfavorable economic conditions, including rising interest rates, also could increase our funding costs, limit our access to the capital markets or result in a decision by lenders not to extend credit to us on terms we deem acceptable. These events could prevent us from increasing investments and materially harm our operating results and financial condition. Additionally, if our suppliers or other parties in our supply chain experience diminished liquidity, and as a result are unable to fulfill their obligations to us in a timely manner or at all, we may in turn be unable to provide our customers with our products in a timely manner or at all, resulting in lost sales opportunities or a deterioration in our customer relationships. If we are unable to mitigate the impact of supply chain constraints and inflationary pressure through price increases or other measures, our results of operations and financial condition could be negatively impacted.

Similarly, global conflicts including the ongoing wars between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas have created volatility in the global capital markets and are expected to continue to have further global economic consequences, such as disruptions of the global supply chain and energy markets. Any such continued volatility and disruptions may adversely affect our business or the third parties on whom we rely. If the equity and credit markets deteriorate, including as a result of political unrest or war, it may make any necessary debt or equity financing more difficult to obtain in a timely manner or on favorable terms, more costly or more dilutive. Increased inflation rates have already, and may continue to, adversely affect us by increasing our costs, including labor and employee benefit costs. In addition, higher inflation and macro turmoil and uncertainty could also adversely affect our customers, which could reduce demand for our products.

Adverse developments affecting the financial services industry, including events or concerns involving liquidity, defaults or non-performance by financial institutions, could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Actual events involving limited liquidity, defaults, non-performance or other adverse developments that affect financial institutions or the financial services industry generally, or concerns or rumors about any events of these kinds or other similar risks, have in the past and may in the future adversely affect our liquidity. We continue to evaluate our banking relationships as our access to funding sources and other credit arrangements in amounts adequate to finance or capitalize our current and projected future business operations could be significantly impaired by events such as liquidity constraints or failures, disruptions or instability in the financial services industry or financial markets, or concerns or negative expectations about the prospects for companies in the financial services industry. These factors may also adversely affect our ability to access our cash and cash equivalents at affected financial institutions.

Investor concerns regarding the U.S. or international financial systems could result in less favorable commercial financing terms, including higher interest rates or costs and tighter financial and operating covenants, or systemic limitations on access to credit and liquidity sources, thereby making it more difficult for us or our customers to acquire financing on terms favorable to us, or at all.  Any decline in available funding or access to our cash and liquidity resources could, among other things, adversely impact our ability to meet our operating expenses, financial obligations or fulfill our other obligations, result in breaches of our contractual obligations or result in violations of federal or state wage and hour laws. Any of these impacts, or any other impacts resulting from the factors described above or other related or similar factors not described above, could have material adverse impacts on our liquidity and our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Any further deterioration in the macroeconomic economy or financial services industry could lead to losses or defaults by our customers or suppliers, which in turn, could have a material adverse effect on our current and/or projected business operations and results of operations and financial condition. Any customer or supplier bankruptcy or insolvency, or the failure of any customer to make payments when due, or any breach or default by a customer or supplier, or the loss of any significant supplier relationships, could result in material losses to the Company and may have a material adverse impact on our business.

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We have a limited number of deployments, and limited market acceptance of our products could harm our business.

The market for advanced physical security technology is relatively new and unproven and is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. The numbers, types and locations of ASRs in service vary depending on the duration of each client contract, client demand and similar factors. As a result, the numbers, types and locations of ASRs in service that are currently deployed may not be representative of client contracts and client demand in the future. In order to grow our business and extend our market position, we will need to place into service more ASRs, expand our service offerings, including by developing new products and services, and expand our presence nationwide. Our ability to expand the market for our products depends on a number of factors, including the cost, performance and perceived value associated with our products and services. Furthermore, the public’s perception of the use of robots to perform certain tasks traditionally reserved for humans may negatively affect demand for our products and services. Ultimately, our success will depend largely on our clients’ acceptance that security services can be performed more efficiently and cost effectively through the use of our ASRs and ancillary services. Additionally, our customers consider many factors when deciding whether to purchase ASRs. Although we have in the past, entered into, and intend in the future to enter into, pilot programs to deploy ASRs with the goal of ultimately selling them to new customers, there can be no assurance that these pilot programs or any other of our sales efforts will result in successful sales, higher volume orders, or will attract new customers.

We cannot assure you that we will effectively manage our growth.

Our employee headcount and the scope and complexity of our business have increased significantly since we were first formed, and we expect it will continue as we grow over the long term. The growth and expansion of our business and products create significant challenges for our management, operational, and financial resources, including managing multiple relationships and interactions with users, distributors, vendors, and other third parties. As the Company grows, our information technology systems, internal management processes, internal controls and procedures and production processes may not be adequate to support our operations. To ensure success, we must continue to improve our operational, financial, and management processes and systems and to effectively expand, train, and manage our employee base. As we grow, and implement more complex organizational and management structures, we may find it increasingly difficult to maintain the benefits of our corporate culture, including our current team’s efficiency and expertise, which could negatively affect our business performance.

Our costs may grow more quickly than our revenues, harming our business and profitability.

Providing our products is costly because of our research and development expenses, production costs, operating costs and need for employees with specialized skills. We expect our expenses to continue to increase in the future as we expand our product offerings, expand production capabilities and hire additional employees. Historically, our costs have increased each year due to these factors and the Company expects to continue to incur increasing costs, in particular for working capital to purchase inventory, marketing and product deployments as well as costs of client support in the field. Our expenses may be greater than we anticipate, which would have a negative impact on our financial position, assets and ability to invest further in the growth and expansion of the business. In addition, expansion across the country will require increased marketing, sales, promotion and other operating expenses. Further, as additional competitors enter our market, we expect an increased pressure on production costs and margins.

Any debt arrangements that we enter into may impose significant operating and financial restrictions on us, which may prevent us from capitalizing on business opportunities. A breach of any of the restrictive covenants under such debt arrangements may cause us to be in default under our debt arrangements, and our lenders could foreclose on our assets.

We issued unsecured Public Safety Infrastructure Bonds (the “Bonds”) bearing interest at 10% per annum, payable annually on December 31 each year, starting on December 31, 2024, throughout the fourth quarter of 2023 with a principal amount totaling approximately $1.4 million. We issued additional Bonds from January of 2024 through March 14, 2024, with a principal amount of approximately $2.8 million. In total, we issued Bonds with a principal amount of approximately $4.2 million through the life of the Bond offering.

We issued convertible notes in October 2022 (the “Convertible Notes”), and the Convertible Notes required us to maintain certain financial covenants, including maintaining available cash of at least $1.5 million. In conjunction with the purchase of the convertible notes, noteholders received a right of participation which requires a 5-day notification period before we can enter into other financing. This notice period may delay future financings.  Warrants to purchase Class A Common Stock issued in conjunction with the convertible notes outstanding prohibit us from obtaining funding with a variable rate component. This includes any equity lines of credit (“ELOCS”)

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and convertible notes for as long as the warrants are outstanding. As of December 31, 2023, the entire outstanding principal balance of the 2022 Convertible Notes was fully retired.

The Bonds and the Convertible Notes imposed, and any future debt arrangements we enter into may impose, operating and financial restrictions on us, including requiring that we maintain our listing on Nasdaq, in addition to other restrictive covenants that may limit our ability to engage in specified types of transactions. Such restrictions could, for example, limit our ability to, among other things:

Restrictions posed by any future debt arrangements could impede our ability to operate and negatively affect our ability to respond to business and market conditions, which could have an adverse effect on our business and operating results.

The loss of one or more of our key personnel, or our failure to attract and retain other highly qualified personnel in the future, could harm our business.

We currently depend on the continued services and performance of key members of its management team, in particular, our founders, William Santana Li and Stacy Dean Stephens. If we cannot call upon them or other key management personnel for any reason, our operations and development could be harmed. The Company has not yet developed a succession plan, nor does it carry any key man life insurance on any members of its management team. Furthermore, as the Company grows, it will be required to hire and attract additional qualified professionals such as accounting, legal, finance, production, service and engineering experts. Inflationary pressure may increase our costs, including employee compensation costs or result in employee attrition to the extent our compensation does not keep up with inflation, particularly if our competitors’ compensation does. We issue equity awards to certain of our employees as part of our hiring and retention efforts, and job candidates and existing employees often consider the value of the equity awards they receive in connection with their employment. Our employees’ inability to sell their shares in the public market at times and/or at prices desired may lead to a larger than normal turnover rate. If the actual or perceived value of our Class A common stock declines, it may adversely affect our ability to hire or retain employees. The Company may not be able to locate or attract qualified individuals for such positions, which will affect the Company’s ability to grow and expand its business.

We have recently undergone significant transitions on of our board of directors.

On February 19, 2024, our board of directors appointed each of William G. Billings, Robert A. Mocny, and Melvin W. Torrie to serve as a director of the Company, effective immediately, and each of Patricia Howell, Linda Keene Solomon, and Patricia L. Watkins resigned from the Board. Changes on our board of directors and changes in our senior management may be disruptive to our business and there may be uncertainty among investors, employees and our customers concerning our future direction and performance. Any such disruption or uncertainty could have a material adverse impact on our results of operations and financial condition and the market price of our Class A Common Stock.

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If we are unable to protect our intellectual property, the value of our brand and other intangible assets may be diminished and our business may be adversely affected.

The Company relies and expects to continue to rely on a combination of confidentiality agreements with its employees, consultants, and third parties with whom it has relationships, as well as trademark, copyright, patent, trade secret, and domain name protection laws, to protect its proprietary rights. The Company has filed in the USA various applications for protection of certain aspects of its intellectual property, and currently holds twelve patents. However, third parties may knowingly or unknowingly infringe our proprietary rights, third parties may challenge proprietary rights held by us, and pending and future trademark and patent applications may not be approved. In addition, effective intellectual property protection may not be available in every country in which we intend to operate in the future. In any or all of these cases, we may be required to expend significant time and expense in order to prevent infringement or to enforce our rights. Although we have taken measures to protect our proprietary rights, we cannot assure you that others will not offer products or concepts that are substantially similar to our products and compete with our business. In addition, we may not have the financial or human resources to devote to adequately defending our intellectual property rights. If the protection of our proprietary rights is inadequate to prevent unauthorized use or appropriation by third parties, the value of our brand and other intangible assets may be diminished and competitors may be able to more effectively mimic our service and methods of operations. Any of these events could have an adverse effect on our business and financial results.

We may be subject to claims, disputes or legal proceedings in the ordinary course of our business. If the outcome of these proceedings is unfavorable to us, then our business, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected.

We may be subject to claims, disputes, or legal proceedings in the ordinary course of our business from time to time, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. We may receive formal and informal inquiries from governmental authorities and regulators regarding our compliance with applicable laws and regulations, many of which are evolving and subject to interpretation. Claims arising out of actual or alleged violations of laws could be asserted against us by our employees, customers, competitors, governmental entities in civil or criminal investigations and proceedings or other third parties. These claims could be asserted under a variety of laws, including but not limited to advertising laws, Internet information services laws, intellectual property laws, unfair competition laws, data protection and privacy laws, labor and employment laws, securities laws, real estate laws, tort laws, contract laws, property laws and employee benefit laws. There can be no guarantee that we will be successful in defending ourselves in legal and arbitration actions or in asserting our rights under various laws. If the outcome of these proceedings is unfavorable to us, then our business, results of operations and financial conditions could be adversely affected. Even if we are successful in our attempt to defend ourselves in legal and arbitration actions or to assert our rights under various laws, enforcing our rights against the various parties involved may be expensive, time-consuming and ultimately futile. These actions may expose us to negative publicity, substantial monetary damages and legal defense costs, injunctive relief, and criminal and civil fines and penalties.

We may face additional competition.

We are aware of a number of other companies that are developing physical security technology in the USA and abroad that may potentially compete with our technology and services. These or new competitors may have more resources than us or may be better capitalized, which may give them a significant advantage, for example, in offering better pricing than the Company, surviving an economic downturn or in reaching profitability. We cannot assure you that we will be able to compete successfully against existing or emerging competitors. Additionally, existing private security firms may also compete on price by lowering their operating costs, developing new business models or providing other incentives.

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Our ability to operate and collect digital information on behalf of our clients is dependent on the privacy laws of jurisdictions in which our ASRs operate, as well as the corporate policies of our clients, which may limit our ability to fully deploy our technologies in various markets. Actual or perceived failures to comply with applicable data protection, privacy and security laws, regulations, standards and other requirements could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Our products, especially the ASRs collect, store and may analyze certain types of personal or identifying information regarding individuals that interact with the ASRs. The regulatory framework for privacy and security issues is rapidly evolving worldwide and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Federal and state government bodies and agencies have in the past adopted, and may in the future adopt, laws and regulations affecting data privacy, which in turn affect the breadth and type of features that we can offer to our clients. In addition, our clients have separate internal policies, procedures and controls regarding privacy and data security with which we may be required to comply. Because the interpretation and application of many privacy and data protection laws are uncertain, it is possible that these laws may be interpreted or applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our current data management practices or the features of our products. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, lawsuits and other claims and penalties, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our products, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Additionally, we may become a target of information-focused or data collection attacks and any inability to adequately address privacy and security concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable privacy and data security laws, regulations, and policies, could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales, and adversely affect our business. Furthermore, the costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, the laws, regulations, and policies that are applicable to the businesses of our clients may limit the use and adoption of, and reduce the overall demand for, our products. Privacy and data security concerns, whether valid or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our products, particularly in certain industries and foreign countries. If we are not able to adjust to changing laws, regulations, our business may be harmed.

As our operations and business grow, we may become subject to or affected by new or additional data protection laws and regulations and face increased scrutiny or attention from regulatory authorities. In the USA, certain states have also adopted privacy and security laws and regulations, which govern the privacy, processing and protection of health-related and other personal information. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively, the “CCPA”) requires covered businesses that process the personal information of California residents to, among other things: provide certain disclosures to California residents regarding the business’s collection, use, and disclosure of their personal information; receive and respond to requests from California residents to access, delete, and correct their personal information, or to opt out of certain disclosures of their personal information, and enter into specific contractual provisions with service providers that process California resident personal information on the business’s behalf. Similar laws have been passed in other states and are continuing to be proposed at the state and federal level, reflecting a trend toward more stringent privacy legislation in the USA. The enactment of such laws could have potentially conflicting requirements that would make compliance challenging.

Furthermore, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) also has authority to initiate enforcement actions against entities that make deceptive statements about privacy and data sharing in privacy policies, fail to limit third-party use of personal information, fail to implement policies to protect personal information or engage in other unfair practices that harm customers or that may violate Section 5(a) of the FTC Act. Failing to take appropriate steps to keep consumers’ personal information secure can constitute unfair acts or practices in or affecting commerce in violation of Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The FTC expects a company’s data security measures to be reasonable and appropriate in light of the sensitivity and volume of consumer information it holds, the size and complexity of its business, and the cost of available tools to improve security and reduce vulnerabilities. Additionally, federal and state consumer protection laws are increasingly being applied by FTC and states’ attorneys general to regulate the collection, use, storage, and disclosure of personal or personally identifiable information, through websites or otherwise, and to regulate the presentation of website content.

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We are also or may become subject to rapidly evolving data protection laws, rules and regulations in foreign jurisdictions. For example, in Europe, the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) went into effect in May 2018 and imposes strict requirements for processing the personal data of individuals within the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or in the context of our activities within the EEA. Companies that must comply with the GDPR face increased compliance obligations and risk, including more robust regulatory enforcement of data protection requirements and potential fines for noncompliance of up to €20 million or 4% of the annual global revenues of the noncompliant company, whichever is greater. Among other requirements, the GDPR regulates transfers of personal data subject to the GDPR to third countries that have not been found to provide adequate protection to such personal data, including the United States, and the efficacy and longevity of current transfer mechanisms between the EEA, and the United States remains uncertain.  Case law from the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) states that reliance on the standard contractual clauses - a standard form of contract approved by the European Commission as an adequate personal data transfer mechanism - alone may not necessarily be sufficient in all circumstances and that transfers must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. On July 10, 2023, the European Commission adopted its Adequacy Decision in relation to the new EU-US Data Privacy Framework (“DPF”), rendering the DPF effective as a GDPR transfer mechanism to U.S. entities self-certified under the DPF. We expect the existing legal complexity and uncertainty regarding international personal data transfers to continue. In particular, we expect the DPF Adequacy Decision to be challenged and international transfers to the United States and to other jurisdictions more generally to continue to be subject to enhanced scrutiny by regulators.

Since the beginning of 2021, after the end of the transition period following the UK’s departure from the European Union, we are also subject to the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 (collectively, the “UK GDPR”), which imposes separate but similar obligations to those under the GDPR and comparable penalties, including fines of up to £17.5 million or 4% of a noncompliant company’s global annual revenue for the preceding financial year, whichever is greater. On October 12, 2023, the UK Extension to the DPF came into effect (as approved by the UK Government), as a data transfer mechanism from the UK to U.S. entities self-certified under the DPF. As we continue to expand into other foreign countries and jurisdictions, we may be subject to additional laws and regulations that may affect how we conduct business.

The regulatory framework for AI is rapidly evolving as many federal, state and foreign government bodies and agencies have introduced or are currently considering additional laws and regulations. Additionally, existing laws and regulations may be interpreted in ways that would affect the operation of our AI technologies. As a result, implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future, and we cannot yet determine the impact future laws, regulations, standards, or market perception of their requirements may have on our business and may not always be able to anticipate how to respond to these laws or regulations.  

Already, certain existing legal regimes (e.g., relating to data privacy) regulate certain aspects of AI, and new laws regulating AI are expected to enter into force in the United States and the EU in 2024. In the United States, the Biden administration issued a broad Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (the “2023 AI Order”), that sets out principles intended to guide AI design and deployment for the public and private sector and signals the increase in governmental involvement and regulation over AI. The 2023 AI Order established certain new requirements for the training, testing and cybersecurity of sophisticated AI models and large-scale compute centers used to train AI models. The 2023 AI Order also instructed several other federal agencies to promulgate additional regulations within specific timeframes from the date of the 2023 AI Order regarding the use and development of AI. Already, agencies such as the Department of Commerce and the FTC have issued proposed rules governing the use and development of AI. Legislation related to AI has also been introduced at the federal level and is advancing at the state level. For example, the California Privacy Protection Agency is currently in the process of finalizing regulations under the CCPA regarding the use of automated decision-making. Such additional regulations may impact our ability to develop, use and commercialize AI technologies in the future.

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In Europe, on March 13, 2024, the European Parliament passed the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (“EU AI Act”) which establishes a comprehensive, risk-based governance framework for artificial intelligence in the EU market. The EU AI Act will enter into force twenty days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU and will be fully effective two years later. The EU AI Act will apply to companies that develop, use and/or provide AI in the EU and includes requirements around transparency, conformity assessments and monitoring, risk assessments, human oversight, security, accuracy, general purpose AI and foundation models, and proposes fines for breach of up to 7% of worldwide annual turnover. In addition, on September 28, 2022, the European Commission proposed two Directives seeking to establish a harmonized civil liability regime for AI in the EU, in order to facilitate civil claims in respect of harm caused by AI and to include AI-enabled products within the scope of the EU’s existing strict product liability regime. Once fully applicable, the EU AI Act and the Liability Directives will have a material impact on the way AI is regulated in the EU. Further, in Europe we are subject to the GDPR, which regulates our use of personal data for automated decision making including individual profiling that results in a legal or similarly significant effect on an individual and provides rights to individuals in respect of that automated decision making. Recent case law from the CJEU has taken an expansive view of the scope of the GDPR’s requirements around automated decision making and introduced uncertainty in the interpretation of these rules. Specifically, the CJEU has expanded the scope for automated decision making under the GDPR by finding that automated decision-making activities can fall within the GDPR’s restrictions on those activities even if the required legal or similarly significant effect for the individual is carried out by a third party. The EU AI Act, and developing interpretation and application of the GDPR in respect of automated decision making, together with developing guidance and/or decisions in this area, may affect our use of AI and our ability to provide, improve or commercialize our services, require additional compliance measures and changes to our operations and processes, result in increased compliance costs and potential increases in civil claims against us, and could adversely affect our business, operations and financial condition.

It is possible that further new laws and regulations will be adopted in the United States and in other non-U.S. jurisdictions, or that existing laws and regulations, including competition and antitrust laws, may be interpreted in ways that would limit our ability to use AI for our business, or require us to change the way we use AI in a manner that negatively affects [the performance of our products, services, and business and the way in which we use AI. We may need to expend resources to adjust our products or services in certain jurisdictions if the laws, regulations, or decisions are not consistent across jurisdictions. Further, the cost to comply with such laws, regulations, or decisions and/or guidance interpreting existing laws, could be significant and would increase our operating expenses (such as by imposing additional reporting obligations regarding our use of AI). Such an increase in operating expenses, as well as any actual or perceived failure to comply with such laws and regulations, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Although we work to comply with applicable laws, regulations and standards, our contractual obligations and other legal obligations, these requirements are evolving and may be modified, interpreted and applied in an inconsistent manner from one jurisdiction to another, and may conflict with one another or other legal obligations with which we must comply. Any failure or perceived failure by us or our employees, representatives, contractors, consultants, collaborators, or other third parties to comply with such requirements or adequately address privacy and security concerns, even if unfounded, could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Our business and operations may suffer in the event of information technology system failures, cyberattacks or deficiencies in our cybersecurity.

We collect and maintain information in digital form that is necessary to conduct our business, and we are increasingly dependent on information technology systems and infrastructure to operate our business. In the ordinary course of our business, we collect, store and transmit large amounts of confidential information, including intellectual property, proprietary business information, and personal information (collectively, “Confidential Information”). It is critical that we do so in a secure manner to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of such Confidential Information.

Our information technology systems and those of our third-party service providers, strategic partners and other contractors or consultants are vulnerable to attack, damage and interruption from computer viruses and malware (e.g. ransomware), misconfigurations, “bugs” or other vulnerabilities, malicious code, natural disasters, terrorism, war, telecommunication and electrical failures, hacking, cyberattacks, phishing attacks and other social engineering schemes, employee theft or misuse, human error, fraud, denial or degradation of service attacks and sophisticated nation-state and nation-state-supported actors. We have also outsourced elements of our information technology infrastructure, and as a result a number of third-party vendors may or could have access to our confidential information.

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The risk of a security breach or disruption, particularly through cyberattacks or cyber intrusion, has generally increased as the number, intensity and sophistication of attempted attacks and intrusions from around the world have increased. Furthermore, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to, or to sabotage, systems change frequently and often are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures. We may also experience security breaches that may remain undetected for an extended period. Even if identified, we may be unable to adequately investigate or remediate incidents or breaches due to attackers increasingly using tools and techniques that are designed to circumvent controls, to avoid detection, and to remove or obfuscate forensic evidence. There can be no assurance that our and our third-party service providers’, strategic partners’, contractors’ and consultants’ cybersecurity risk management program and processes, including policies, controls or procedures, will be fully implemented, complied with or effective in protecting our systems, networks and Confidential Information.

We and certain of our service providers are from time to time subject to cyberattacks and security incidents. While we do not believe that we have experienced any significant system failure, accident or security breach to date, if such an event were to occur and cause interruptions in our operations, it could result in a material disruption of our development programs and our business operations. It could also expose us to risks, including an inability to provide our services and fulfill contractual demands, and could cause management distraction and the obligation to devote significant financial and other resources to mitigate such problems, which would increase our future information security costs, including through organizational changes, deploying additional personnel, reinforcing administrative, physical and technical safeguards, further training of employees, changing third-party vendor control practices and engaging third-party subject matter experts and consultants and reduce the demand for our technology and services.

Any security compromise affecting us, our service providers, strategic partners, other contractors, consultants, or our industry, whether real or perceived, could harm our reputation, erode confidence in the effectiveness of our security measures and lead to regulatory scrutiny. To the extent that any disruption or security breach were to result in a loss of, or damage to, our data or systems, or inappropriate disclosure of Confidential Information, we could incur liability, including litigation exposure, penalties and fines, we could become the subject of regulatory action or investigation, our competitive position could be harmed and the further development and commercialization of our products and services could be delayed. Any adverse impact to the availability, integrity or confidentiality of our or third-party systems or Confidential Information can result in legal claims or proceedings (such as class actions), regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, fines and penalties, negative reputational impacts that cause us to lose existing or future customers, and/or significant incident response, system restoration or remediation and future compliance costs. Further, our insurance coverage may not be sufficient to cover the financial, legal, business or reputational losses that may result from an interruption or breach of our systems.

We have limited experience in operating our ASRs in a variety of environments and increased interactions may lead to collisions, possible liability and negative publicity.

Our ASRs operate autonomously in environments, such as shopping malls, parking lots and stadiums, that are surrounded by various moving and stationary physical obstacles and by humans and vehicles. Such environments are prone to collisions, unintended interactions and various other incidents, regardless of our technology. Therefore, our ASRs have been in the past and may in the future be involved in a collision with any number of such obstacles. Our ASRs contain a number of advanced sensors that are designed to prevent any such incidents and are intended to stop any motion at the detection of intervening objects. Nonetheless, real-life environments, especially those in crowded areas, are unpredictable and situations have in the past arisen and may in the future arise in which the ASRs may not perform as intended. Infrequent, but highly publicized incidents of autonomous vehicle and human interactions, including involving our ASRs, have focused consumer attention on the safety of our and other systems. We cannot assure you that a collision, including with property or with humans, will not occur. Any such collision or other incident could damage the ASR, lead to personal injury or property damage, and may subject us to lawsuits. Moreover, any actual or perceived incident, even without any resulting damage, may lead to adverse publicity for us. Such lawsuits or adverse publicity would negatively affect our brand and harm our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.

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Our brand, reputation and ability to attract, retain, and serve our customers are dependent in part upon the reliable performance of our products, infrastructure, and employees.

Our brand, reputation and ability to attract, retain, and serve our customers are dependent in part upon the reliable performance of, and the ability of our existing customers and new customers to access and use, our products solutions, including pursuant to our pilot programs. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, delays, incidents, disruptions, outages, and other performance problems due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, equipment failure, human or software errors, capacity constraints, and fraud or cybersecurity attacks. In some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance problems within an acceptable period of time.

Interruptions in our systems or the third-party systems on which we rely, whether due to system failures, computer viruses, physical or electronic break-ins, or other factors, could affect the security or availability of our [products, network infrastructure, cloud infrastructure and website]. Problems with the reliability or security of our products or systems could harm our reputation. Damage to our reputation and the cost of remedying these problems could negatively affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

Any disruptions or other performance problems with our products could harm our reputation and business and may damage our customers’ businesses, reduce our revenue, cause us to issue credits to customers, subject us to potential liability and cause customers not to purchase our products after pilot programs or renew their subscription purchases of our products.

Our failure to implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting may result in material misstatements in our financial statements, which could in the future require us to restate financial statements, cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information and could have an adverse effect on our ability to fundraise.

We have in the past and may in the future identify material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. Any failure to maintain existing or implement required new or improved controls, or any difficulties we encounter in their implementation, could result in additional material weaknesses, cause us to fail to meet our periodic reporting obligations or result in material misstatements in our financial statements. If a material weakness were to exist, it could result in errors in our financial statements that could result in a restatement of financial statements and cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations. If our internal control over financial reporting is ineffective or if we are unable to effectively identify or remediate any material weaknesses in a timely manner, or if our disclosure controls and procedures are ineffective, investors could lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could have an adverse effect on our ability to sell our securities and to conduct future fundraising.

The private security industry is undergoing structural changes in technology and services.

The private security industry is undergoing structural changes, consolidation, changing client needs, evolving industry standards and introduction of new products and services. We have encountered and will continue to encounter risks and difficulties frequently experienced by growing companies in such industries. If we do not address these risks successfully, our business will be harmed. Our ability to gain market share depends upon our ability to satisfy client requirements, enhance existing products and develop and introduce new products. Further, we expect the intensity of competition to increase in the future. Increased competitiveness may result in reductions in the prices of our products and services, lower-than-expected gross margins or loss of market share, any of which would harm our business.

We have a government customer and are seeking additional government customers, which would subject us to risks including early termination, audits, investigations, sanctions, or penalties.

The Company is actively seeking to secure a material amount of business from the U.S. federal government. The Company has entered into its first government contract with the VA. These types of agreements may subject the Company to statutes, regulations and contract obligations applicable to companies doing business with the government. Government contracts customarily contain provisions that give the government substantial rights and remedies, many of which are not typically found in commercial contracts and which are unfavorable to contractors, including provisions that allow the government to unilaterally terminate or modify federal government contracts, in whole or in part, at the government’s convenience or in the government’s best interest, including if funds become unavailable to the applicable government agency. Under general principles of government contracting law, if the government terminates a contract for convenience, the terminated company may generally recover only its incurred or committed costs and settlement expenses and profit on work completed prior to the termination. If the government terminates a contract for default, the defaulting company may be liable for any extra costs incurred by the government in procuring undelivered items from another source.

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In addition, government contracts normally contain additional requirements that may increase our costs of doing business, reduce our profits, and expose us to liability for failure to comply with these terms and conditions. These requirements include, for example:

Government contracts are also generally subject to greater scrutiny by the government, which can unilaterally initiate reviews, audits and investigations regarding our compliance with government contract requirements. In addition, if we fail to comply with government contract laws, regulations and contract requirements, our contracts may be subject to termination or suspension, and we may be subject to financial and/or other liability under our contracts or under the Federal Civil False Claims Act. The False Claims Act’s “whistleblower” provisions allow private individuals, including present and former employees, to sue on behalf of the U.S. government. The False Claims Act statute provides for treble damages and other penalties and, if our operations are found to be in violation of the False Claims Act, we could face other adverse action, including suspension or prohibition from doing business with the United States government. Any penalties, damages, fines, suspension, or damages could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our financial results.

Additionally, although the Company has received its Authority to Operate from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (“FedRAMP”), any change to our moderate cloud solution FedRAMP status could impede our ability to enter into contracts with government entities. If we do not successfully manage our FedRAMP status, our sales to government entities could be delayed or limited, and as a result, our business, financial condition, and results of operations would be adversely affected.

Certain of the Company’s officers and early-stage investors (who hold super voting securities), control a significant percentage of the voting rights of the Company, and they may make decisions that may not reflect the interests of other stockholders.

The holders of our Class B Common Stock and Super Voting Preferred Stock currently control a significant portion of the voting rights of the Company. Holders of our Class B Common Stock (including Mr. Li, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Stacy Dean Stephens, our EVP and Chief Client Officer) and the holders of the Super Voting Preferred Stock (collectively, the “Super Voting Stock”), are entitled to ten votes for each such share held at meetings of stockholders, subject to the provisions of Delaware law and relevant provisions of the Company’s certificate of incorporation. Holders of Class A Common Stock are entitled to one vote for each share held. Holders of Class B Common Stock may convert their shares of Class B Common Stock into shares of Class A Common Stock on a 1:1 basis.

As of March 29, 2024, the holders of the Super Voting Stock beneficially held approximately 27.8% of the Company’s total voting rights, with Mr. Li and Mr. Stephens beneficially holding (including by irrevocable voting proxy) approximately 19.8% and 8.3%, respectively, of the Company’s voting rights (approximately 28.1% collectively). As a result, holders of the Super Voting Stock (including certain officers of the Company) will be able to exert a significant degree of influence over our management and affairs and control over matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of our directors and approval of significant corporate transactions. This concentration of voting power may also delay or prevent a change in control of us and might affect the market price of our securities. The interests of these stockholders may not always coincide with the interests of other securityholders of the Company.

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The Company is dependent on the global supply chain and has experienced supply chain constraints, as well as increased costs on components and shipping resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing conflict in Ukraine.

The Company experienced supply chain constraints resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, which slowed down production and negatively impacted the timing of deploying ASRs to our clients. In addition, we experienced supply chain delays as a result of the impact of the conflict in the Ukraine. These supply constraints include, but are not limited to, semiconductor shortages as well as shortages of certain commodities. Extended lead times on certain parts as well as a lack of immediate availability may delay our ability to deploy ASRs, and consequently, may delay our ability to recognize revenue. In addition, the Company has also faced increased costs of components and freight resulting from COVID-19. Further, current or future governmental policies may increase the risk of inflation, which could further increase the costs of raw materials and components for our business. Similarly, if costs of goods continue to increase, our suppliers may seek price increases from us. If we are unable to mitigate the impact of supply chain constraints and inflationary pressure through price increases or other measures, our results of operations and financial condition could be negatively impacted. Even if we are able to raise the prices of our products, consumers might react negatively to such price increases, which could have a material adverse effect on, among other things, our brand, reputation, and sales. If our competitors substantially lower their prices, we may lose customers and mark down prices. Our profitability may be impacted by lower prices, which may negatively impact gross margins. Even though we are working to alleviate supply chain constraints through various measures, we are unable to predict the impact of these constraints on the timing of revenue and operating costs of our business in the near future. Raw material supply shortages and supply chain constraints, including cost inflation, have impacted and could continue to negatively impact our ability to meet increased demand, which in turn could impact our net sales revenues and market share. The increased cost of components and freight as well as ongoing delays in receiving raw materials and components for production are likely to have an impact on sales and profitability in 2024 and beyond.

Risks Related to Ownership of our Class A Common Stock

We may not be able to comply with all applicable listing requirements or standards of The Nasdaq Capital Market, and Nasdaq could delist our Class A Common Stock.

Our Class A Common Stock is listed on The Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “KSCP.” In order to maintain that listing, we must satisfy minimum financial and other continued listing requirements, including maintaining a minimum bid price and a minimum market value. The inability to comply with applicable listing requirements or standards of The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (“Nasdaq”) could result in the delisting of our Class A Common Stock, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and could cause the value of our Class A Common Stock to decline.

On October 26, 2023, the Company was listed on The Nasdaq Global Market and received written notice (the “Notice”) from Nasdaq indicating that the Company is no longer in compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5450(a)(1) (the “Minimum Bid Price Requirement”), as the minimum bid price of the Company’s Class A Common Stock had been below $1.00 per share for the last 31 consecutive business days. The notification of noncompliance had no immediate effect on the listing or trading of the Company’s Class A Common Stock on The Nasdaq Global Market at that time.

The Company has 180 calendar days, or until April 23, 2024 to regain compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Requirement. The Company transferred to The Nasdaq Capital Market effective as of March 4, 2024. As a result, provided that the Company meets continued listing requirements for market value of publicly held shares and all other initial listing standards for The Nasdaq Capital Market, with the exception of the Minimum Bid Price Requirement, and provides written notice of its intention to cure the bid price deficiency during the second compliance period by April 23, 2024 the Company may be eligible for an additional 180-calendar day compliance period to regain compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Requirement. If we fail to regain compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Requirement by April 23, 2024 and it is determined that we are not eligible for the 180 calendar-day extension, we expect to receive a determination letter from the Nasdaq staff that our Class A Common Stock is subject to delisting. If we receive such a determination letter, we expect to have a period of seven days to submit a written request for a review of the delisting determination by the Nasdaq Hearings Panel (the “Hearings Panel”). There can be no assurance that the Company will be able to regain compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Requirement or that a Hearings Panel would grant an exception to the Minimum Bid Price Requirement to give us additional time to comply with the rule.

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In the event that our Class A Common Stock is delisted and not eligible for quotation on another market or exchange, trading of our Class A Common Stock could be conducted in the over-the-counter market or on an electronic bulletin board established for unlisted securities such as the Pink Sheets or the OTC Bulletin Board. In such event, it could become more difficult to dispose of, or obtain accurate price quotations for, our Class A Common Stock, and the price of our Class A Common Stock could decline further. In addition, it may be difficult for us to raise additional capital if we are not listed on a major exchange.

The Company will need to seek additional funds in the future.

The Company projects operating losses and negative cash flows for the foreseeable future. These factors raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. See Liquidity and Capital Resources. We will require additional funds to maintain our operations and respond to business challenges and opportunities, including the need to develop new products or enhance our existing products, enhance our operating infrastructure or acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, we will need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds, such as our current at-the-market offering program.

We are currently authorized to issue 114,000,000 shares of Class A common stock. On February 23, 2024, we filed a definitive proxy statement with the SEC in connection with a special meeting of stockholders to be held on April 5, 2024 to approve an amendment to our Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of our Class A Common Stock from 114,000,000 to 228,000,000 (the “Share Increase Amendment”). Our ability to conduct financing activities, including our at-the-market offering program, will be limited unless the Share Increase Amendment is approved. If we raise additional funds through further issuances of equity or debt securities, including through our at-the-market offering program, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges superior to those of holders of our existing capital stock.

Any debt financing secured by us in the future could involve additional restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities. See “Any debt arrangements that we enter into may impose significant operating and financial restrictions on us, which may prevent us from capitalizing on business opportunities. A breach of any of the restrictive covenants under such debt arrangements may cause us to be in default under our debt arrangements, and our lenders could foreclose on our assets.” Such financing could also require us to pledge assets as security for borrowings. If we were to leverage our business by incurring significant debt, we may be required to devote a substantial portion of our cash flow to service that indebtedness. This could require us to modify our business plan, for example, by delaying the expansion of our business. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us, the Company may have to significantly reduce its operations or delay, scale back or discontinue the development of one or more of its platforms, seek alternative financing arrangements, declare bankruptcy or terminate its operations entirely.

Our stock price may be volatile.

The market price of our Class A Common Stock may be thinly traded, highly volatile and could fluctuate widely in price in response to various factors, many of which are beyond our control, including the following:

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In addition, the securities markets have from time-to-time experienced significant price and volume fluctuations that are unrelated to the operating performance of particular companies. These market fluctuations may also materially and adversely affect the market price of our Class A Common Stock. As a result, you may be unable to resell your shares at a desired price.

We have not paid cash dividends in the past and do not expect to pay dividends in the future. Any return on investment may be limited to the value of our Class A Common Stock.

We have never paid cash dividends on our equity securities and do not anticipate doing so in the foreseeable future. The payment of any dividends on our Class A Common Stock will depend on earnings, financial condition and other business and economic factors affecting us at such time as our board of directors may consider relevant. If we do not pay dividends, our Class A Common Stock may be less valuable because a return on your investment will only occur if our stock price appreciates.

If financial securities industry analysts continue not to publish research reports on us, or publish unfavorable reports on us, then the market price and market trading volume of our Class A Common Stock could be negatively affected.

Any trading market for our Class A Common Stock will be influenced in part by any research reports that financial securities industry analysts publish about us or our business. We do not currently have and may not obtain any future research coverage by securities industry analysts. In the event we are covered by analysts, and one or more of such analysts downgrade our securities, or otherwise reports on us unfavorably, or discontinues coverage on us, the market price and market trading volume of our Class A Common Stock could be negatively affected.

Future issuances of debt securities, which would rank senior to our common equity in bankruptcy or liquidation, or future issuances of preferred stock, which would rank senior to our common equity for the purposes of dividends and liquidating distributions, may adversely affect the level of return you may be able to achieve from an investment in our Class A Common Stock.

In the future, we may attempt to increase our capital resources by offering debt securities. Upon bankruptcy or liquidation, holders of our debt securities, and lenders with respect to other borrowings we may make, would receive distributions of our available assets prior to any distributions being made to holders of our common equity. Moreover, if we issue additional preferred stock, the holders of such preferred stock, together with current holders of Preferred Stock who choose not to convert their shares to common equity, could be entitled to preferences over holders of Class A Common Stock in respect of the payment of dividends and the payment of liquidating distributions. Because our decision to issue debt or preferred securities in any future offering, or to borrow money from lenders, will depend in part on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing or nature of any such future offerings or borrowings.

We are an emerging growth company, and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our Class A Common Stock less attractive to investors.

We are an “emerging growth company” as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (“JOBS”) Act. Under the JOBS Act, emerging growth companies can delay adopting new or revised financial accounting standards until such time as those standards apply to private companies. We intend to take advantage of the extended transition period for adopting new or revised financial statements under the JOBS Act as an emerging growth company.

We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of (i) the end of the fiscal year in which the market value of our Class A Common Stock that is held by non-affiliates is at least $700 million as of the last business day of our most recently completed second fiscal quarter, (ii) the end of the fiscal year in which we have total annual gross revenues of $1.235 billion or more during such fiscal year, (iii) the date on which we issue more than $1 billion in non-convertible debt in a three-year period, or (iv) the last day of the fiscal year in which the fifth anniversary of the completion of our listing on Nasdaq occurs.

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For as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, we may also take advantage of other exemptions from certain reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies, including not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, exemption from any rules that may be adopted by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”) requiring mandatory audit firm rotations or a supplement to the auditor’s report on financial statements, extended transition periods for complying with new accounting standards, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and any golden parachute arrangements, and reduced financial reporting requirements. Investors may find our Class A Common Stock less attractive because we will rely on these exemptions, which could result in a less active trading market for our Class A Common Stock, increased price fluctuation, and a decrease in the trading price of our Class A Common Stock.

We have incurred and will continue to incur increased costs as a result of operating as a listed public company and our management will be required to devote substantial time to new compliance initiatives and corporate governance practices.

As a listed public company, and particularly in the future when we are no longer an “emerging growth company,” we will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we have not incurred in the past. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the listing requirements of Nasdaq and other applicable securities rules and regulations impose various requirements on public companies. Our management and other personnel will need to devote a substantial amount of time to comply with these requirements. Moreover, these rules and regulations will increase our legal and financial compliance costs and will make some activities more time-consuming and costly. For example, we expect that these rules and regulations may make it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain directors’ and officers’ liability insurance, which could make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified members of our board of directors. We cannot predict or estimate the amount of additional costs we will incur as a listed public company or the timing of such costs.

Substantial future sales or issuances of our securities, or the perception in the public markets that these sales may occur, may depress our stock price.

Sales of substantial amounts of our Class A Common Stock in the public market, the conversion of the securities convertible into Class A Common Stock and subsequent sale of the underlying securities, or the perception that these sales or conversion could occur, could adversely affect the price of our Class A Common Stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional shares. Such shares of Class A Common Stock are generally freely tradable without restriction under the Securities Act. Furthermore, holders of our preferred stock have the option to convert their shares of preferred stock into shares of our common equity, which may be subsequently sold in the market. In addition, the applicable conversion rates for certain of our preferred stock and/or warrants, may be adjusted based on future issuances of our Class A Common Stock, which may lead to the issuance of additional shares of Class A Common Stock. The issuance and sale of substantial amounts of shares of our Class A Common Stock, or announcement that such issuances and sales may occur, could adversely affect the market price of our Class A Common Stock. If there are more shares of Class A Common Stock offered for sale than buyers are willing to purchase, then the market price of our Class A Common Stock may decline to a market price at which buyers are willing to purchase the offered shares of Class A Common Stock and sellers remain willing to sell the shares.

In the future, we may also issue additional securities given our need to raise capital, which could constitute a material portion of our then-outstanding shares of common stock.

We may be unable to successfully integrate the businesses and personnel of acquired companies and businesses, and may not realize the anticipated synergies and benefits of such acquisitions.

From time to time, we may complete acquisitions of companies and certain businesses of companies, and we may not realize the expected benefits from such acquisitions because of integration difficulties or other challenges. For example, in October 2022, we completed the CASE Acquisition.

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The success of any acquisition will depend, in part, on our ability to realize all or some of the anticipated synergies and other benefits from integrating the acquired businesses with our existing business. The integration process may be complex, costly and time-consuming. The potential difficulties we may face in integrating the operations of our acquisitions include, among others:

We may not be able to maintain or increase the levels of revenue, earnings or operating efficiency that any acquired company and business and us had historically achieved or might achieve separately. In addition, we may not accomplish the integration of any acquired company and business smoothly, successfully or within the anticipated costs or timeframe. If we experience difficulties with the integration process or if the business of any acquired company or business deteriorates, the anticipated cost savings, growth opportunities and other synergies of any acquired company and business may not be realized fully or at all, or may take longer to realize than expected. If any of the above risks occur, our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows may be materially and adversely impacted, we may fail to meet the expectations of investors or analysts, and our stock price may decline as a result.

Increasing attention to, and evolving expectations for, environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) initiatives could increase our costs, harm our reputation, or otherwise adversely impact our business.

Companies across industries are facing increasing scrutiny from a variety of stakeholders related to their ESG practices. Expectations regarding voluntary ESG initiatives and disclosures may result in increased costs (including but not limited to increased costs related to compliance, stakeholder engagement, contracting and insurance), changes in demand for certain offerings, enhanced compliance or disclosure obligations, or other adverse impacts to our business, financial condition, or results of operations. While we may at times engage in voluntary initiatives (such as voluntary disclosures, certifications, or goals, among others) to improve the ESG profile of our company and/or offerings or to respond to stakeholder demands, such initiatives may be costly and may not have the desired effect.

Expectations around companies’ management of ESG matters continues to evolve rapidly, in many instances due to factors that are out of our control. We may experience pressure to make commitments relating to ESG matters that affect us; however, we may not agree that particular initiatives will be appropriate for our business, and we may not be able to implement such initiatives because of potential costs or technical or operational obstacles, which may adversely impact our reputation or stakeholder relations. If we do not, or are perceived by stakeholders to not, take sufficient action to respond to ESG matters, we may be subject to investor or regulator engagement on our ESG initiatives and disclosures, even if such initiatives are currently voluntary.

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Certain market participants, including major institutional investors and capital providers, use third-party benchmarks and scores to assess companies’ ESG profiles in making investment or voting decisions. Unfavorable ESG ratings could lead to increased negative investor sentiment towards us, which could negatively impact our share price as well as our access to and cost of capital. To the extent ESG matters negatively impact our reputation, it may also impede our ability to compete as effectively to attract and retain employees or customers, which may adversely impact our operations.

In addition, we expect there will likely be increasing levels of regulation, disclosure-related and otherwise, with respect to ESG matters. For example, the SEC has proposed requirements to disclose a variety of climate-related information, in addition to other rules, which could require us to incur significant costs for monitoring and compliance. This and other regulations will likely lead to increased costs as well as scrutiny that could heighten all of the risks identified in this risk factor. Additionally, many of our customers and suppliers may be subject to similar expectations, which may augment or create additional risks, including risks that may not be known to us.

Short sellers of our stock may be manipulative and may drive down the market price of our Class A Common Stock.

Short selling is the practice of selling securities that the seller does not own, but rather has borrowed or intends to borrow from a third party with the intention of buying identical securities at a later date to return to the lender. A short seller hopes to profit from a decline in the value of the securities between the sale of the borrowed securities and the purchase of the replacement shares, as the short seller expects to pay less in that purchase than it received in the sale. It is therefore in the short seller’s interest for the price of the stock to decline, and some short sellers publish, or arrange for the publication of, opinions or characterizations regarding the relevant issuer, often involving misrepresentations of the issuer’s business prospects and similar matters calculated to create negative market momentum, which may permit them to obtain profits for themselves as a result of selling the stock short.

In July and August of 2023, Capybara Research and Igor Appelboom issued short reports on us, which were followed by significant decreases in the price of our Class A Common Stock over the remainder of 2023. We believe the claims made by Capybara Research and Igor Appelboom are without merit. On December 20, 2023, we filed a federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that Capybara Research and Igor Appelboom take short positions in publicly traded companies and release fraudulent, disparaging reports in order to drive the company’s stock price down for their own financial benefit. There is no assurance that we will be successful in this or any other litigation.

As a public entity, we may be the subject of additional concerted efforts by short sellers to spread negative information in order to gain a market advantage. In addition, the publication of misinformation may also result in lawsuits, the uncertainty and expense of which could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and reputation. There are no assurances that we will not face short sellers’ efforts or similar tactics in the future, and the market price of our Class A Common Stock may decline as a result of their actions.

​

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

Item 1C. Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity Risk Management and Strategy

We have developed and implemented a cybersecurity risk management program intended to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our critical systems and information. Our cybersecurity risk management program includes a cybersecurity incident response plan.

We design and assess our program based on the FedRAMP framework. This does not imply that we meet any particular technical standards, specifications, or requirements, only that we use the FedRAMP requirements as a guide to help us identify, assess, and manage cybersecurity risks relevant to our business.

Our cybersecurity risk management program is part of our overall enterprise risk management program. Our cybersecurity risk management program includes:

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We have not identified risks from known cybersecurity threats, including as a result of any prior cybersecurity incidents, that have materially affected or are reasonably likely to materially affect us, including our operations, business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition. For more information, see the section titled “Risk Factor— Our business and operations may suffer in the event of information technology system failures, cyberattacks or deficiencies in our cybersecurity.”

Cybersecurity Governance

Our Board considers cybersecurity risk as part of its risk oversight function and has delegated to the Audit Committee (the “Committee”) oversight of cybersecurity and other information technology risks. The Committee oversees management’s implementation of our cybersecurity risk management program.

The Committee receives periodic reports from management on our cybersecurity risks. In addition, management updates the Committee, as necessary, regarding any material cybersecurity incidents, as well as any incidents with lesser impact potential.

The Committee reports to the full Board regarding its activities, including those related to cybersecurity. The full Board also receives briefings from management on our cyber risk management program.

Our management team, includes Mercedes Soria, EVP and Chief Intelligence Officer /Chief Information Security Officer, (“CISO”) has primary responsibility for our overall cybersecurity program and supervises both our internal cybersecurity personnel and our retained external cybersecurity consultants. who has over 3 years of cyber risk management experience, is responsible for assessing and managing our material risks from cybersecurity threats. Ms. Soria has successfully led the Company’s FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) Authority to Operate (ATO) review process. Achieving a FedRAMP Authority to Operate (ATO) signifies that Knightscope has met a comprehensive and rigorous set of cybersecurity standards designed for the protection of federal information systems. The FedRAMP process is designed to ensure that service providers implement and maintain strong cybersecurity practices. As part of her responsibilities, Ms. Soria and her team will continue to monitor our systems for vulnerabilities, implement required updates, and undergo periodic reassessments thus ensuring that our cybersecurity practices remain effective over time.

Our management team supervises efforts to prevent, detect, mitigate, and remediate cybersecurity risks and incidents through various means, which may include briefings from internal security personnel; threat intelligence and other information obtained from governmental, public or private sources, including external consultants engaged by us; and alerts and reports produced by security tools deployed in the information technology environment and our products.

Item 2. Properties

Knightscope currently leases its premises and owns no significant plant or equipment. The Company’s approximately 15,000 square foot facility in Mountain View, California serves as its headquarters, where it designs, engineers, tests, manufactures and supports all of its ASR technologies. The Company wholly owns its ASRs and typically builds in batches based on client demand, refraining where possible in stocking inventory or finished products. The ECDs are designed and assembled in the Company’s two 6,540 and 4,254 square foot facilities located in Irvine and Downey, California, respectively.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

From time to time, the Company may be subject to pending legal proceedings and regulatory actions in the ordinary course of business. The Company is not presently a party to any litigation that it believes to be material and the Company is not aware of any pending or

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threatened litigation against the Company that it believes could have a material adverse effect on its business, operating results, financial condition or cash flows.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

Information about our Executive Officers and Directors

The following table provides information regarding our executive officers as of the filing of this Annual Report on Form 10-K:

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Executive Officers

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William (“Bill”) Santana Li has served as the Company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) since April 2013, when he co-founded the Company. Mr. Li is an American entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience from working in the global automotive sector and founding and leading a number of startups. From 1990 to 1999, Mr. Li held multiple business and technical positions at Ford Motor Company across four continents. His positions at Ford ranged from component, systems, and vehicle engineering with the Visteon, Mazda, and Lincoln brands; to business and product strategy on the United States youth market, India, and the emerging markets in Asia-Pacific and South America; as well as the financial turnaround of Ford of Europe. In addition, he was on the “Amazon” team, which established an all-new modular plant in Brazil. Subsequently, he served as Director of Mergers & Acquisitions. After internally securing $250 million in financing, Mr. Li founded and served as COO of GreenLeaf LLC, a Ford Motor Company subsidiary that became the world’s second largest automotive recycler. Under his leadership, GreenLeaf grew to more than 600 employees, 20 locations worldwide, and annual sales of approximately $150 million. After successfully establishing GreenLeaf, Mr. Li was recruited by SoftBank Venture Capital to establish and serve as the President and CEO of the Model E Corporation, a newly established automobile manufacturer that focused on the “Subscribe and Drive” model in California. Mr. Li also founded Carbon Motors Corporation in 2003, and as its Chairman and CEO until February 2013, focused it on developing the world’s first purpose-built law enforcement patrol vehicle. Carbon Motors Corporation filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in June 2013. Mr. Li earned a BSEE from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the University of Detroit Mercy. He is married to Mercedes Soria, the Company’s EVP and Chief Intelligence Officer / CISO. The Board believes Mr. Li is qualified to serve on our Board due to his more than 30 years of experience in various industries, including as our Chairman and CEO, and co-founder of the Company.

​

Stacy Dean Stephens has served as our EVP and Chief Client Officer since May 2013 and co-founded the Company in April 2013. Previously, he co-founded Carbon Motors Corporation with Mr. Li, where he led marketing operations, sales, product management, partnership marketing and client service. At Carbon Motors, Mr. Stephens established the “Carbon Council,” a client interface and users group consisting of over 3,000 law enforcement professionals across all 50 states and actively serving over 2,200 law enforcement agencies. Carbon Motors Corporation filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in June 2013. Prior to co-founding Carbon Motors Corporation, Mr. Stephens served as a police officer for the Coppell (Texas) Police Department from 2000 to 2002. Mr. Stephens studied aerospace engineering at the University of Texas in Arlington. He subsequently earned a degree in criminal justice and graduated as valedictorian from Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas. He is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (“IACP”) and also sits on the IACP Division of State Associations of Chiefs of Police SafeShield Project, which seeks to critically examine existing and developing technologies for the purpose of preventing and minimizing officer injuries and fatalities.

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Apoorv S. Dwivedi has served as the EVP and Chief Financial Officer of the Company since January 2024. Mr. Dwivedi most recently served as the Chief Financial Officer of Nxu, Inc. from January 2022 until December 2023. Prior to his CFO role at Nxu, Dwivedi served as Director of Finance for Cox Automotive from 2019 to January 2022 where he successfully ran the Manheim Logistics business.

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From 2018 to 2019, he was the Director of Presales within the finance solutions group at Workiva, and from 2010 to 2017 Mr. Dwivedi served in several corporate finance roles of increasing responsibility at the General Electric Company across both the GE Capital and GE Industrial businesses. Mr. Dwivedi began his career at ABN-AMRO, N.A. and was instrumental in building one of the first data analytics teams at Sears Holdings Company. Mr. Dwivedi earned his Bachelors in Finance from Loyola University – Chicago and his MBA from Yale School of Management.

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Mercedes Soria has served as our EVP and Chief Intelligence Officer since May 2013 and has been with Knightscope since April 2013. Ms. Soria is a technology professional with over 15 years of experience in systems development, life cycle management, project leadership, software architecture and web applications development. Ms. Soria led IT strategy development at Carbon Motors Corporation from 2011 until 2013. From 2002 to 2010, Ms. Soria was Channel Manager and Software Development Manager for internal operations at Deloitte & Touche LLP. From 1998 to 2002, Ms. Soria worked as a software developer at Gibson Musical Instruments leading the effort to establish its online presence. Ms. Soria obtained Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Computer Science from Middle Tennessee State University with honors, as well as an Executive MBA from Emory University. She is also a certified Six Sigma green belt professional and a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. She is married to William Santana Li, the Company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

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Aaron Lehnhardt has served as our Chief Design Officer since November 2015. Previously, from the Company’s inception in April 2013 until November 2015, Mr. Lehnhardt served as Chief Designer of the Company. From 2002 to April 2013, Mr. Lehnhardt was the co-owner of Lehnhardt Creative LLC where he worked on advanced propulsion vehicle design, personal electronics, product design, video game design, and concept development work. From 2004 to 2011, Mr. Lehnhardt was Chief Designer at California Motors (“Calmotors”), where he led the design for various concepts for HyRider hybrid vehicles, the Calmotors 1000 horsepower hybrid super car, Terra Cruzer super off-road vehicle, multiple vehicles for the U.S. Military, and various other hybrid and electric vehicles. He was also the lead designer and partner of Ride Vehicles LLC, a sister company to Calmotors, which worked on a 3-wheeled, standup personal mobility vehicle.

Directors

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William (“Bill”) Santana Li’s background information is set forth under “Executive Officers” above.

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William (“Will”) G. Billings has served as a director since February 2024. He has served as the vice president of finance and chief accounting officer of GlobalFoundries, one of the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers, since November 2021, where he is responsible for overseeing the company’s global finance and accounting operations. Prior to joining GlobalFoundries, from August 2021 to November 2021, Mr. Billings was vice president of accounting and chief accounting officer at Coursera, an online course provider. Before that, he served as the Global Corporate Controller of Airbnb, Inc., an online marketplace for lodging and tourism activities, from July 2019 to August 2021. Prior to that, Mr. Billings served as Vice President of Finance and Global Controller at World Fuel Services Corporation, an energy, commodities, and services company, from November 2015 to July 2019. From November 2013 to October 2015, Mr. Billings served as Global Technical Controller of General Electric Company, a multinational energy, equipment, solutions and services company. Mr. Billings is a certified public accountant and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Southern University A&M and a Master of Business Administration degree from Rice University. The Board believes Mr. Billings is qualified to serve on the Board due to his significant finance, accounting, and operations experience.

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Robert (“Bob”) A. Mocny has served as a director since February 2024. He has been a strategic advisor to the Biometrics Institute Limited since May 2020, a venture partner at Ridge Lane, LP since May 2020, a principal at Deep Water Point & Associates since May 2020, and has provided technical expertise to the Center for National Security and Immigration on immigration related legislation since June 2021. He previously served in various roles at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (the “DHS”) from April 2001 to February 2020, most recently as the deputy director of technology and innovation at the Federal Protective Service of the DHS from October 2016 to February 2020. Prior to the DHS, Mr. Mocny served at the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Department of Justice from December 1992 to April 2001, culminating in his role as the Special Assistant to the Deputy Commissioner from April 1998 to April 2001. Mr. Mocny has spearheaded numerous technology innovation initiatives, including office automation software programs and the development of the Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (or “SENTRI”) program, which was recognized with a Hammer Award by Vice President Al Gore and is now one of the core Trusted Traveler programs operated by DHS. Mr. Mocny holds a bachelor’s degree in Soviet Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara. The Board believes Mr. Mocny is qualified to serve on the Board due to his significant security, law enforcement and government experience and technological expertise.

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Melvin (“Mel”) W. Torrie has served as a director since February 2024. He has served as the chief executive office, president, and chairman of the board of directors of Autonomous Solutions Inc. (“ASI”) since November 2000. ASI was founded in 2000 as a spinoff from Utah State University and provides technology to create fully autonomous vehicles by retrofitting existing equipment. In his role at ASI, Mr. Torrie has piloted robotic development partnerships with some of the largest vehicle manufacturers in the world. Mr. Torrie has taught at Utah State University and is a frequent keynote speaker and trainer on the topics of artificial intelligence, machine learning, autonomous vehicles, industrial robotics, and leadership. Mr. Torrie has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and a computer science minor from Utah State University. The Board believes Mr. Torrie is qualified to serve on the Board due to his significant experience in leadership and with technology, autonomous vehicles, and robotics.

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PART II

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

Market Information and Holders

Our Class A Common Stock is listed and traded on The Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “KSCP.” As of March 28, 2024, we had (i) 14,207 holders of record of our Class A Common Stock and (ii) 15 holders of our Class B Common Stock.

Dividends

To date, we have not paid any cash dividends on our Class A Common Stock. We expect to retain future earnings for use in operating and expanding our business, and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the reasonably foreseeable future.

Future declarations of dividends will depend on, among other things, our results of operations, financial condition, cash flows and capital requirements, and on such other factors as the board of directors may in its discretion consider relevant and in the best long-term interest of stockholders.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

None.

Purchases of Equity Securities By the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers.

None.

Item 6. [Reserved]

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

Introduction

The following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our financial statements and notes thereto included herein as Item 8. This discussion contains forward-looking statements. Refer to “Forward-Looking Statements” and “Risk Factors” herein, for a discussion of the uncertainties, risks, assumptions, and other important factors associated with these statements. The historical results presented below are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for any future period.

A discussion of our comparison between 2023 and 2022 is presented below. A discussion of the changes in our results of operations between the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 has been omitted from this Annual Report on Form 10-K but may be found in Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, filed with the SEC on March 31, 2023, which is available free of charge on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov and our corporate website (www.knightscope.com).

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Overview

Knightscope is a public safety advanced technology company that builds fully autonomous security robots and blue light emergency communications systems. Our technologies are designed to help our clients protect the people, places, and things where we live, work, study, and visit. Our technologies are made in the USA and allow public safety professionals to more effectively identify, deter, intervene, capture, and prosecute criminals.

To support our mission to make the USA the safest country in the world, we design, develop, manufacture, market, deploy and support ASRs, autonomous charging stations, the KSOC software user interface, Blue Light emergency communication devices, and our newly released KEMS software platform.

Our core technologies are suitable for most environments that require security patrol coverage and designed to be force multipliers that offer security teams improved situational awareness. ASRs conduct real-time on-site data collection and analysis in both indoor and outdoor spaces delivering alerts to security professionals through the KSOC. The KSOC enables clients with appropriate credentials and user permissions to access the data for investigative and evidence collection purposes.

Our ECDs that comprise our K1B portfolio of products consist of the K1 Blue Light Tower, E-Phone, and the K1 Call Box. Tower devices are tall, highly visible and recognizable apparatuses that provide emergency communications using cellular and satellite communications with solar power for additional safety in remote locations. E-Phones and Call Boxes offer a smaller, yet still highly visible, footprint than the towers, but with the same reliable communication capabilities. In October 2022, we completed the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Case Emergency Systems (the “CASE Acquisition”), which consisted of their emergency call box and communications business.

We sell our ASR and stationary multi-purpose security solutions under an annual subscription, Machine-as-a-Service (“MaaS”) business model, which includes the ASR machine as well as maintenance, service, support, data transfer, KSOC access, charging stations, and unlimited software, firmware and select hardware upgrades.

Our stationary ECD technologies are sold as point-of-sale modular systems, including Knightscope’s exclusive, self-diagnostic, alarm monitoring software solution that provides system owners daily email reports on the operational status of their system, a one-year parts warranty, and optional installation services which was announced in 2023 as the Knightscope Emergency Communication System (“KEMS”) platform. The cloud-based application monitors the system wide state-of-health, alerts users concerning operational issues, provides technicians real-time error detection/diagnostics, and collects/reports system performance statistics.

Our current strategy for all products and services is to focus solely on USA sales and deployments for the foreseeable future before considering global expansion.

The Company has incurred net losses since inception. Our net loss was $22.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 and $25.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. As of December 31, 2023, we had an accumulated deficit of $161.5 million. Cash and cash equivalents on hand were $2.3 million as of December 31, 2023, compared to $4.8 million as of December 31, 2022.  These factors raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. See Item 1A. Risk Factors—Risks Related to the Business and the Global Economy—We have not yet generated any profits, anticipate that we will incur continued losses for the foreseeable future, and may never achieve profitability.

Known or Anticipated Trends

Our primary goal remains meeting client demand for additional orders of our technology, attracting new client orders, and ensuring consistent performance in the field. The Company is focused on scaling its business to meet incoming orders and increasing demand through various marketing efforts, including our nationwide Robot Roadshow and media coverage, which continues to drive an increase in orders and client inquiries.

Sales trends for the year ended December 31, 2023 showed demand across all of Knightscope’s product and service lines. The sales pipeline continues to grow, however, due to the nature of business-to-business transactions, with enterprises and government municipalities, the sales cycle is lengthy. Although we have executed some contracts in less than 30 days, in some cases negotiations can range up to several months and years, due to the client’s budget, finance, legal, cyber security, human resources, facilities and other

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reviews. The sales process for brand-new technology as well as mature, trusted technology requires significant streamlining and improvements, and we are taking steps to improve our sales processes to move our products through the sales pipeline quicker.

Delays due to supply chain issues and the COVID-19 pandemic that negatively impacted the Company’s performance during the first half of 2022 had largely subsided by the end of fiscal 2023, although supply chain constraints can still be unpredictable and problematic. The CASE Acquisition also contributed to a significant increase in the Company’s revenues for the year ended December 31, 2023.

Due to geopolitical events and safety requirements as well as various high-profile incidents of violence across the USA, we believe that the market for our technologies will continue to grow. We also expect that competing products may be introduced in the near future, creating pressure on us to improve on our production methods, cost, quality and product features.

The Company is aiming to scale its business and become more streamlined, which management expects will decrease gross loss over time. Therefore, we are focusing our resources on growing the business, in order to be able to generate both a gross profit and net income. We are continually evaluating and taking a number of near-term actions to facilitate this result, and as the Company matures, we expect to obtain economies of scale and efficiency that will help to increase revenue and reduce costs over the medium to long-term. We are also focused on controlling general overhead costs, such as

Our strategy is to try to keep fixed costs as low as possible and minimize variable costs while achieving our overall growth objectives.

As of March 24, 2024, the Company had a total backlog of approximately $2.8 million, comprised of $1.8 million related to ASR orders and $1.0 million related to orders for ECDs. The Company’s continued focus on addressing supply chain constraints and implementing operational efficiencies has contributed to a reduction in the backlog, which directly contributes to increased revenue, net.

Recent Developments

On February 23, 2024, we filed a definitive proxy statement with the SEC in connection with a special meeting of stockholders to be held on April 5, 2024 to approve an amendment to our Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of our Class A Common Stock from 114,000,000 to 228,000,000 (the “Share Increase Amendment”). See Liquidity and Capital Resources.

On October 26, 2023, the Company was listed on The Nasdaq Global Market and received written notice (the “Notice”) from Nasdaq indicating that the Company is no longer in compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5450(a)(1) (the “Minimum Bid Price Requirement”), as the minimum bid price of the Company’s Class A Common Stock had been below $1.00 per share for the last 31 consecutive business days. The notification of noncompliance had no immediate effect on the listing or trading of the Company’s Class A Common Stock on The Nasdaq Global Market at that time.

The Company has 180 calendar days, or until April 23, 2024, to regain compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Requirement. The Company transferred to The Nasdaq Capital Market effective as of March 4, 2024. As a result, provided that the Company meets continued listing requirements for market value of publicly held shares and all other initial listing standards for The Nasdaq Capital Market, with the exception of the Minimum Bid Price Requirement, and provides written notice of its intention to cure the bid price deficiency during the second compliance period by April 23, 2024, the Company may be eligible for an additional 180-calendar day compliance period, to regain compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Requirement. If we fail to regain compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Requirement by April 23, 2024, we expect to receive a determination letter from the Nasdaq staff that our Class A Common

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Stock is subject to delisting. If we receive such a determination letter, we expect to have a period of seven days to submit a written request for a review of the delisting determination by the Nasdaq Hearings Panel (the “Hearings Panel”). There can be no assurance that the Company will be able to regain compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Requirement or that a Hearings Panel would grant an exception to the Minimum Bid Price Requirement to give us additional time to comply with the rule.

On September 29, 2023, we filed an Offering Circular (the “Offering Circular”) for the issuance of up to $10.0 million in Public Safety Infrastructure Bonds (the “Bonds”) pursuant to Regulation A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. The Offering Circular was qualified with the SEC on October 2, 2023. The price per Bond is $1,000. The Bonds are unsecured, bearing interest at 10% per annum, payable annually on December 31 each year, starting on December 31, 2024, with the Bonds maturing on the fifth anniversary of the initial issuance. We issued Bonds totaling a principal amount of approximately $1.4 million, in aggregate, generating net proceeds to the Company of approximately $1.2 million, net of issuance costs of approximately $0.2 million during the year ended December 31, 2023. We closed the Bond issuance on March 14, 2024 and issued Bonds totaling a principal amount of approximately $2.8 million, in aggregate, generating net proceeds to the Company of approximately $2.6 million, net of issuance costs of approximately $0.2 million during the period starting January 1, 2024 and ending on March 14, 2024. Overall, we issued Bonds totaling a principal amount of approximately $4.2 million, in aggregate, generating net proceeds to the Company of approximately $3.8 million, net of issuance costs of approximately $0.4 million during the life of the offering.

Critical Accounting Estimates

The discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations is based upon our accompanying financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The preparation of these financial statements requires us to make estimates, assumptions and judgments that can have significant impact on the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, revenues and expenses, and related disclosure of assets and liabilities at the date of our financial statements. For the Company, these estimates include, but are not limited to: deriving the useful lives of ASRs, determination of the cost of ASRs, assessing assets for impairment, accounts receivable – estimated credit losses, determination of deferred tax valuation allowances, the valuation of convertible preferred stock warrants, estimating fair values of the Company’s share-based awards, and derivative liabilities. Actual results could differ from those estimates. We base our estimates, assumptions and judgments on historical experience and various other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions. On a regular basis, we evaluate our estimates, assumptions and judgments and make changes accordingly.

We believe the following critical accounting estimates affect our more significant judgments and estimates used in preparing our financial statements. Please see Note 1 to our financial statements, which are included in Item 8 “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this Annual Report.

Business Combinations

We account for our business combinations using the acquisition method of accounting, which requires, among other things, allocation of the fair value of purchase consideration to the tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed at their estimated fair values on the acquisition date. The excess of the fair value of purchase consideration over the values of these identifiable assets and liabilities is recorded as goodwill. When determining the fair value of assets acquired and liabilities assumed, we make significant estimates and assumptions, especially with respect to intangible assets. Our estimates of fair value are based upon assumptions believed to be reasonable, but which are inherently uncertain and unpredictable, and as a result, actual results may differ from estimates. Once the purchase accounting is finalized, any subsequent adjustments are reflected in the statements of operations. Acquisition costs, such as legal and consulting fees, are expensed as incurred.

Acquired Intangible Assets

When we acquire a business, a portion of the purchase price is typically allocated to identifiable intangible assets, such as trademarks, acquired technology and customer relationships. Fair value of these assets is determined primarily using the income approach, which requires us to project future cash flows and apply an appropriate discount rate. We amortize intangible assets with finite lives over their expected useful lives. Our estimates are based upon assumptions believed to be reasonable, but which are inherently uncertain and unpredictable. Assumptions may be incomplete or inaccurate, and unanticipated events and circumstances may occur. Incorrect estimates could result in future impairment charges, and those charges could be material to our results of operations.

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Inventory

Inventory, principally purchased components, is stated at the lower of cost or net realizable value. Cost is determined using an average cost, which approximates actual cost on a first-in, first-out basis. Inventory in excess of salable amounts and inventory which is considered obsolete based upon changes in existing technology is written off. At the point of loss recognition, a new lower cost basis for that inventory is established and subsequent changes in facts and circumstances do not result in the restoration or increase in the new cost basis.

Goodwill

Goodwill represents the excess of the purchase price over the fair value of the net tangible and identifiable intangible assets acquired in a business combination. Goodwill is not subject to amortization but will be reviewed for impairment on an annual basis or more frequently if events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying value of goodwill may not be recoverable.

Autonomous Security Robots, net (“ASRs”)

ASRs consist of materials, ASRs in progress and finished ASRs. ASRs in progress and finished ASRs include materials, labor and other direct and indirect costs used in their production. Finished ASRs are valued using a discrete bill of materials, which includes an allocation of labor and direct overhead based on assembly hours. Depreciation expense on ASRs is recorded using the straight-line method over their estimated expected lives, which currently ranges from 3 to 5 years. Depreciation expense of finished ASRs included in research and development expense amounted to $8 thousand and $66 thousand, depreciation expense of finished ASRs included in sales and marketing expense amounted to $15 thousand and $46 thousand, and depreciation expense included in cost of revenue, net amounted to $1.6 million and $1.4 million for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. ASRs, net, consisted of the following (in thousands):

​

The components of the Finished ASRs, net at December 31, 2023 and 2022 are as follows:

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Impairment of Long-Lived Assets

The Company assesses the impairment of long-lived assets whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that their carrying value may not be recoverable from the estimated future cash flows expected to result from their use or eventual disposition. If estimates of future undiscounted net cash flows are insufficient to recover the carrying value of the assets, the Company will record an impairment loss in the amount by which the carrying value exceeds the fair value. If the assets are determined to be recoverable, but the useful lives are shorter than originally estimated, the Company will depreciate or amortize the net book value of the assets over the newly determined remaining useful lives. None of the Company’s ASRs, property, equipment and software or intangible assets were determined to be impaired during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022.

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Convertible Preferred Warrant Liability and Common Stock Warrants

Freestanding warrants to purchase shares of the Company’s preferred stock are classified as liabilities on the balance sheets at their estimated fair value because the underlying shares of preferred stock are contingently redeemable and, therefore, may obligate the Company to transfer assets at some point in the future. The preferred stock warrants are recorded at fair value upon issuance and are subject to remeasurement to their respective estimated fair values. At the end of each reporting period, changes in the estimated fair value of the preferred stock warrants are recorded in the statements of operations. The Company will continue to adjust the liability associated with the preferred stock warrants for changes in the estimated fair value until the earlier of the exercise or expiration of the preferred stock warrants, the completion of a sale of the Company or an underwritten initial public offering (“IPO”). Upon an IPO, the preferred stock warrants will convert into warrants to purchase common stock and any liabilities recorded for the preferred stock warrants will be reclassified to additional paid-in capital and will no longer be subject to remeasurement.

The Company issued common stock warrants in connection with the execution of a certain debt financing during the year ended December 31, 2015. These common stock warrants are not considered derivative liabilities are accounted for at fair value at the date of issuance in additional paid-in capital and were fully exercised in 2022 and none remain outstanding as of December 31, 2023. The fair value of these common stock warrants is determined using the Black-Scholes option pricing model.

On October 10, 2022, we issued common stock warrants in connection with the execution of Convertible Notes (“2022 Convertible Notes”). These warrants are recorded as derivative liabilities as it was determined they were not indeed to the Company’s stock and accounted for at fair value upon issuance. The derivative liability will be marked to market each reporting period with changes in fair value recorded in changes in fair value of warrant and derivative liability on the statements of operations.

On April 7, 2023, the Company entered into an Amendment and Cancellation Agreement with certain holders of warrants to purchase Series m-3 and Series S Preferred Stock. Under the terms of the agreement, the expiration date for warrants to purchase 1,432,786 shares of Series m-3 Preferred Stock and 2,941,814 shares of Series S Preferred Stock was extended to the earlier of December 31, 2027 or eighteen (18) months after the closing of the Company’s first firm commitment underwritten initial public offering of the Company’s common stock pursuant to a registration statement filed under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, in exchange for the cancellation of warrants to purchase 1,500,000 shares of Series S Preferred Stock.

Stock-Based Compensation

The Company accounts for stock-based compensation in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification 718, Compensation - Stock Compensation, which requires that the estimated fair value on the date of grant be determined using the Black-Scholes option pricing model with the fair value recognized over the requisite service period of the awards, which is generally the option vesting period. The Company’s determination of the fair value of the stock-based awards on the date of grant, using the Black-Scholes option pricing model, is affected by the fair value of the Company’s common stock as well as other assumptions regarding a number of highly complex and subjective variables. These variables include but are not limited to the Company’s expected stock price volatility over the term of the awards, and actual and projected employee option exercise behaviors. Because there is insufficient historical information available to estimate the expected term of the stock-based awards, the Company adopted the simplified method of estimating the expected term of options granted by taking the average of the vesting term and the contractual term of the option. The Company recognizes forfeitures as they occur when calculating stock-based compensation for its equity awards.

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Results of Operations

The following table sets forth certain historical statements of operations data (in thousands) and such data as a percentage of revenue for the periods indicated.

​

Revenue, net

Service revenue, net, which includes revenue generated through MaaS agreements for our ASRs and maintenance and support contracts for our K1B portfolio of ECDs, increased by approximately $2.0 million to $7.2 million, or approximately 39%, for the year ended December 31, 2023, from $5.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. The increase resulted from having a full year of services for ECDs after the Company’s acquisition of CASE during the fourth quarter of 2022. Product revenue of approximately $5.6 million from sales of ECDs, an increase of 1100% over the prior year, primarily represents a full year of sales as compared to product revenue of approximately $0.5 million in the prior year, as a result of the CASE Acquisition in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022.

Cost of revenue, net

Service cost of revenue, net, representing the cost of supporting ASR MaaS and maintenance and support agreements related to ECD installations, for the year ended December 31, 2023, was approximately $9.9 million, as compared to approximately $8.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, representing an increase of approximately $1.1 million, or approximately 12%. The increase was due to increased warranty costs and higher service revenue volume over the prior year. As a percentage of service revenue, service cost of revenue, net decreased to 138% from 171%. The service cost of revenue, net is primarily related to the depreciation and service costs for ASRs and support and maintenance of the ECDs. Product cost of revenue, net of approximately $4.9 million and $0.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively, increased primarily due to the costs of ECDs sold pursuant to the CASE Acquisition during the fourth quarter of 2022.

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Gross loss

Gross loss for the year ended December 31, 2023 was approximately $2.0 million, as compared to $3.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, representing a decrease of approximately $1.3 million, or 39%.

Research and Development

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Research and development (“R&D”) expense for the year ended December 31, 2023 was approximately $6.4 million, or 50% of revenue, compared to R&D expense of $8.4 million, or 150% of revenue, for the year ended December 31, 2022. The decrease was primarily due to expense reduction initiatives taken by the Company in early 2023, which also included headcount reductions in departments that support R&D. In addition, revenue growth, which included a full year cycle of the K1B business line (formerly CASE) occurred at a higher pace than our R&D expenses, leading to the lower R&D expense as a percent of total revenue.

Sales and marketing

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Sales and marketing expense for the year ended December 31, 2023 was approximately $5.2 million, or 40% of revenue, compared to sales and marketing expense of $8.5 million, or 151% of revenue, for the year ended December 31, 2022. The decrease in 2023 was primarily due to lower spend on advertising activities in 2023. In addition, revenue growth, which included a full year cycle of the K1B business line (formerly CASE) occurred at a higher pace than our sales and marketing expenses, leading to the lower sales and marketing expense as a percent of total revenue.

General and administrative

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General and administrative (“G&A”) expense for the year ended December 31, 2023 was approximately $12.6 million, or 98% of revenue, compared to G&A expense of approximately $11.7 million, or 208% of revenue, for the year ended December 31, 2022. The increase was primarily driven by an increase of approximately $2.5 million for investor relations expense, approximately $0.6 million for payroll expense as a result of a full year realization of the acquired CASE business, and approximately $0.3 million for real estate and property tax expense, partially offset by decreases in bonus expense of approximately $1.0 million, director and officer insurance expense of approximately $0.7 million, bad debt expense of approximately $0.6 million, and rent expense of approximately $0.3 million.

Restructuring Charges

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We incurred restructuring charges for the year ended December 31, 2023, of $149 thousand as a result of a work force reduction initiated in January 2023.

Other Income, Net

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Interest expense, net

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Interest expense, net for the year ended December 31, 2023 was approximately $0.6 million, compared to interest expense net of approximately $9.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. The decrease in interest expense, net resulted from the full amortization of the debt discount in the year ended December 31, 2022 from the conversion of all of the notes outstanding in 2022 and paying off the promissory note issued in connection with the CASE acquisition in 2022, partially offset by interest on the Bonds issued in 2023.

Change in fair value of warrant and derivative liability

The change in the fair value of warrant and derivative liability for the year ended December 31, 2023 resulting in other income of approximately $4.9 million compared to other income of approximately $20.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. The change in the fair value of the warrant and derivative liability is attributable to the decrease in the fair value of the preferred stock and common stock warrants that are accounted for as a liability.

Other expense, net

Other expense, net for the year ended December 31, 2023 was approximately $0.2 million, and was incurred in connection with the Referral Agreement with Dimension Funding, LLC (see below), as compared to other expense, net of $0.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2022 attributable to transaction costs related to the CASE acquisition.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

As of December 31, 2023 and 2022, we had $2.3 million and $4.8 million, respectively, of cash and cash equivalents. As of December 31, 2023, the Company also had an accumulated deficit of $161.5 million, working capital of $1.3 million and stockholders’ deficit of $26.6 million. These factors raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. There can be no assurance that the Company will be successful in acquiring additional funding at levels sufficient to fund its future operations. Management’s plans include seeking additional financing, such as issuances of equity and issuances of debt and/or convertible debt instruments. Sales of additional equity securities, convertible debt and/or warrants by the Company could result in the dilution of the interests of existing stockholders. The Company will require significant additional financing to meet its planned capital and operational needs and is pursuing opportunities to obtain additional financing through equity and/or debt alternatives. However, there can be no assurance that financing will be available when required in sufficient amounts, on acceptable terms or at all. If the Company is unable to raise additional capital in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to it, the Company may have to significantly reduce its operations, delay, scale back or discontinue the development of one or more of its platforms or discontinue operations completely.

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Share Increase Amendment

We are currently authorized to issue 114,000,000 shares of Class A common stock. On February 23, 2024, we filed a definitive proxy statement with the SEC in connection with a special meeting of stockholders to be held on April 5, 2024 to approve an amendment to our Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of our Class A Common Stock from 114,000,000 to 228,000,000 (the “Share Increase Amendment”). Our ability to conduct financing activities, including our at-the-market offering program, will be limited unless the Share Increase Amendment is approved.

Referral Agreement with Dimension

On April 20, 2021, the Company entered into a Referral Agreement with Dimension Funding, LLC (“Dimension”), whereby the Company can generate up to $10 million of immediate cash flow by referring its clients to Dimension for financing of their annual fees over the MaaS subscription term. This agreement enables the Company to quickly offset the up-front costs associated with building and deploying ASRs by accelerating collection of its accounts receivable. In 2022, the Company also began working with a second source for order financing for its ASRs to supplement its ability to finance its backlog.

Cash Flow

The table below, for the periods indicated, provides selected cash flow information:

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Net Cash Used in Operating Activities

Net cash used in operating activities is influenced by the amount of cash we invest in personnel, marketing, and infrastructure to support the anticipated growth of our business, the number of clients to whom we lease our ASRs, sell and service ECDs, the amount and timing of accounts receivable collections, as well as the amount and timing of disbursements to our vendors.

Net cash used in operating activities for the year ended December 31, 2023 increased by $0.1 million to $24.2 million, compared to $24.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. Loan discount amortization and a change in fair value of convertible notes in 2022 was immaterial in 2023 and accounted for an increase in cash used in operating activities of $13.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022. Changes in operating assets and liabilities, net of $6.1 million, and a decrease in stock compensation expense of $0.8 million also contributed to the increase in cash used in operating expenses for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to the prior year. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in net loss of $3.5 million, a decrease in the change in the fair value of warrant liabilities of $15.9 million, an increase in depreciation and amortization expense of $0.7 million, an increase in stock issued for consulting services of $0.1 million and an increase in accrued interest of $0.1 million.

Net Cash Used in Investing Activities

Our primary investing activities have consisted of capital expenditures and investment in ASRs. As our business grows, we expect our capital expenditures to continue to increase.

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2023 was $5.1 million compared to $9.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, a decrease of $4.8 million. The decrease was primarily a result of the CASE acquisition in the prior year for $5.4 million partially offset by higher investments in ASRs and equipment of $0.6 million in the current year.

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Net Cash Provided by Financing Activities

Net cash provided by financing activities was approximately $26.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, a decrease of approximately $1.1 million as compared to the prior year. Our financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2023, consisted primarily of the issuance and sale of shares of Class A Common Stock for net proceeds of approximately $26.0 million, net proceeds from the issuance of Regulation A bonds of approximately $1.2 million, and Class A Common Stock issued as a result of option exercises of approximately $0.3 million, partially offset by a note repayment of approximately $0.6 million.

Warrants to Purchase Shares of, Series m-3 Preferred Stock

In connection with the placement of the Series m-3 Preferred Stock during the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2018, the Company issued to the purchasers warrants to purchase an aggregate of 1,432,786 shares of Series m-3 Preferred Stock. These warrants have an exercise price of $4.00 per share. Pursuant to a second amendment to the Warrants to Purchase Shares of Series M-3 Preferred Stock Agreement dated November 18, 2021, the exercise period of the warrants was extended from December 31, 2021 to December 31, 2024 and shall be exercisable, in whole or in part, beginning January 1, 2023. In addition, the cashless exercise feature was removed from the warrants.

On April 7, 2023, the Company entered into an Amendment and Cancellation Agreement with certain holders of warrants to purchase Series m-3 and Series S Preferred Stock. Under the terms of the agreement, the expiration date for warrants to purchase 1,432,786 shares of Series m-3 Preferred Stock and 2,941,814 shares of Series S Preferred Stock was extended to the earlier of December 31, 2027 or eighteen (18) months after the closing of the Company’s first firm commitment underwritten initial public offering of the Company’s common stock pursuant to a registration statement filed under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, in exchange for the cancellation of warrants to purchase 1,500,000 shares of Series S Preferred Stock.

2022 Convertible Notes and Common Stock Warrants

On October 10, 2022, we entered into a securities purchase agreement with an accredited investor (the “Buyer”), pursuant to which we sold and issued to the Buyer in a private placement (i) senior secured convertible notes in an aggregate principal amount of $6.075 million (the “2022 Convertible Notes”), at an initial conversion price of $5.00 per share of Class A Common Stock, subject to adjustment upon the occurrence of specified events described in the 2022 Convertible Notes, and (ii) warrants to purchase up to 1,138,446 shares of Class A Common Stock with an initial exercise price of $3.25 per share of Class A Common Stock, exercisable immediately and expiring five years from the date of issuance (the “2022 Common Stock Warrants” and, together with the 2022 Convertible Notes, the “2022 Convertible Notes Offering”), for $5.0 million of gross proceeds. Digital Offering, LLC, acted as the placement agent for the 2022 Convertible Notes Offering and received a commission of 4.50% of the aggregate principal amount of the 2022 Convertible Notes.

The 2022 Common Stock Warrants are recorded as derivative liabilities as it was determined they are not indexed to the Company’s stock and accounted for at fair value upon issuance. The derivative liability will be marked to market each reporting period with changes in fair value recorded in changes in fair value of warrant and derivative liability on the statements of operations.

During the year ended December 31, 2023, the Company issued 10,432,428 shares of Class A Common Stock in connection with various conversions of the 2022 Convertible Notes by the Buyer, representing an aggregate principal amount of $6.075 million. As of December 31, 2023, the entire outstanding principal balance of the 2022 Convertible Notes was fully retired. The 2022 Common Stock Warrants remain outstanding.

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Common Stock Purchase Agreement with B. Riley

On April 4, 2022, the Company entered into the Purchase Agreement and a Registration Rights Agreement with B. Riley Principal Capital. Pursuant to the Purchase Agreement, the Company has the right to sell to B. Riley Principal Capital, up to the lesser of (i) $100,000,000 of newly issued shares of the Company’s Class A Common Stock and (ii) the Exchange Cap (as defined in the Purchase Agreement) (subject to certain conditions and limitations), from time to time during the term of the Purchase Agreement. Sales of Class A Common Stock pursuant to the Purchase Agreement, and the timing of any sales, are solely at the option of the Company, and the Company is under no obligation to sell any securities to B. Riley Principal Capital under the Purchase Agreement. The per share purchase price for the shares of Class A Common Stock that B. Riley Principal Capital is required to purchase pursuant to the Purchase Agreement, if any, will be determined by reference to the volume weighted average price of the Class A Common Stock calculated in accordance with the Purchase Agreement, and subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Purchase Agreement.

As consideration for B. Riley Principal Capital’s commitment to purchase shares of Class A Common Stock at the Company’s direction upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Purchase Agreement, upon execution of the Purchase Agreement, the Company issued 98,888 shares of Class A Common Stock to B. Riley Principal Capital as initial commitment shares. In addition, (i) upon the Company’s receipt of total aggregate gross cash proceeds equal to $25,000,000 as payment by B. Riley Principal Capital for all shares of Class A Common Stock purchased under the Purchase Agreement, the Company will issue 59,333 additional shares of Class A Common Stock to B. Riley Principal Capital as additional commitment shares, and (ii) upon the Company’s receipt of total aggregate gross cash proceeds equal to $50,000,000 from B. Riley Principal Capital under the Purchase Agreement, the Company will issue an additional 39,555 shares of Class A Common Stock to B. Riley Principal Capital as additional commitment shares, totaling 98,888 additional commitment shares (in addition to the 98,888 initial commitment shares the Company issued to B. Riley Principal Capital upon execution of the Purchase Agreement). Pursuant to the Registration Rights Agreement, the Company filed a registration statement on Form S-1 to register the resale of 12,197,776 shares of Class A Common Stock by B. Riley Principal Capital, which was declared effective by the SEC on May 11, 2022.

During the year ended December 31, 2023 we sold and issued 851,109 shares of Class A Common Stock under the Purchase Agreement for total net proceeds of $1.3 million.

At-the-Market Offering Program

In February 2023, we commenced an at-the-market offering program with H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC, as sales agent, in connection with which we filed a prospectus supplement filed on February 9, 2023 (the “February Prospectus Supplement”), allowing us to offer and sell from time to time of up to $20.0 million in shares of Class A Common Stock, subject to, and in accordance with, SEC rules. Pursuant to General Instruction I.B.6 of Form S-3, our prospectus supplement provided that in no event would we sell any securities in a public primary offering with a value exceeding one-third of our non-affiliated public float in any 12-month period unless our non-affiliated public float subsequently rose to $75.0 million or more.

On August 18, 2023, after our non-affiliated public float subsequently rose to an amount greater than $75.0 million, we filed a new prospectus supplement (the “August Prospectus Supplement”) providing for the offer and sale from time to time of up to $25.0 million in shares of Class A Common Stock subject to, and in accordance with, SEC rules.

For the year ended December 31, 2023, we issued 25,734,332 shares of Class A Common Stock under the at-the-market offering program for net proceeds of approximately $16.4 million, net of brokerage and placement fees of approximately $0.6 million pursuant to the February Prospectus Supplement, and 11,817,912 shares of Class A Common Stock under the at-the-market offering program for net proceeds of approximately $8.2 million, net of brokerage and placement fees of approximately $0.3 million pursuant to the August Prospectus Supplement.

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Public Safety Infrastructure Bonds

We filed an Offering Circular dated September 29, 2023 (the “Offering Circular”) for the issuance of up to $10.0 million in Public Safety Infrastructure Bonds (the “Bonds”) pursuant to Regulation A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. The Offering Circular was qualified with the SEC on October 2, 2023. The price per Bond is $1,000. The Bonds are unsecured, bearing interest at 10% per annum, payable annually on December 31 each year, starting on December 31, 2024, with the Bonds maturing on the fifth anniversary of the initial issuance.  We issued Bonds totaling a principal amount of approximately $1.4 million, in aggregate, generating net proceeds to the Company of approximately $1.2 million, net of issuance costs of approximately $0.2 million. We closed the Bond issuance on March 14, 2024 and issued Bonds totaling a principal amount of approximately $2.8 million, in aggregate, generating net proceeds to the Company of approximately $2.6 million, net of issuance costs of approximately $0.2 million during the period starting January 1, 2024 and ending on March 14, 2024. Overall, we issued Bonds totaling a principal amount of approximately $4.2 million, in aggregate, generating net proceeds to the Company of approximately $3.8 million, net of issuance costs of approximately $0.4 million during the life of the offering.

Promissory Note

On June 30, 2023, Knightscope and CASE executed a Promissory Note Partial Payment and Extension Agreement, whereby the maturity date of the Seller’s Note (“Note”) issued on October 14, 2022 in the amount of $560,000 in connection with the acquisition of CASE was extended to October 6, 2023. The balance of the Note was payable in two installments with the first payment made July 10, 2023 and the final payment made on October 5, 2023.

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Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk

We are a smaller reporting company as defined by Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act and are not required to provide information under this item.

Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data

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KNIGHTSCOPE, INC.

INDEX TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

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REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM

To the Board of Directors and Stockholders of

Knightscope, Inc.

Opinion on the Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying balance sheets of Knightscope, Inc. (a Delaware corporation) (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, and the related statements of operations, preferred stock and stockholders’ deficit, and cash flows for each of the two years in the period ended December 31, 2023, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “financial statements”). In our opinion, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the each of the two years in the period ended December 31, 2023, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the USA.

Substantial Doubt about the Company’s Ability to Continue as a Going Concern

The accompanying financial statements have been prepared assuming that the Company will continue as a going concern. As discussed in Note 1 to the financial statements, the Company’s recurring losses from operations, available cash and cash used in operations raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern. Management’s evaluation of the events and conditions and management’s plans regarding these matters are also described in Note 1. The financial statements do not include any adjustments that might result from the outcome of this uncertainty.

Basis for Opinion

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (“PCAOB”) and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. The Company is not required to have, nor were we engaged to perform, an audit of its internal control over financial reporting. As part of our audits, we are required to obtain an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we express no such opinion.

Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

/s/ BPM LLP

We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2020.

San Jose, California

April 1, 2024

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KNIGHTSCOPE, INC.

BALANCE SHEETS

(In thousands, except share and per share data)

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