With our low-code platform, organizations can rapidly and easily discover, design, build and implementautomate powerful, enterprise-grade custom applications through our intuitive, visual interface, with little or no coding required. We also enable organizations to easily modify and enhance applications and automatically disseminate these updates across device types to ensure that all users benefit from the most up-to-date functionality. Through the speed and power of our platform, organizations can make their digital transformations happen more effectively and efficiently than could be achieved through building an application with Java or other standard programming languages.

We believe the key elements of our technology infrastructure are as follows:

Our heritage as a BPM company provides us with a differentiated understanding and ability to discover, design, and automate complex processes. We have incorporated that developing applications can be as simple as drawing a picture.expertise into our platform to enable the development of powerful business software.

At the core of our platform is an advanced engine that enables the modeling, modification, and management of complex processesprocesses. Appian combines people, technologies, and data into a single workflow to maximize resources and improve business rules. Our heritageresults. Workflow can include any worker (people or digital workers) or any resource (data and system). Workflow serves as a BPM company provides us with this differentiated understanding of complex processes,the bridge between process mining and automation, and we have incorporatedbelieve starting with it at the core gives us an immediate competitive advantage.

Appian combines the power of process mining, workflow, and automation into a unified, low-code platform. Our platform has the complete automation capabilities to fuel enterprise-wide workflows and the ability to scale with an organization's growth through performance, governance, and security. Our complete automation offering is core to unlocking business results for organizations by bringing people, technologies, and data into a single workflow along with the development of powerful applications. The following graphic shows our architecture:speed to keep organizations agile.

The Appian design interface is a model-driven, web-based development environment for application creation, testing, deployment, and performance optimization. Appian design is a shared repository of all Appian components—interfaces,components (interfaces, process models, APIs, new component builders, and user collaboration modules—modules) and serves as an administration utilitiesutility for managing people, processes, and data.

We believe that SAIL provides a significant advantage over other platforms that both require extensive customization for various devices at the time of the creation of the new applications and on an on-going basis as mobile device manufacturers continue to update their software and capabilities. Further, in regulated industries, each traditional custom software application must generally undergo its own security assessment and accreditation process, while applications created with SAIL are designed

Appian Low-Code Data is an advanced data management technology that allows end users to discover and unite enterprise data into a single searchable environment, providing a comprehensive view of an organization’s data. In contrast to typical enterprise software, our platform does not require data to reside within it in order to enable robust data analysis and cross-department and cross-application insight. Using standard database software and service connection frameworks, including APIs, our platform seamlessly integrates with many of the Cloud or On-Premises

Our cloud offering is hosted by Amazon Web Services, or AWS, and is available in more than 3362 availability zones in eight countries. Data in our cloud offering is written simultaneously to multiple availability zones to protect against loss of customer data.21 geographic regions. Our software is also is able to run in the Microsoft Azure cloud as ofand the third quarter of 2017.Google Cloud Platform. Our enablement of the Microsoft Azure cloud and the Google Cloud Platform is consistent with our principle of platform neutrality.

We have also implemented a wide set of technical, physical, and personnel-based security controls designed to protect against the compromise of confidential data that belongsbelonging to both our customers and us.

When we first acquire a new customer, our professional services experts or our deployment partners’ professional services experts start the implementation process, which typically takes several weeks. Delivery specialistsprocess. Specialists facilitate deployment of our platform, and training personnel provide comprehensive support throughout the implementation process. Customers have access to our Appian Academy, which caters to a diverse rangetrains analysts and developers of different skill sets and roles within organizations and trains developers on our platform. We also provide instructor-led courses at our Reston, Virginia headquarters and certain of our other offices, as well as virtual classrooms for self-paced learning and on-site training at our customers’ offices.globally, delivered either virtually or in-person.

Employees, Culture, and EmployeesLabor Relations

Our main competitors fall into three categories: (1) providers of low-code development platforms, such as salesforce.com and ServiceNow; (2) providers of business process management and case management software, such as IBM, OpenText, Oracle, Pegasystems and SAP; and (3) providers of custom software and customer software solutions that address, or are developed to address, some of the use cases that can be addressed by applications developed on our platform.platform; (2) providers of low-code development platforms, such as Microsoft, Salesforce.com, ServiceNow, OutSystems, and Mendix; and (3) providers of one or more automation technologies, including business process management, case management, process mining, and robotic process automation. Such providers include Pegasystems, Celonis, UiPath, IBM, ServiceNow, Microsoft, SAP, Bizagi, Oracle, and Nintex.

As our market grows, we expect that it will attract more highly specialized vendors as well as larger vendors that may continue to acquire or bundle their products more effectively. The principal competitive factors in our market include:

We believe we generally compete favorably with our competitorspeer group with respect to the features, security, and performance of our platform, the ease of integration of our applications, and the relatively low total cost of ownership of our applications. However, many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, and other resources, greater name recognition, larger sales and marketing budgets, broader distribution, more diversified product lines, and larger and more mature intellectual property portfolios.

We have historically experienced seasonality in terms of when we enter into agreements with customers. We typically enter into a significantly higher percentage of agreements with new customers, as well as renewal agreements with existing customers, in the fourth quarter and, to a lesser extent, the second quarter. The increase in customer agreements for the fourth quarter is attributable to large enterprise account buying patterns typical in the software industry. Furthermore, we usually enter into a significant portion of agreements with customers during the last month, and often the last two weeks, of each quarter. However, we recognize substantially allthe majority of our subscriptions revenue ratably over the terms of our subscriptionsubscriptions agreements, which are generally occurs over a one to five-year period.three years in length. As a result, a substantial portion of the subscriptions revenue that we report in each period will be derived from the recognition of deferred revenue relating to agreements entered into during previous periods. Consequently, a decline in new sales or renewals in any one period may not be immediately reflected in our revenue results for that period. This

Our sales organization is responsible for account acquisition and overall market development, which includes the management of themanaging relationships with our customers. We also sell our software through our strategic partners. While our platform is industry-agnostic, we have recently made, and plan to continue to make, investments to enhance the expertise of our sales organization within our core industry verticals of financial services, healthcaregovernment, and government.life sciences. We also expect to continue to grow our sales headcount in all of our principal markets and expand our presence into countries where we currently do not have a direct sales presence. We also intend to further grow our base of partners to provide broader customer coverage and solution delivery capabilities.

Our marketing efforts focus on building our brand reputation and increasing market awareness of our platform. Marketing activities include sponsorship of, and attendance at, trade shows and conferences;conferences, our annual Appian World event;event, social media, advertising and advertising programs;other digital programs, management of our corporate web sitewebsite and partner portal;portal, press outreach;outreach, and customer relations. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we reduced the number of in-person marketing events, including shifting Appian World to virtual-only in 2020 and 2021.

We have many strategic partnerships around the world including with companies such as KPMG, Accenture, PwC, Infosys, Wipro, and Deloitte. These partners refer software subscription customers to us and generally perform professional services with respect to any new service contracts they originate, increasing our platform, and withsubscriptions revenue without any change to our professional services revenue. As we expand the network of strategic partners, we expect professional services revenue to decline as a percentage of total revenue over time since our strategic partners may perform professional services associated with software subscriptions we sell.

We are also growing our network of regional and channel partners to further expand our business into traditional and new markets. These partners provide delivery services, sales teams, which relay customer demands and possible new use cases or enhancements. Our development efforts focus on the critical areas of our platform, including infrastructure, ease-of-usemarketing capabilities, and flexibility, end-user experience and ability to integrate with other enterprise systems. Research and development expense totaled $34.8 million, $23.0 million and $16.8 million for 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively.contract fulfillment.

Our success depends in part upon our ability to protect our core technology and intellectual property. We rely on patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secret laws, confidentiality procedures, and employee disclosure and invention assignment agreements to protect our intellectual property rights.

As of December 31, 2017,2021, we had six granted patents, two issuedallowed patents, relatingand four patents pending related to our SAIL technologyplatform and two patent applications pending in the United States relating to our platform. Bothits technology. None of our issued patents expire inbefore 2034. We cannot assure youprovide complete assurance that any of our patent applications will result in the issuance of a patent or that the examination process will not require us to narrow our claims. Any patents thatwe may issuebe issued may be contested, circumvented, found unenforceable, or invalidated, and we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing them. We also license software from third parties for integration into our products, including open source software and other software available on commercially reasonable terms.

As of December 31, 2021, we leased our efforts to protect our trade secretsheadquarters office in McLean, Virginia and proprietary rights through intellectual property rights, licenses, and confidentiality agreements, unauthorized parties may still copy or otherwise obtain and use our software and technology. In addition, we intend to expand our international operations, and effective patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret protection may not be available or may be limited in foreign countries.

Corporate Information

Our principal executive offices are located at 11955 Democracy Drive, Suite 1700, Reston, Virginia 20190. Our telephone number is (703) 442-8844. We completed our initial public offering in May 2017 and our Class A common stock is listed on Thethe Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol "APPN"“APPN”.

Available Information

We have recently experienced a period ofcontinue to experience rapid growth in our headcount and operations. In particular, we grew from 173 employees as of December 31, 2011 to 859 employees as of December 31, 2017. We have also significantly increased the size of our customer base over the last several years. We anticipate that we will continue to significantly expand our operations and headcount in the near term. Our growth has placed, and any future growth will place, a significant strain on our management, administrative, operational, and financial infrastructure. Our success will depend in part on our ability to manage this growth effectively. To manage the expected growth of our operations and personnel, we will need to continue to improve our operational, financial, and management controls and our reporting systems and procedures. Failure to effectively manage our growth could result in difficulty or delays in deploying our platform to customers, declines in quality or customer satisfaction, increases in costs, difficulties in introducing new features, or other operational difficulties. Any of these difficulties could adversely impact our business performance and results of operations.

We have experienced revenue growth with revenue of $176.7$369.3 million, $132.9$304.6 million, and $111.2$260.4 million in 2017, 20162021, 2020, and 2015,2019, respectively. Although we have experienced rapid revenue growth historically, we may not continue to grow as rapidly in the future, and our revenue growth rates may decline. Any success that we may experience in the future will depend in large part on our ability to, among other things:

If we are unable to maintain consistent revenue or revenue growth, our stock price could be volatile, and it may be difficult to achieve and maintain profitability. You should not rely on ourOur revenue for any prior quarterly or annual periods should not be relied upon as any indication of our future revenue or revenue growth.

As usage of our platform grows and as customers use our platform for more advanced and more frequent projects, we may need to devote additional resources to improving our software architecture, integrating with third-party systems, and maintaining infrastructure performance. In addition, we will need to appropriately scale our internal business operations as well as grow our partner services systems, including our professional servicesCustomer Success organization and operations, to serve our growing customer base, particularly as our customer base expands over time. Any failure of or delay in these efforts could cause impaired system performance and reduced customer satisfaction. These issues could reduce the attractiveness of our platform to customers, resulting in decreased sales to new customers, lower renewal rates by existing customers, the issuance of service credits, or requested refunds, any of which could hurt our revenue growth and our reputation. Even if we are able to upgrade our systems and expand our staff, any such expansion will be expensive and complex, requiring management time and attention. We could also face inefficiencies or operational failures as a result of our efforts to scale our infrastructure. Moreover,

Sales of our Appian software platform account for substantially all of our subscriptionsubscriptions revenue and are the source of substantially all of our professional services revenue. We expect that we will be substantially dependent on our platform to generate revenue for the foreseeable future. As a result, our operating results or revenue growth rates could suffer due to:

Our operating results may be harmed. Moreover, if we fail to comply with government contracting regulations, we could suffer a lossfluctuate, in part, because of revenue or incur price adjustments or other penalties.

We believe our future success will depend in large part on growth in the demand for low-code solutionsplatforms to drive software-enabled digital transformation. We have customers in a wide variety of industries, including financial services, healthcare, government, telecommunications, media, energy, manufacturing and transportation. It is difficult to predict customer demand for our platform, renewal rates, the rate at which existing customers expand their subscriptions, the size and growth rate of the market for our platform, the entry of competitive products, or the success of existing competitive products. The utilization of low-code software to drive digital transformation is still relatively new. Any expansion in our addressable market depends on a number of factors, including businesses continuing to desire to differentiate themselves through software-enabled digital transformation, increasing their reliance on low-code solutions, changes in the competitive landscape, technological changes, budgetary constraints of our customers, and changes in economic conditions. If our platform does not achieve widespread adoption or there is a reduction in demand for low-code solutions caused by a lack of customer acceptance, technological challenges, competing technologies and products, decreases in corporate or IT infrastructure spending, weakening economic conditions, or otherthese factors, it could result in reduced customer purchases, reduced renewal rates, and decreased revenue, any of which will adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

The markets for low-code development platforms, business process management, case management software, and custom software are highly competitive, rapidly evolving, and have relatively low barriers to entry. The principal competitive factors in our market include:include the following: platform features, reliability, performance, and effectiveness; ease of use and speed; platform extensibility and ability to integrate with other technology infrastructures; deployment flexibility; robustness of professional services and customer support; price and total cost of ownership; strength of platform security and adherence to industry standards and certifications; strength of sales and marketing efforts; and brand awareness and reputation. If we fail to compete effectively with respect to any of these competitive factors, we may fail to attract new customers or lose or fail to renew existing customers, which would cause our operating results to suffer.

Some of our actual and potential competitors have advantages over us such as longer operating histories, more established relationships with current or potential customers and commercial partners, significantly greater financial, technical, marketing, or other resources, stronger brand recognition, larger intellectual property portfolios, and broader global distribution and presence. Such competitors may make their solutions available at a low cost or no cost basis in order to enhance their overall relationships with current or potential customers. Our competitors may also be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards, or customer requirements. With the introduction of new technologies and new market entrants, we expect competition to intensify in the future. In addition, some of our larger competitors have substantially broader offerings and can bundle competing products with other software offerings. As a result, customers may choose a bundled offering from our competitors, even if individual products have more limited functionality than our platform. These larger competitors are also often in a better position to withstand any significant reduction in capital spending and will therefore not be as susceptible to economic downturns.

Our platform, which can be deployed in the cloud on-premises or using a hybrid approach,on-premises, allows for the storage and transmission of our customers’ proprietary or confidential information, which may include trade secrets, personally identifiable information, personal health information, and payment card information. Any actual or perceived unauthorized access to, or security breachesincidents affecting, our platform or the information stored on or transmitted by our platform, including through unauthorized and/or malicious activity by one of our employees, could result in the loss of information, litigation, regulatory investigations, penalties, indemnity obligations and other costs, expenses, and liability, which could exceed our existing insurance coverage and could result in a substantial financial loss. While we have security measures in place designed to protect customer information and prevent data loss and other security breaches, there can be no assurance that these measures will be effective in protecting against malicious unauthorized access to our platform or our customers’ information. Similarly, if cyber incidents such as phishing attacks, viruses, denial of service attacks, supply chain attacks, malware installation, ransomware attacks, server malfunction, software or hardware failures, loss of data or other computer assets, adware, or other similar issues impair the integrity or availability of our systems by affecting our data or reducing access to or shutting down one or more of our computing systems or our IT network, we may be subject to negative treatment by our customers, our business partners, the press, and the public at large. Further, while security tested and techniques are in place and tested by third parties, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not identified until they are launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. Additionally, we may be subject to attacks on our networks or systems or attempts to gain unauthorized access to our proprietary or confidential information or other data we or our vendors maintain such as data about our employees. Such attacks and other breaches of security may occur as a result of malicious attacks, human error, social engineering, or other causes. Any actual or perceived breach of our security measures or failure to adequately protect our customers’ or our confidential or proprietary information could negatively affect our ability to attract new customers, cause existing customers to elect to not renew their subscriptions to our software, or result in reputational damage, any of which could adversely affect our operating results.

Further, security compromises experienced by our customers with respect to data hosted on our platform, even if caused by the customer’s own misuse or negligence, may lead to public disclosures, which could harm our reputation, erode customer confidence in the effectiveness of our security measures, negatively impact our ability to attract new customers, or cause existing customers to elect not to renew their subscriptions with us. We may be subjected to indemnity demands, regulatory proceedings, audits, penalties, or litigation based on our customers’ misuse of our platform with respect to such sensitive information and defending against such litigation and otherwise addressing such matters may be expensive, cause distraction, and may result in us incurring liability, all of which may affect our operating results.

While we maintain general liability insurance coverage and coverage for errors or omissions, we cannot assure youprovide assurance that such coverage will be adequate or otherwise protect us from liabilities or damages with respect to claims alleging compromises of personal data or that such coverage will continue to be available on acceptable terms or at all.

Our customer base is concentrated. For example, during the years ended December 31, 2017, 20162021, 2020, and 2015,2019, revenue from U.S. federal government agencies represented 15%19.6%, 26%18.1%, and 33%17.1% of our total revenue, respectively, and the top three U.S. federal government customers generated 8%5.6%, 18%6.6%, and 21%7.4% of our total revenue for the years ended December 31, 2017, 20162021, 2020, and 2015,2019, respectively. Further, nearly 10% of our subscription customers spent more than $1 million on our software in 2017.2021. If we were to lose one or more of our significant customers, our revenue may significantly decline. In addition, revenue from significant customers may vary from period to period depending on the timing of renewing existing agreements or entering into new agreements. The loss of one or more of our significant customers could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

A significant portion of our revenue is generated from subscriptions sold to governmental entities, both in the United States and internationally. Additionally, many of our current and prospective customers such as those in the financial services, pharmaceuticals, insurance, life sciences, and healthcare industries are highly regulated and may be required to comply with more stringent regulations in connection with subscribing to and implementing our platform. Selling subscriptions to these entities can be highly competitive, expensive, and time-consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that we will successfully complete a sale. In addition, if our software does not meet the standards of new or existing regulations, we may be in breach of our contracts with our customers, allowing them to terminate their agreements.

Governmental demand and payment for our platform may also be impacted by public sector budgetary cycles and funding authorizations, with funding reductions or delays adversely affecting public sector demand for our platform.

We generated net losses of $31.0$88.6 million, $12.5$33.5 million, and $7.0$50.7 million in 2017, 20162021, 2020, and 2015,2019, respectively. As of December 31, 2017,2021, we had an accumulated deficit of $96.2$257.5 million. We will need to generate and sustain increased revenue levels in future periods in order to achieve or sustain profitability in the future. We also expect our costs to increase in future

Our revenue and results of operations have historically varied from period to period, and we expect that they will continue to do so as a result of a number of factors, many of which are outside of our control, including:

Any one of these or other factors discussed elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K or the cumulative effect of some of these factors may result in fluctuations in our revenue and operating results, meaning that quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our revenue, results of operations, and cash flows may not necessarily be indicative of our future performance, and may cause us to miss our guidance andor analyst expectations, and may cause our stock price to decline.

In addition, we have historically experienced seasonality in terms of when we enter into agreements with customers. We typically enter into a significantly higher percentage of agreements with new customers, as well as renewal agreements with existing customers, in the fourth quarter and, to a lesser extent, the second quarter. The increase in customer agreements for the fourth quarter is attributable to large enterprise account buying patterns typical in the software industry. Furthermore, we usually enter into a significant portion of agreements with customers during the last month, and often the last two weeks, of each quarter. This seasonality is reflected to a much lesser extent, and sometimes is not immediately apparent, in revenue due to the fact that we recognize cloud subscription revenue over the term of the subscription agreement, which is generally one to fivethree years. We expect that seasonality will continue to affect our operating results in the future and may reduce our ability to predict cash flow and optimize the timing of our operating expenses.

We have provided and may continue to provide guidance about our revenue is nearly evenly divided between subscriptionsbusiness, future operating results, and professional services revenue. Our strategic focus has beenother business metrics. In developing this guidance, our management must make certain assumptions and judgments about our future performance. Some of those key assumptions relate to grow subscriptions revenue faster than professional services revenue becausethe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic uncertainty on our marginal costs in delivering our subscriptionsbusiness and the timing and scope of economic recovery globally, which are lower than the marginal costs of delivering professional services. A shift in revenue towards subscriptions therefore results in a higher overall gross profit margin. From 2014 through 2016, the proportioninherently difficult to predict. Furthermore, analysts and investors may develop and publish their own projections of our revenue attributablebusiness, which may form a consensus about our future performance. Our business results may vary significantly from such guidance or that consensus due to subscriptions increased as a proportionnumber of factors, many of which are outside of our total revenue, thereby increasingcontrol, including due to the global economic uncertainty and financial market conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which could adversely affect our overall gross profit margin during such period. Althoughoperations and operating results. Furthermore, if our publicly announced guidance of future operating results fails to meet our previously announced guidance or the proportionexpectations of securities analysts, investors, or other interested parties, the price of our revenue attributablecommon stock would decline.

Appian has undergone change in departments directly responsible for the year ended December 31, 2017 decreased slightly from such amount for the year ended December 31, 2016, we intend to continue focusing on growing subscriptions revenue faster than professional services revenuesubstantially all of Appian's revenue. While Appian believes its new leaders in the future.

While we will successfully shiftmake efforts to mitigate such risk through extensive collaboration at the executive level, the effects of this transition could have an impact on our ability to sustain our growth in revenue towards subscriptionsor our ability to retain existing talent within the organization.

We producebelieve our consolidated financial statementssuccess has depended, and continues to depend, on the efforts and talents of our senior management team, particularly Matthew Calkins, our founder and Chief Executive Officer, and our highly skilled team members, including our sales personnel, professional services personnel, cloud engineering and support personnel, and software engineers. We do not maintain key man insurance on any of our executive officers or key employees. From time to time, there may be changes in accordanceour senior management team resulting from the termination or departure of our executive officers and key employees. Our senior management and key employees are employed on an at-will basis, which means they could terminate their employment with the requirements of accounting principles generally acceptedus at any time. On December 1, 2021, Mark Lynch, our Chief Financial Officer, notified us he plans to retire after he has successfully transitioned his responsibilities to his successor. We are in the United States, or U.S. GAAP. Effective internal controls are necessary for us to provide reliableprocess of identifying Mr. Lynch’s successor.

financial reports to help mitigate the riskMany of fraudour executive officers and to operatekey employees receive equity compensation as a publicly traded company. Prior to our initial public offering, or IPO, we were a private company with limited accounting personnel and other resources with which to address our internal controls and procedures. Our independent registered public accounting firm identified a material weakness and a significant deficiencyportion of their overall compensation package. A substantial decrease in our internal controls over financial reporting in connection with the audit of our financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2015. A “material weakness” is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. A “significant deficiency” is a deficiency or a combination of deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting that is less severe than a material weakness, yet important enough to merit attention by those responsible for oversight of our financial reporting.

Our ability to successfully pursue our growth strategy also depends on our ability to attract, motivate, and retain our personnel. Competition for well-qualified employees in all aspects of our business, including sales personnel, professional services personnel, cloud engineering and support personnel, and software engineers, is intense. There is currently additional volatility in the job market known as the “great resignation,” with a record number of employees choosing alternative career paths or companies, or leaving the job market altogether. Our continued ability to compete effectively depends on our ability to attract new employees and to retain and motivate existing employees. Further, a small portion of our employees are immigrants to the United States or foreign nationals holding visas. If immigration to the United States is further restricted by the federal government, we might lose existing employees who are unable to remain in the United States and our pool of qualified applicants might also be diminished, thereby hampering our recruiting efforts. If we have material weaknesses in the future, it could affect the financial results that we report or create a perception that those financial results do not fairly statesucceed in attracting well-qualified employees or retaining and motivating existing employees, our financial position or results of operations. Either of those events could have an adverse effect on the value of our Class A common stock.business would be adversely affected.

Our success depends on continued innovation to provide features that make our platform useful for our customers.customers, our ability to persuade existing customers to expand their use of our platform to additional use cases and additional applications, and to purchase additional software licenses to our platform. We must continue to invest significant resources in research and development in order to continually improve the simplicityspeed and power of our platform. We may introduce significant changes to our platform or develop and introduce new and unproven products, including using technologies with which we have little or no prior development or operating experience. If we are unable to continue offering innovative solutions or if new or enhanced solutions fail to engage our customers, we may be unable to attract additional customers or retain our current customers, which may adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

We generally sell our software on a per-user basis.basis or through non-user based single application licenses. We have changed and expect that we maywill continue to need to change our pricing model from time to time. As competitors introduce new products that compete with ours or reduce their prices, we may be unable to attract new customers or retain existing customers based on our historical pricing. We also must determine the appropriate price to enable

The success of our business depends on our customers’ satisfaction with our platform, the support that we provide for our platform, and the professional services that we provide to help our customers deploy our platform. Professional services may be performed by our own staff, by a third party, or by a combination of the two. Our strategy is to work with third parties to increase the breadth, capability, and depth of capacity for delivery of these services to our customers, and third parties provide a significant portion of our deployment services. If a customer is not satisfied with the quality of work performed by us or a third party or with the type of applications delivered, we could incur additional costs to address the deficiency, which would diminish the profitability of the customer relationship. Further, a customer’s dissatisfaction with our services could impair our ability to expand the number of licenses to our software purchased by that customer or adversely affect the customer’s renewal of existing licenses. In addition, negative publicity related to our customer relationships, regardless of accuracy, may further damage our business by affecting our ability to compete for new business with actual and prospective customers.

We derive, and expect to increasingly derive in the future, a substantial portion of our revenue from the sale of software subscriptions. For 2017, 20162021, 2020, and 2015,2019, approximately 52%71.4%, 53%65.2%, and 48%58.1%, respectively, of our total revenue was subscriptions software and support revenue. The market for our platform is still evolving, and competitive dynamics may cause pricing levels to change as the market matures and as existing and new market participants introduce new types of solutions and different approaches to enable customers to address their needs. As a result, we may be forced to reduce the prices we charge for software and may be required to offer terms less favorable to us for new and renewing agreements.

In order for us to improve our operating results, it is important that our customers renew their subscriptions with us when their initial term expires, as well as purchase additional subscriptions from us. In general, our customers have no renewal obligation after their initial term expires, and we cannot assure you thatprovide assurance we will be able to renew subscriptions with any of our customers at the same or higher contract value.

Further, while we offer access to our platform primarily through multi-year subscription agreements, some agreements may have shorter durations. Additionally, some of our contracts limit the amount we can increase prices from period to period or include pricing guarantees. If our customers do not renew their agreements, terminate their agreements, renew their agreements on terms less favorable to us, or fail to purchase additional software subscriptions, our revenue may decline and our operating results would likely be harmed as a result.

We offer our solution primarily through multi-year cloud subscription agreements and generally recognize revenue ratably over the related subscription period. As a result, much of the revenue we report in each quarter is derived from the recognition of previously unbilled or deferred contract value relating to find adequate replacements. We cannot ensureagreements entered into during prior periods. Accordingly, a decline in new or renewal subscription agreements in any quarter is not likely to be reflected immediately in our revenue results for that we will be able to retain the services of any members ofquarter. Such declines, however, would negatively affect our senior management or other key employees.

We believe that developing and maintaining widespread awareness of our brand in a cost-effective manner is critical to achieving widespread acceptance of our platform and attracting new customers. Brand promotion activities may not generate customer awareness or increase revenue and, even if they do, any increase in revenue may not offset the expenses we incur in building our brand. If we fail to successfully promote and maintain our brand or incur substantial expenses, we may fail to attract or retain customers necessary to realize a sufficient return on our brand-building efforts or to achieve the widespread brand awareness that is critical for broad customer adoption of our platform.

Our platform is inherently complex and may contain material defects or errors. Any defects in functionality, security, or other conditions that cause interruptions in the availability of our platform could result in:

The costs incurred in correcting any material defects or errors might be substantial and could adversely affect our operating results.

Our customer agreements often provide service level commitments on a monthly basis. If we are unable to meet the stated service level commitments or suffer extended periods of unavailability for our platform, we may be contractually obligated to provide these customers with service credits or refunds for prepaid amounts, or we could face contract terminations. Our revenue could be significantly affected if we suffer unscheduled downtime that exceeds the allowed downtimes under our agreements with our customers.

Because of the large amount of data that we collect and manage, it is possible that hardware failures or errors in our systems could result in data loss or corruption or cause the information that we collect to be incomplete or contain inaccuracies that our customers regard as significant. Furthermore, the availability or performance of our platform could be adversely affected by a number of factors, including customers’ inability to access the internet, our customers’ increased usage of our cloud offering, the failure of our network or software systems, security breaches, or variability in user traffic for our services. For example, our cloud offering customers access our platform through their internet service providers. If a customer's service provider fails to provide sufficient capacity to support our platform or otherwise experiences service outages, such failure could interrupt our customers’ access to our platform, adversely affect their perception of our platform’s reliability, and reduce our revenue. In addition to potential liability, if we experience interruptions in the availability of our cloud offering, our reputation could be adversely affected, and we could lose customers.

We also provide frequent incremental releases of software updates and functional enhancements to our platform. Despite extensive pre-release testing, such new versions occasionally contain undetected errors when first introduced or released. We have, from time to time, found errors in our software, and new errors in our existing software may be detected in the future. Since our customers use our software for important aspects of their business, any errors, defects, disruptions in our platform, or other performance problems with our solution could hurt our reputation and may damage our customers’ businesses. If that occurs, our customers may delay or withhold payment to us, elect not to renew, or make service credit claims, warranty claims, or other claims against us, and we could lose future sales. The occurrence of any of these events could result in an increase in our bad debt expense, an increase in collection cycles for accounts receivable, decreased future revenue and earnings, require us to increase our warranty provisions, or incur the risk or expense of litigation.

We offer and sell our platform in the cloud, on-premises or using a hybrid approach using the customer’s own infrastructure. Our cloud offering enables our customers to eliminate the burden of provisioning and maintaining infrastructure

In addition, if the security of our customers transitionthe AWS infrastructure is compromised or believed to the cloud, we may be subject to additional competitive pressures, which may harm our business. We are directing a significant portion of our financial and operating resources to implement a robust and secure cloud offering for our platform, but even if we continue to make these investments, we may be unsuccessful in growing or implementing our cloud offering in a way that competes successfully against our current and future competitors andhave been compromised, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be harmed.

Our agreement with AWS allows AWS to terminate the agreement by providing two years' prior written notice and may allow AWS to terminate in case of a breach of contract if such breach is uncured for 30 days or to terminate upon thirty days' advance written notice if AWS’s further provision of services to us becomes impractical for legal or regulatory reasons. Although we will need to continually improve our computer network and infrastructure to avoid service interruptions or slower system performance.

In order to grow our business, we anticipate that we will continue to depend on relationships with strategic partners to provide broader customer coverage and solution delivery capabilities. Identifying partners, and negotiating and documenting relationships with them, requires significant time and resources. Our agreements with our strategic partners are non-exclusive and do not prohibit them from working with our competitors or offering competing solutions. Our competitors may be effective in providing incentives to third parties to favor their products or services or to prevent or reduce subscriptions to our services. If our partners choose to place greater emphasis on products of their own or those offered by our competitors or do not effectively market and sell our platform, our ability to grow our business and sell software and professional services may be adversely affected. In addition, acquisitions of our partners by our competitors could result in a decrease in the number of our current and potential customers, as our partners may no longer facilitate the adoption of our platform by potential customers.

If we are unsuccessful in establishing or maintaining our relationships with third parties, our ability to compete in the marketplace or to grow our revenue could be impaired and our operating results may suffer. Even if we are successful, we cannot assure you that these relationships will result in increased customer usage of our platform or increased revenue.

Our limited experience in operating our business internationally increases the risk any potential future expansion efforts we continuemay undertake will not be successful. If we invest substantial time and resources to expand our international operations we become more exposedand are unable to the effects of fluctuationsdo so successfully and in currency exchange rates. A strengthening of the U.S. dollar could increase the real cost of our platform to our customers outside of the United States, adversely affectinga timely manner, our business operations and financial results. We incur expenses for employee compensation and other operating expenses at our non-U.S. locations in the local currency, and fluctuations in the exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and other currencies could result in the dollar equivalent of such expenses being higher. This could have a negative impact on our reported operating results. To date, we have not engaged in any hedging strategies, and any such strategies, such as forward contracts, options and foreign exchange swaps related to transaction exposures that we may implement to mitigate this risk may not eliminate our exposure to foreign exchange fluctuations.results will suffer.

We intend to continue to make investments to support our business growth and may require additional funds to respond to business challenges, including the need to develop new features or enhance our platform, improve our operating infrastructure, or acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, we may need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds. If we raise additional funds through future issuances of equity or convertible debt securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences, and privileges superior to those of holders of our Class A common stock. Our loan and security agreement with Silicon Valley Bank for our current revolving line of credit includes restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other

Our software incorporates certain third-party software obtained under licenses from other companies, including database software from Kx Systems, Inc.Kx. We anticipate that we will continue to rely on such third-party software and development tools from third parties in the future. Although we believe that there are commercially reasonable alternatives to the third-party software we currently license, including open source software, this may not always be the case, or it may be difficult or costly to migrate to other third-party software. Our use of additional or alternative third-party software would require us to enter into license agreements with third parties. In addition, integration of the third-party software used in our software with new third-party software may require significant work and require substantial investment of our time and resources. Also, any undetected errors or defects in third-party software could prevent the deployment or impair the functionality of our software, delay new updates or enhancements to our platform, or result in a failure of our platform, and injureinjuring our reputation.

The functionality and attractiveness of our platform depends, in part, on our ability to integrate our platform with third-party applications and platforms, including customer relationship management, human resources information, accounting, and enterprise resource planning systems that our customers use and from which they obtain data. Third-party providers of applications and application program interfaces, or APIs may change the features of their applications and platforms, restrict our access to their applications and platforms, or alter the terms governing use of their applications and APIs and access to those applications and platforms in an adverse manner. Such changes could functionally limit or terminate our ability to use these third-party applications and platforms in conjunction with our platform, which could negatively impact our offerings and harm our business. If we fail to integrate our software with new third-party applications and platforms that our customers use, we may not be able to offer the functionality that our customers need, which would negatively impact our ability to generate revenue and adversely impact our business.

Our corporate headquarters are located in Reston,northern Virginia. The area around Washington, D.C. could be subjected to domestic or foreign terrorist attacks. Additionally, we rely on our network and third-party infrastructure and enterprise applications, internal technology systems, and our website for our development, marketing, operational support, hosted services, and sales activities. In the event of a major hurricane, earthquake, or catastrophic event such as fire, power loss, telecommunications failure, cyberattack, outbreak of regional or global pandemic diseases, war, or terrorist attack, we may be unable to continue our operations and may endure system interruptions, reputational harm, delays in our software development, lengthy interruptions in our services, breaches of data security, and loss of critical data, all of which could have an adverse effect on our future operating results.

Our business depends on the overall demand for enterprise software and on the economic health of our current and prospective customers. The financial recession that began in 2008 resulted in a significant weakening of the economy in the United States and Europe and of the global economy, more limited availability of credit, a reduction in business confidence and activity, and other difficulties that may affect one or more of the industries to which we sell our platform. In addition, the economies of countries in Europe have been experiencing weakness associated with high sovereign debt levels, weakness in the banking sector, and uncertainty overuncertainties surrounding the future of the Euro zone.zone and the United Kingdom's relationship with the European Union. We have operations in the United Kingdom and in Europe and current and potential new customers in Europe. If economic conditions in Europe and other key markets for our platform continue to remain uncertain or deteriorate further, many customers may delay or reduce their information technology spending. This could result in reductions in sales of our platform, a decrease in our renewal rate, longer sales cycles, reductions in subscription duration and value, slower adoption of new technologies, and increased price competition. Any of these events would likely have an adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial position.

We may choose to expand by acquiring businesses or technologies. For instance, in August 2021, we acquired Lana Labs GmbH, or Lana Labs, a developer of process mining software, which we are continuing to integrate along with their personnel. Our ability as an organization to successfully acquire and integrate technologies or businesses is unproven. Acquisitions involve many risks, including the following:

The occurrence of any of these risks could have a material adverse effect on our business operations and financial results. In addition, we may only be able to conduct limited due diligence on an acquired company’s operations. Following an acquisition, we may be subject to unforeseen liabilities arising from an acquired company’s past or present operations, and these liabilities may be greater than the warranty and indemnity limitations that we negotiate. Any unforeseen liability that is greater than these warranty and indemnity limitations could have a negative impact on our financial condition.

Our business is subject to regulation by various federal, state, local, and foreign governments. In certain jurisdictions, these regulatory requirements may be more stringent than those in the United States. Noncompliance with applicable

Personal privacy has become a significant issue in the United States and in many other countries where we offer our software for sale. The regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide is rapidly evolving and is likely to remain uncertain

Internationally, the European Union has adopted a General Data Protection Regulationcomprehensive general data protection regulation, or the GDPR, which contains numerous requirements and changes related to rights of data subjects in their personal data, including more robust obligations on data processors and heavier documentation requirements for data protection compliance programs by companies. In addition, absent appropriate safeguards or other circumstances, the EU GDPR generally restricts the transfer of personal data to countries outside of the European Economic Area, or EEA, such as the United States, which the European Commission does not consider to provide an adequate level of data privacy and security. The European Commission released a set of “Standard Contractual Clauses” in June 2021 that are designed to be a valid mechanism by which entities can transfer personal data out of the EEA to jurisdictions that the European Commission has not found to provide an adequate level of protection. Currently, these new Standard Contractual Clauses are a valid mechanism to transfer personal data outside of the EEA. The new Standard Contractual Clauses, however, require parties that rely upon that legal mechanism to comply with additional obligations, such as conducting transfer impact assessments to determine whether additional security measures are necessary to protect the at-issue personal data. Moreover, due to potential legal challenges, there exists some uncertainty regarding whether the new Standard Contractual Clauses will take effect in May 2018 and virtuallyremain a valid mechanism for transfers of personal data out of the EEA.

Virtually every jurisdiction in which we operate has established its own data security and privacy legal framework with which we or our customers must comply. Since we are agnostic as to the data uploaded into our cloud offering by our cloud offering customers or processed by our platform in on-premises deployments, we may be hosting or otherwise processing substantial amounts of individually identifiable health information and other types of personally identifiable information. The effects of any of this legislation could be potentially far-reaching and may require us to modify our data management practices and to incur substantial expense in an effort to comply.

In addition to government regulation, privacy advocates and industry groups may propose new and different self-regulatory standards that may apply to us. Because the interpretation and application of privacy and data protection laws are still uncertain, it is possible that these laws and other actual or alleged legal obligations such as contractual or self-regulatory obligations may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our existing data management practices or the features of our platform. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, lawsuits, and other claims, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our software, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Any inability to adequately address privacy or cybersecurity concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable privacy or data protection 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 customers may limit the use and adoption of, and reduce the overall demand for, our platform. Privacy

Certain of our customers use our platform to create applications that ensure secure communications given the nature of the content being distributed and associated applicable regulatory requirements. Governmental and other customers may also require our platform to comply with certain privacy, security, and other certifications and standards. Our successcloud platform holds various security certifications from government agencies and ability to compete depend in part on our ability to protect our proprietary technologyindustry organizations, including the Federal Risk and intellectual property. To safeguard these rights, we rely on a combination of patent, trademark, copyrightAuthorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, compliance and trade secret lawsHITRUST certification. It also meets the ISO 27001, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI DSS, and contractual protections in the various United States Health Insurance Portability and other jurisdictions, allAccountability Act, or HIPAA, standards. Governments and industry organizations may also adopt new laws, regulations, or requirements or make changes to existing laws or regulations that could impact the demand for, or value of, which provide only limited protectionour applications such as the European Banking Authority's regulations updated in September 2019 and may not now or in the future provide us with a competitive advantage.

The future success of our business, and particularly our cloud offering, depends upon the continued use of the internet as a primary medium for commerce, communication, and business applications. Federal, state, or foreign government bodies or agencies have in the past adopted, and may in the future adopt, laws or regulations affecting the use of the internet as a commercial medium. Changes in these laws or regulations could require us to modify our platform in order to comply with these changes. In addition, government agencies or private organizations may begin to impose taxes, fees, or other charges for accessing the internet or commerce conducted via the internet. These laws or charges could limit the growth of internet-related commerce or communications generally, resulting in reductions in the demand for internet-based solutions such as ours.

In addition, the use of the internet as a business tool could be adversely affected due to delays in the development or adoption of new standards and protocols to handle increased demands of internet activity, security, reliability, cost, ease of use, accessibility, and quality of service. The performance of the internet and its acceptance as a business tool have been adversely affected by “viruses,” “worms”viruses, worms, and similar malicious programs, along with distributed denial of service, or DDoS, and similar attacks. As a result, the internet has experienced a variety of outages and other delays as a result of such damage to or attacks on portions of its infrastructure. If the use of the internet is adversely affected by these issues, demand for our platform could suffer.

We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, or the FCPA, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the U.S. Travel Act, the United Kingdom Bribery Act 2010, and other anti-corruption laws in countries in which we conduct activities. Anti-corruption laws are interpreted broadly and prohibit our company from authorizing, offering, or providing, directly or indirectly, improper payments or benefits to recipients in the public or private sector. We use third-party law firms, accountants, and other representatives for regulatory compliance, sales, and other purposes in several countries. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of these third-party representatives, our employees, contractors, and other agents, even if we do not explicitly authorize such activities. In addition, although we have implemented policies and procedures to ensure compliance with anti-corruption laws, there can be no assurance that all of our employees, representatives, contractors, or agents will comply with these laws at all times.

Noncompliance with these laws could subject us to whistleblower complaints, investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, other enforcement actions, disgorgement of profits, significant fines, damages, other civil and criminal penalties or injunctions, suspension and/or debarment from contracting with certain persons, the loss of export privileges, reputational harm, adverse media coverage, and other collateral consequences. If any subpoenas or investigations are launched, or governmental or

The United States and other countries maintain and administer export and import laws and regulations, including various economic and trade sanctions including those administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, which apply to our business. We are required to comply with these laws and regulations. If we fail to comply with such laws and regulations, we and certain of our employees could be subject to substantial civil or criminal penalties, including the possible loss of export or import privileges;privileges, fines which may be imposed on us and responsible employees or managers;managers, and, in extreme cases, the incarceration of responsible employees or managers.

Changes in our platform, or changes in applicable export or import laws and regulations, may create delays in the introduction and sale of our platform in international markets or, in some cases, prevent the export or import of our platform to certain countries, governments, or persons altogether. Any change in export or import laws and regulations or economic or trade sanctions, shift in the enforcement or scope of existing laws and regulations, or change in the countries, governments, persons, or technologies targeted by such laws and regulations could also result in decreased use of our platform or in our decreased ability to export or sell our platform to existing or potential customers. Any decreased use of our services or limitation on our ability to export or sell our services would likely adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We incorporate encryption technology into certain of our products. Encryption products may be exported outside of the United States only with the required export authorization, including by license, license exception, or other appropriate government authorization. Obtaining the necessary export license or other authorization for a particular sale may be time-consuming and may result in the delay or loss of sales opportunities. In addition, various countries regulate the import of certain encryption technology, including import permitting and licensing requirements, and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to distribute our products or could limit our customers’ ability to implement our products in those countries. Although we take precautions to prevent our products from being provided in violation of such laws, our products may have been in the past, and could in the future, be provided inadvertently in violation of such laws, despite the precautions we take. Governmental regulation of encryption technology and regulation of imports or exports, or our failure to obtain required import or export approval for our products, could harm our international sales and adversely affect our revenue.

Moreover, U.S. export control laws and economic sanctions programs prohibit the provision of services to countries, governments, and persons that are subject to U.S. economic embargoes and trade sanctions. Even though we take precautions to prevent our platform from being used by U.S. sanctions targets, our platform could be used by a sanctioned person or in an embargoed country despite such precautions. Any such shipment could have negative consequences, including government investigations, penalties, and reputational harm.

As of December 31, 2021, we had six issued patents, two allowed patents, and four pending patent applications related to our platform failsand its technology. We have registered the “Appian” name and logo in the United States and certain other countries. We have registrations and/or pending applications for additional marks in the United States. We cannot provide assurance that any current or future applications for registrations for patent or trademark applications will result in the grant of any valid, enforceable intellectual property rights. Further, we cannot provide assurance that any granted patent or trademark will provide the protection we seek, will be valid if challenged, or will be sufficiently broad in actions against alleged infringers. Moreover, any of our granted intellectual property rights may be rendered invalid by future changes in the law, defects in our prosecution processes, or preexisting technology, rights, or marks.

In order to functionprotect our unpatented proprietary technologies and processes, we rely on trade secret laws and confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees, consultants, strategic partners, vendors, and others. Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary technology and trade secrets, unauthorized parties may attempt to misappropriate, copy, reverse engineer, or otherwise obtain and use them. In addition, others may independently discover our trade secrets, in which case we would not be able to assert trade secret rights or develop similar technologies and processes. Further, the contractual provisions we enter into may not prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual property rights and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of any such unauthorized use or disclosure.

Companies in the software and technology industries, including some of our current and potential competitors, own significant numbers of patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets and frequently enter into litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. In addition, many of these companies have the capability to dedicate substantially greater resources to enforce their intellectual property rights and to defend claims that may be brought against them. The litigation may involve patent holding companies or other adverse patent owners that have no relevant product revenue and against which our patents may therefore provide little or no deterrence. In the past, we have been subject to allegations of patent infringement that were unsuccessful, and we may in the future be subject to claims we have misappropriated, misused, or infringed other parties’ intellectual property rights, and, to the extent we gain greater market visibility or face increasing competition, we face a manner that allowshigher risk of being the subject of intellectual property infringement claims, which is not uncommon with respect to enterprise software companies. We also generally grant our customers ownership of any custom applications we develop for them, subject to operateour continued ownership of our pre-existing intellectual property rights and, in compliancethe past, a customer for whom we have developed custom applications has incorrectly alleged applications we have independently developed infringed the customer’s intellectual property rights. In addition, we have in the past, and may in the future, be subject to claims that our employees, contractors, or we ourselves have inadvertently or otherwise used or disclosed

There may be third-party intellectual property rights, including issued or pending patents that cover significant aspects of our technologies or business methods. Any intellectual property claims, with regulations and/or industry standards, our revenue and operating resultswithout merit, could be harmed.

Our cloud platform holds various security certifications from government agencies and industry organizations,software contains software licensed to us by third parties under so-called “open source” licenses, including the Federal RiskGNU Lesser General Public License, the BSD License, and Authorization Management Program compliance,others. From time to time, there have been claims against companies that distribute or use open source software in their products and meetsservices, asserting such open source software infringes the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standardclaimants’ intellectual property rights. We could be subject to suits by parties claiming what we believe to be licensed open source software infringes their intellectual property rights. Use and distribution of open source software may entail greater risks than use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the United States Health Insurance Portabilityquality of the code. In addition, certain open source licenses require source code for software programs subject to the license be made available to the public and Accountability Act standard. Governmentsthat any modifications or derivative works to such open source software continue to be licensed under the same terms.

Although we monitor our use of open source software in an effort both to comply with the terms of the applicable open source licenses and industry organizations may also adopt new laws, regulations or requirements, or make changes to existing laws or regulations,avoid subjecting our software to conditions we do not intend, the terms of many open source licenses have not been interpreted by U.S. courts, and there is a risk these licenses could be construed in a way that could impactimpose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our platform. By the demand for,terms of certain open source licenses, we could be required to release the source code of our software and to make our software available under open source licenses, if we combine or distribute our software with open source software in a certain manner. In the event portions of our software are determined to be subject to an open source license, we could be required to publicly release the affected portions of our source code, re-engineer all, or a portion of, that software or otherwise be limited in the licensing of our software, each of which could reduce or eliminate the value of our applications, suchplatform. Many of the risks associated with usage of open source software cannot be eliminated and could negatively affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

We currently collect and remit sales and use, value added, and other transaction taxes in certain of the jurisdictions where we do business based on our assessment of whether tax is owed by us in such jurisdictions. However, in some jurisdictions in which we do business, we do not believe we owe such taxes, and therefore we currently do not collect and remit such taxes or record contingent tax liabilities in those jurisdictions. Further, due to uncertainty in the application and interpretation of applicable tax laws in various jurisdictions, we cannot maintain our facility security clearance.

In addition, as a multinational organization, we may be subject to taxation in several jurisdictions around the world with increasingly complex tax laws and the amount of taxes we pay in these jurisdictions could increase substantially as a result of changes in the applicable tax principles, including increased tax rates, new tax laws, or revised interpretations of existing tax laws and precedents. Furthermore, the authorities in these jurisdictions could review our tax returns and impose additional tax, interest, and penalties, and the authorities could claim various withholding requirements apply to us or our subsidiaries or assert benefits of tax treaties are not ableavailable to maintainus or our facility security clearance,subsidiaries, any of which could have a material impact on us and the results of our operations.

As of December 31, 2021, we had gross U.S. federal and state net operating loss carryforwards, or NOLs, of $239.9 million and $249.8 million, respectively, available to offset future taxable income. NOLs generated in tax years ended on or prior to December 31, 2017 will substantially expire by 2037 if unused. As a result of certain provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, or the TCJA, as modified by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, federal NOLs generated in tax years beginning after December 31, 2017 may be carried forward indefinitely but, in the case of tax years beginning after 2020, may only be used to offset 80% of our taxable income annually. Under the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Internal Revenue Code, substantial changes in our ownership may limit the amount of pre-change NOLs that can be utilized annually in the future to offset taxable income. Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code imposes limitations on a company’s ability to use NOLs if a company experiences a more-than-50-percent ownership change over a three-year testing period. Based upon our analysis as of December 31, 2021, we have determined we do not expect these limitations to impair our ability to use our NOLs prior to expiration. However, if changes in our ownership occur in the future, our ability to use our NOLs may be further limited. For these reasons, we may not be able to bidutilize a material portion of the NOLs, even if we achieve profitability.

We are required, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or win new classified contracts.Section 404, to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting on an annual basis. This assessment includes disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting.

Our Class B common stock has ten votes per share, and our Class A common stock has one vote per share. Given the greater number of votes per share attributed to our Class B common stock, our Class B stockholders collectively beneficially ownowned shares representing approximately 97%89% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock as of December 31, 2017.2021. Further, Mr. Calkins, our founder and Chief Executive Officer, together with his affiliates, collectively beneficially ownowned shares representing approximately 58%77% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock as of December 31, 2017.2021. Consequently, Mr. Calkins, together with his affiliates, is able to control a majority of the voting power even if their stock holdings represent as few as approximately 40%25% of the outstanding number of shares of our common stock. This concentrated control will limit your ability to influence corporate matters for the foreseeable future. For example, Mr. Calkins will be able to control elections of directors, amendments of our certificate of incorporation or bylaws, increases to the number of shares available for issuance under our equity incentive plans or adoption of new equity incentive plans, and approval of any merger or sale of assets for the foreseeable future. This concentrated control could also discourage a potential investor from acquiring our Class A common stock due to the limited voting power of such stock relative to the Class B common stock and might harm the market price of our Class A common stock. In addition, Mr. Calkins has the ability to control the management and major

Future transfers by Mr. Calkins and other holders of Class B common stock will generally result in those shares converting on a 1:1 basis to Class A common stock, which will have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those holders of Class B common stock who retain their shares in the long-term.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock, and we do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Although we paid a cash dividend in connection with the conversion of our Series A preferred stock to Class B common stock immediately prior to the closing of the IPO, which was agreed to at the time of the original issuance of the Series A preferred stock, we anticipate that we will retain all of our future earnings for use in the development of our business and for general corporate purposes. Additionally, our ability to pay dividends on our common stock is limited by restrictions under the terms of our loan and security agreement with Silicon Valley Bank. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our boardBoard of directors.Directors. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their Class A common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.

In addition to the effects of our dual class structure, provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control or changes in our management. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws include provisions that may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our boardBoard of directors,Directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which generally prohibit a Delaware corporation from engaging in any of a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder. Any of the foregoing provisions could limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our Class A common stock, and they could deter potential acquirers of our company, thereby reducing the likelihood that youa stockholder would receive a premium for yourits shares of our Class A common stock in an acquisition.

Not applicable.

As of December 31, 2021, our corporate headquarters occupies approximately 75,000240,000 square feet in Reston,McLean, Virginia under an operating lease that expires in July 2021.October 2031. We also lease space in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Australia, and the NetherlandsSpain under operating lease agreements with various expiration dates through 2026.

From time to time, we may become involved in legal proceedings or be subject to claims arising in the ordinary course of our business. WeOther than as disclosed elsewhere in this Annual Report, we are not presently a party to any legal proceedings that, if determined adversely to us, would individually or taken together have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition, or cash flows. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management time and resources, and other factors.

Not applicable.

Our Class A common stock has beenis listed on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol "APPN" since May 25, 2017. Prior to that date, there was no public trading market for our common stock. Our initial public offering was priced at $12.00 per share on May 24, 2017.

As of February 12, 2018,14, 2022, there were 2017 holders of record of our Class A common stock and 9235 holders of record of our Class B common stock. Because many of our shares of Class A common stock are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of stockholders represented by these record holders.

We have never declared or paid, and do not anticipate declaring or paying in the foreseeable future, any cash dividends on our common stock. Any future determination as to the declaration and payment of dividends, if any, will be at the discretion of our boardBoard of directors,Directors, subject to applicable laws, and will depend on then existing conditions, including our financial condition, operating results, contractual restrictions, capital requirements, business prospects, and other factors our boardBoard of directorsDirectors may deem relevant.

The following graph shows a comparison from May 25, 2017 (the date our Class A common stock commenced trading on the Nasdaq Global Market) through December 31, 20172021, of the cumulative total return for an investment of $100 in our Class A common stock, the Nasdaq Global Market Composite Index, and the Nasdaq Computer Index. Data for the Nasdaq Global Market Composite Index and the Nasdaq Computer Index assume reinvestment of any dividends.